Cell-phone giants to develop mobile e-business
Global rivals Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson teaming up
By Gareth Vaughan, CBS MarketWatch
Last Update: 1:39 PM ET Apr 11, 2000
NewsWatch
LONDON (CBS.MW) -- Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson, the world's
three biggest cell-phone makers, said Tuesday they're teaming up to
develop a common framework for mobile e-business.
The three companies said they're launching a joint
effort to develop an open, common industry
framework for secure mobile electronic
transactions. Nokia (NOK: news, msgs), Ericsson
(ERICY: news, msgs) and Motorola (MOT: news,
msgs) invited other companies from the telecom,
financial and information technology industries to
join what they said is a initiative designed to boost
the growth of e-commerce.
"We intend to involve everyone that's relevant to
the issue," said Rick Darnaby, the senior vice
president of Motorola's European personal
communications sector, speaking at a news
conference.
Motorola's European technology marketing
manager, Dominic Strowbridge, added that
companies such as Sonera's (SNRA: news, msgs)
SmartTrust and Baltimore Technologies (BALT:
news, msgs), two leading developers of wireless
encryption technology, "could well be a part of this."
"It's an open framework; we're not trying to mandate," Strowbridge said.
Ericsson forecasts 600 million mobile Internet users by 2002, and it's this
market that the three cell-phone giants are keen to tap. They plan to offer
products and services whereby security and payment services are
integrated as a standard into Internet-enabled mobile electronic devices.
Between them Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola control some 60 percent of
the world's cell-phone market.
"The future will be
mobile-phone centric,"
Matti Alahuhta,
Nokia's president for
mobile phones, said.
"This is the fastest way
of letting the consumer
unleash the power of
e-commerce. We are
convinced that the
consumer would like
to get rid of a wallet
full of different cards."
International Data Corp. forecasts that global e-commerce will jump in
value from almost $50 billion in 1998 to $1.3 trillion in 2003.
The three cell-phone makers said integrity, confidentiality, nonrepudiation
and authentication are the four areas of e-commerce that consumers are
most worried about and therefore are the areas they plan to address. The
three said 2001 is likely to be the "breakthrough" year for the wireless
identity model (or "WIM") that they're going to develop, but they declined
to give any financial details of the project.
In U.S. trading, shares of Motorola slumped 26 1/16, or 17.3 percent, to
124 7/8 after the company warned that its wireless-phone business is
likely to face pressure on profit margins for the rest of the year. See full
story.
Some of the key technologies the three will use in their Mobile Electronic
Transaction initiative are the security functions of the Wireless Application
Protocol (WAP) mobile Internet technology and Public Key (PKI)
technologies that encrypt the data that is sent over cell phones.
Meanwhile, shares of Nokia added 3 1/2 to 55 1/4, and shares of
Ericsson fell 1 1/2, or 1.7 percent, to 86. Each has posted a substantial
gain over the past 12 months.
cbs.marketwatch.com
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Truly a trokia of power. Good news for all three share holders and any WAP companies that may be in there.
Jack |
