FYI...TOKYO, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Wireless Internet devices are now replacing personal computers as the driving force in the electronics industry, Texas Instruments' TXN top executive said on Monday.
<<Tom Engibous, chief executive officer of Texas Instruments, which is investing heavily in computer chips used in mobile phones, said demand for wireless Internet devices will soar when they are permanently linked to the Internet via broadband networks.
Broadband frequencies allow high-capacity data transmission.
"Wireless Internet devices will not only capture some existing PC applications but introduce brand new applications that the desk-top PC has no way to handle today," Engibous told a Tokyo seminar on the company's strategy.
"I think the availability of a wireless device that is online all the time with broadband data capability...offers the possibility of applications that Silicon Valley" is just beginning to dream about, he added.
With next-generation mobile phone services, users will be able to surf the Web, check and respond to e-mail, conduct videoconferences and use new mobile services such as e-commerce, he said.
Next-generation mobile phone services will be offered in Japan beginning in the spring of 2001, and later in other parts of the world.
TI, the number one supplier of computer chips known as Digital Signal Processors (DSP) used in cell phones and other communications devices, earlier this month announced a 71 percent jump in its fourth-quarter net income, aided by strong growth in mobile phones.
The Texas-based company has sold its loss-making dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip business, focusing its resources on more stable and value-oriented DSP and analog chips.
It now holds about 47 percent of the world's programmable DSP market. That market is expected to grow 30 percent annually over the next five years, according to the research firm Forward Concepts.
Besides wireless handsets, Engibous said he sees large demand for DSP chips for use in modems providing broadband connectivity at home, and new consumer electronics products such as digital cameras and Internet audio devices.
((Yuko Inoue, Tokyo newsroom +81 3 3432-8595 yuko.inoue@reuters.com)) REUTERS>>
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BTW: I added to my CMGI position at $110/share in the last 24 hours !! IMO, DW and his team will execute on all 8 cylinders this year.
Best Regards,
Scott
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