NeoPoint post (re-formatted to fit better).
NeoPoint ready to take on Qualcomm for
share of smart-phone market
By Mike Drummond
STAFF WRITER
June 15, 1999
While an executive at Qualcomm, William Son envisioned a new breed of
phone: It would be able to grab information off the Internet and swap data
with a desktop computer. It would be as light as some of the smallest mobile
handsets. And it would only cost about $300.
No way, said his boss, Paul Jacobs, president of consumer products and son
of company co-founder Irwin Jacobs.
"He said, 'It's too hard to do, we're too busy and we don't have the
resources,' " Son recalls being told.
Unable to get his way, Sonny, as he's known, left his position as Qualcomm's
regional director for Korea in late 1997. His days of splitting equal time
between Seoul and San Diego were over.
Within eight months, he had launched La Jolla-based Innovative Global
Solutions, attracted $10 million of start-up cash from Korea's LG Information
and Communications Ltd., hired more than 40 engineers -- some from
Qualcomm -- and built the prototype of the NeoPoint 1000, a phone now
winning praise for its sleek form and cool features.
Changes company name
So glowing have been the accolades that Son changed the name of his
company to NeoPoint, after his flagship product.
Now comes what may be the ultimate revenge: NeoPoint's phone, hitting the
market this month, is on a competitive collision course with other so-called
smart phones, including Qualcomm's forthcoming pdQ, as well as Motorola's
i1000 Plus.
Smart or "plus voice" phones are capable of e-mailing and a variety of other
computerlike tasks, including Web surfing. However, surfing the Web on a
mobile phone is not the same as from a PC. Today's wireless networks move
data much more slowly than phone, cable or fiber-optic lines. As a result,
Web information appears as simple lines of text, with no graphics or sound.
Phone comparisons
The pdQ, set to debut this summer, grafts a 3Com PalmPilot hand-held
organizer with a mobile phone. It's designed to eliminate the need to carry two
such devices. Flip down its keypad and you see a PalmPilot screen that
displays 11 lines of text, weighs 10 ounces and is expected to cost $500 to
$1,000.
A slimmer cousin to pdQ, Qualcomm's Thin Phone, is just 4 ounces, displays
four lines of text and doesn't have an organizer. It's expected to cost less than
$200.
Son's NeoPoint is a flashy hybrid. It performs PalmPilot-like functions and
displays 11 lines of text. Both the NeoPoint and pdQ are able to swap or
"sync" information with a PC via a docking station. But the NeoPoint doesn't
require a stylus to tab through features. Moreover, it weighs about 6 ounces
and should cost about $300.
Son holds a champagne-hued NeoPoint, noting that it can hold 1,000 names
and other contact information. The phone can dial those contacts with voice
commands. A look of admiration crosses his face.
"It has to be a phone first," he says. "You don't have to create all this pdQ
kind of crap."
continued...
Some analysts readily agree.
"The NeoPoint gets us excited because it competes in size and price with
voice-only phones," says Matt Hoffman, senior analyst at Dataquest.
Meanwhile, John Sullivan, senior analyst at PCS Week, says Qualcomm's
pdQ phone "may have been rushed a little bit."
Sullivan adds that hand-held organizers, known as personal digital assistants
or PDAs, have too many features for what most people want to do, such as
handwriting-recognition technology.
Andrew Seybold, a wireless industry consultant and pundit in Boulder Creek,
Calif., says if he didn't already have a PDA and cell phone, the NeoPoint
"would be the first phone I would consider carrying."
Seybold says he recalls Qualcomm's Irwin Jacobs telling him that the
company would sell thousands of pdQ phones.
But with an array of smaller, Web-cable phones in development at companies
from Helsinki to Seoul, Seybold says Jacobs has since changed his tune.
"Now he tells me the pdQ is a 'technology statement,' " he says.
Neither Paul Jacobs nor Irwin Jacobs made himself available for this article.
No matter how cool a smart phone looks or how many features are crammed
inside, the device will only be as good as the service provider ferrying the
digital information.
Reliable carriers will be key to any smart phone's future. Canada's Clearnet
PCS announced last month that it's carrying Qualcomm's Thin Phone.
That same month, Canada's Bell Mobility said it would offer the NeoPoint.
Perhaps the worst-kept secret in the industry is that Sprint PCS will be among
those carrying both the pdQ and the NeoPoint 1000.
Sprint spokesman Tom Murphy initially refused to confirm it was offering the
NeoPoint, but phones in Son's office have the Sprint logo emblazoned on
them.
Murphy later said Sprint "will probably carry" the pdQ and the NeoPoint,
emphasizing that the two won't compete with each other.
"The pdQ phone is PDA-centric," Murphy explains. "Each will have different
appeals."
Analysts say, however, that the phones will compete in the same space.
Asked how he expects his NeoPoint will do against the competition --
particularly the pdQ -- Son hesitates.
"I will put it in a very gentle way," he says, smiling. "Once you have these two
phones side by side, I'd hope consumers will choose ours."
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