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Web Sites Target Mobile Business Users
By David Molony
27 May 1999
Battle lines are being drawn by network technology
companies as they attempt to catch the imagination of the first
mobile data users looking to browse the Web with high-speed
wireless devices. Until now, vendors have concentrated on
making browser software small enough to enable handheld
devices to download files, messages and applications from the
Web. Now they are planning further initiatives to target
on-line business users.
Both Lucent Technologies Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have
announced Web portals intended to attract Internet and
intranet users on the move, and other IT companies look set to
follow.
Analysts say that after the struggle over standards for
third-generation (3G) wireless technology, and with spectrum
licensing getting underway, the first real turf war over mobile
end-users is about to happen on the Web.
"Wireless portals are rounding the bend," said Marie Wold,
London-based head of the telecoms and media institute at
Deloitte Consulting Ltd. "Like any kind of portal, the idea is to
stake a claim. The technologies exist, but only now are [we]
starting to get [services] that will point to those pieces on the
Internet you can access on your PDA or cellphone."
Observers say the portal initiatives will help clarify to users
what they will be able to do in future, and drive development
of services at the same time.
"There is a desire in the industry to better demonstrate what
3G can do and what is possible across [second-generation]
technologies now," said Alan Hadden, chairman of the
communications strategy group of the Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System Forum, London. "This should
encourage developers to come forward."
The UMTS Forum estimates the mobile multimedia market in
Western Europe will be worth Euros 24 billion in 2005.
Following Microsoft's announcement earlier this month that it
will join the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Forum - the
consortium developing markup language standards to enable
3G handsets to access and display Web content - the
company said it will establish a wireless portal service through
its MSN portal together with McLean, Virginia-based wireless
network operator Nextel Communications Inc., in which
Microsoft plans to invest $600 million for a 5% stake.
Meanwhile, Murray Hill, New Jersey-based Lucent is hosting
a portal for mobile Internet and intranet access on its own
wireless data servers, which will be used by Web content
providers to demonstrate and test services for mobile
employees with portable PCs and broadband wireless
connections.
Lucent's mobile portal strategy is based around a "virtual
testbed" Web site called Zingo. The site is believed to be the
first to recognize intelligently users of 2G and 3G mobile
technology and to serve up Web sites and Internet services to
them in a customized format, taking account not just of the
need to fit data onto their various devices, but also of the
different circumstances through which these users will be
accessing the Web.
"The variable is in the way the portal presents itself and the
content," said Paul Golding, managing director of e-commerce
developer Magic E Company Ltd., Swindon, England, which
initiated the Zingo project with Lucent.
For example, mobile business users who accesses the Zingo
portal will automatically be welcomed by local travel
information links and business directories. If they decide to
make a connection to a service, to make a booking or
download a file, the portal will format data according to
whether the user is on a laptop or mobile phone - for example,
adopting short messaging service for mobile users.
Lucent has licensed Custom Netcenter from Netscape
Communications Corp., Mountain View, California, to enable it
to develop the portal. And it is using synchronization
software from Puma Technologies Inc., Woodstock, Illinois.
This enables the portal to synchronize different devices to
receive data. For example, a user accessing the Web on a Palm
Pilot one day needs to be sure the calendars and databases
sending information to that device are as current as the data
going to a desktop the next day.
"[Mobile portal strategy] is targeted at the
people-on-the-move market," said Dick Snyder, director of
wireless applications and data strategy at Lucent in
Whippany, New Jersey.
Microsoft's strategy takes it in a somewhat different direction,
in that it is co-branding with Nextel and using its MSN service.
The portal will not be open until later this year, when a major
upgrade of MSN will be completed.
Microsoft's preoccupation seems to be with securing a
channel for its Windows CE software. But the deal with Nextel
could give it a headstart in winning developers to its portal,
because it includes Nextel's 90 or so technology development
partners.
Other companies announcing mobile portal-type strategies
include Motorola Inc., which announced its PageWriter 2000
pager would be able to download enterprise applications
software from the Web site of SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany.
And analysts say other vendors such as Nokia Oyj and
Ericsson AB will follow Lucent and Microsoft into the portal
services market.
"I don't think that anybody will be alone for long in this
market," said Roland Hanbury, vice president, intellectual
assets, at e-commerce consultancy Nvision Ltd., Bracknell,
England. "The highest takeup of palmtops and handheld
digital mobile phones is in Europe, not in America. Sure as
eggs ... at least one big European player is going to adopt
something similar."
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Carrier link-up sets pace
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Divide and rule - the
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Venture Capital - cash
and carriers
ISDN: Take the 'D' train
CI talks to Bruce Claflin of
3Com
Supplying e-commerce
security
© EMAP Media 1999 |
