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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puzzlecraft who wrote (33706)	6/30/1999 2:10:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Competition for the Q?> From the June 28, 1999, issue of Wireless Week 3Com Expands Its Wireless World By Brad Smith If anyone was wondering how big a role wireless data would play in 3Com Corp.'s future, they received an answer in the networking company's decision to start up a new enterprise called OpenSky. The new company, formed with Aether Technologies Inc., will play a key role in 3Com's rejuvenation. 3Com's part of the company comes from its Palm Computing Co. subsidiary, which has captured 65 percent of the personal digital assistant market in the United States. Palm only accounts for about 10 percent of 3Com's revenue, but OpenSky's announcement signals increased expectations to grow the sector. OpenSky also will become a competitor for the Microsoft Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. joint venture, WirelessKnowledge LLC, as well as the Project Panama that Oracle Corp. is working on. OpenSky is expected to start offering wireless data services to corporations and consumers next fall, including e-mail, personal data, and Internet and intranet access. The service will be air-interface agnostic and will support Palm devices as well as Windows CE, pagers and Wireless Application Protocol handsets. Mike Dolbec, 3Com's business development vice president, said the company is committed to growing the "Palm economy" and thinks that as the wireless data market grows so will 3Com's share. OpenSky and the recent launch of the wirelessly enabled Palm VII are just part of 3Com's participation in wireless data, he said. The company also is focusing on wireless wide-area and local-area networks, as well as "personal-area" networks that will use technologies such as Bluetooth. Wireless data analyst Andrew Seybold called OpenSky a "brilliant move" because it offers back-end wireless connectivity to data that mobile Americans view as more and more critical. It also has the advantage of working not only with Microsoft Exchange servers but also with Lotus Notes, which has 45 million users. 3Com and its networking products also add value to the equation. OpenSky will be a service bureau capable of offering a full range of services, including bill-ing, content, customer support and integration. Dolbec said the new company is pursuing relationships with wireless carriers interested in co-branding the service. Those relationships could be announced this summer. The company also is pursuing carriers in western Europe and Asia, he said. The service will license Palm's "Web clipping" technology, which provides specially written Internet content to mobile devices. About 50 content providers already offer data to the Palm VII, including ABCNews.com, E*Trade, TicketMaster, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. Aether, which received a $6 million investment from 3Com last December, will license its AIM.net wireless development and connectivity middleware, according to COO George Davis. Aether has been focused in the past primarily on high-end vertical wireless data markets such as financial and trading solutions but has wanted to push its technology into the horizontal markets. "One thing we want to focus on on the content side is taking advantage of the notification capabilities that Aether has developed," Davis said. Users can set up their personal portfolio of news and other information that can automatically be sent to their devices. Dolbec said OpenSky will be based in Palo Alto, Calif., and headed by former Palm Vice President Patrick McVeigh. The company may also work in the future with other middleware providers, such as Oracle or IBM Corp. Pricing of the service won't be announced for a few months, but Dolbec said 3Com thinks the pricing should be low enough to encourage use and the Internet model of "all you can eat" is a powerful influence.