Ericsson Trots Out Product, Contracts
By Kim Renay Anderson, TechWeb News
Oct 26, 2000 (3:40 PM)
URL: techweb.com
In announcements this week at the Internet World Fall 2000 show in New York, communications supplier Ericsson AB seemed to say it wants to be known as more than just a mobile phone company. The Stockholm, Sweden, company unveiled its Smartphone R380, a PDA and cell phone in one that uses GSM wireless protocol and a WAP-based mobile phone Internet browser.
The device is the size of a typical mobile phone and can be used in five continents and 120 countries.
Smartphone, available in Europe, will be available in the United States by the end of the fourth quarter.
The company decided to make the product GSM-based because of the technology's popularity, said Michael IsGring, spokesperson for Ericsson (stock: ERICY).
"GSM is predominant globally," he said. "Though it has only 15 percent of the U.S. market share, globally it has 60 percent."
IsGring said that if the pending Deutsche Telekom AG (stock: DT) purchase of VoiceStream Wireless Corp. (stock: VSTR) goes through, GSM popularity will take off in the United States.
In other news Wednesday, Ericsson said it secured a contract with Xfera moviles to supply 3G networking.
Under the agreement, Ericsson will deploy a turnkey radio access network across half of Spain, including urban Barcelona, Bilbao, and Valencia.
Last week, Ericsson secured a similar contract with MobileCom in Germany.
"Mobile phones are only 20 to 30 percent of our business, and the remaining percentage is infrastructure," IsGring said. "Our core business is 3G. We're building a highway for people to go faster." |
