Jul. 12, 1999 (WIRELESS TODAY, Vol. 3, No. 132 via COMTEX) -- Echoing
similar market studies, research and consulting firm Ovum says that
wireless data-enabled subscriber units are poised to emerge as
important market segments for equipment manufacturers and network
operators to exploit. "Smart" phones and "data-centric" terminals will
account for fully two-thirds of the estimated $67 billion that
Burlington, Mass.-based Ovum forecasts for the handset market worldwide
in 2004.
This compares to global handset sales for 1999 projected at $27
billion. Subscriber unit volumes are expected by Ovum to increase from
137 million sold this year to 412 million by 2004.
But Ovum's latest study on the subject - "Wireless Internet: New
Frontiers For Cellular Terminals" - is more noteworthy for the way it
analyzes potential scenarios regarding how the terminal market may
evolve in the next several years. This analysis takes into account
such factors as the development of various industry standards,
including the Wireless Application Protocol and Bluetooth. It also
assesses the odds for Windows CE, the Palm Computing platform and EPOC
- operating systems for handheld devices being developed by,
respectively, Microsoft Corp. [MSFT], 3Com Corp. [COMS] and Symbian
Ltd. - becoming dominant in the terminal market.
Ovum assigned the highest probability to what it calls the "siege
scenario," in which Windows CE and the Palm operating system claim
equal billing in the market for personal digital assistants, Windows CE
takes a leading share of the handheld personal computer market and EPOC
lays claim to high-end "smart" phones.
This scenario places a premium on terminal vendors striking effective
alliances, akin to Psion plc [PSIOF] teaming up with Motorola Inc.
[MOT], L.M. Ericsson AB [ERICY] and Nokia Corp. [NOK] in establishing
Symbian. Ovum analyst Eden Zoller said that much of the activity seen
on the alliances front has been sparked by companies either seeking to
align with or against Microsoft, giving rise to "a fractured landscape
of collaboration and competition. ... A cellular terminals market
dominated by the Microsoft camp and CE operating system will be a very
different world from one where Symbian and its EPOC operating system
hold sway."
Against this backdrop, a broad array of subscriber terminals boasting
different levels of functionality is expected to make the move from
vendors' labs to the wireless marketplace in short order. For instance,
Zoller and fellow Ovum analysts John Davidson and Dan Gardiner said
that it's likely that handsets incorporating "microbrowsers" for
on-the-fly Web access but having little else in the way of data
features will be positioned as the low-end counterpoint to terminals
offering a greater range of functionality in mobile data applications.
(Ron Serio, Ovum, 781/272-6414, ovum.com.)
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