First, there was Cellular. Then, there was The Internet. The Next Step is The Cellular Internet
stockhouse.com
March 3rd, 1999
StockHouse News Desk
EMERGING SECTORS: STOCKHOUSE SPECIAL REPORT
Miami, Fla., March 3rd /SHfn /-- The fissure between wireless audio communications and wireless
data communications is rapidly closing. This Special Report outlines how computers and
telecommunications are evolving a New Communications Technology.
While antiquated computer bugs might wreck the New Millennium's entrance, the Wireless Data
industry could be celebrating the marriage between the Computer and Telecommunications
Industries all year long. Andy Seybold's OUTLOOK, the authoritative monthly newsletter for the
wireless data field, recently announced, "All signs point toward Y2K as the year wireless data
communications and mobile computing industries have been waiting for." Seybold has good reason
for such a forecast after the major announcements at the recent Cellular Telecommunications
Industry Association conference (CTIA) held in New Orleans. And festivity is called for, as this
becomes a long-term union between two industries, computers and telecommunications, which, in
turn, gives birth to a next-generation market: the incipient wireless data industry.
The seeds of this marriage were sown when Microsoft [NASDAQ - MSFT] announced a major
alliance with British Telecom as the CTIA conference started. Other major computer industry and
telecommunications instantly materialized - with what Seybold calls "an unprecedented
cooperation…to effect wireless access to corporate data." The trend has produced a joint venture
between Microsoft and Qualcomm [NASDAQ - QCOM], International Business Machines
[NYSE - IBM] is testing an end-to-end wireless solution, and the recent Nokia [NYSE -
NOK.A] alliance with France Telecom. Nokia announced, after the deal, that the "Wireless
Application Protocol" cell phones would capture 10-15% of the cell phone market in Europe and
Africa next year.
Clearly, the world is heading toward wireless data. ADC Telecommunications [NASDAQ -
ADCT] announced March 1st a contract with Sistemas Cablevision to supply wireless video and
data serves to Venezuelan cable subscribers. Some of that includes high-speed wireless Internet
access. Sprint [NYSE - PCS] announced an "interoperability" breakthrough, on the same day,
which develops new standard specifications for Code Division Multiple Access [CDMA]
equipment and that will set the basis for the next generation of standards for mobile systems. The
trend of instantaneous and secure transfer of proprietary corporate data via wireless becomes de
rigeur in the got-to-have-it-now era. The matrimony of computers with telecommunications erases
industry borders.
In a recent StockHouse.com interview, Seybold predicted there could be as many as 120 million
wireless data users worldwide by the year 2003. Based on Seybold's calculations, the number of
users could reach 200 million shortly thereafter. With that quantity of users, wireless data becomes
its own market sector - bridging the gap between computers and telecommunications.
Much of that credit, according to Seybold, goes to Microsoft. Sales for their Microsoft Exchange
Server has eclipsed any previous MSFT server product - with more than 20 million seats sold. For
the first time, Exchange outsold Lotus Notes in the first three quarters of 1998, and, as of this past
August, became the leading messaging server among Fortune 50 companies. Because Microsoft
has been enthusiastic about the wireless market and has worked with important innovators in the
wireless field, Seybold's forecast may prove true.
The driving force defining how quickly the wireless data industry grows depends almost entirely
upon how seriously Microsoft unfolds its marketing clout in this arena. According to Seybold, the
Microsoft/Qualcomm joint venture, Wireless Knowledge, offers the "first practical end-to-end
solution for end users." Seybold told StockHouse.com that he expects Wireless Knowledge would
probably be spun off as an IPO in the near future. As leading the vanguard in this area, Seybold
was bound by confidentiality agreements that prevented him from disclosing major developments in
the wireless data sector that would demonstrate the inroads this industry will have made before the
Millennium arrives.
Microsoft more than tripled the number of ISVs that were developing Exchange solutions. In a
December 14th news release, Microsoft Exchange publicized the "wide array of tools and add-on
products" that have come from these alliances. One such tool includes "unified messaging." The
faster Microsoft Exchange grows, the more rapidly implemented we will find wireless data
messaging. Said Russ Stockdale, director of server applications at Microsoft, "We look forward
to delivering more of what customers are asking for in 1999." Top-level management at major
corporations are asking for wireless data access in discussions StockHouse.com had with various
companies.
Seybold estimated, that just as voice/data communications began on an unequal footing and now is
roughly 50-50, wireless data could capture as much as a 30-percent market share of all wireless
communications in the near future. Within the next decade, this new industry could generate more
than $500 billion in annual global revenues for the major players who are now staking territory in
wireless data.
TOMORROW: Next Generation Innovators Who Are Pioneering Breakthroughs in the Wireless
Industry.
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