In the Palm of your Hand, WSJ>
September 20, 1999
In the Palm of Your Hand
Companies are searching to fit the Web
on the screens of hand-held gadgets
By LISA BRANSTEN
In the mid-1990s, PalmPilot creators Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins
argued with dozens of venture capitalists that their hand-held computers
shouldn't come with wireless applications.
Ms. Dubinsky, founder of Palm Computing, now owned by 3Com Corp.,
recalls that although adding wireless communications to the original Pilot
would have been nice, the price was too high: It would have turned the little
hand-held device into a big machine with a short battery life -- exactly what
they were trying to avoid.
They got their way -- although only by selling the company rather than
taking venture capital -- and the PalmPilot was a hit, in large part because
of its shirt-pocket size and the fact that, unlike competing devices, it didn't
try to do complex things like accessing the Web.
But five years and a Web generation later, the
duo have changed their tune. The last device
designed by Mr. Hawkins before he and Ms.
Dubinsky left 3Com to form a new company
was the Palm VII, which incorporates wireless
access to a limited number of Web sites -- on
a device not much bigger than the original
Pilot.
What happened? Massive changes in wireless
technology, and the culture at large, have
made it easier to add Internet applications to
palm computers and other small electronic
devices such as cell phones and pagers. And a
number of companies -- from mobile-phone
makers and wireless-service providers to tiny
software start-ups -- are trying to exploit those changes, developing ways
to scale down Web content to fit on those minuscule screens.
The E-Mail Push
"As e-mail has become a more important element in the lives of everyone
from students to executives, the demand for ways to get that information
remotely may do for wireless devices what voice mail did for cell phones,"
says Andy Seybold, a wireless consultant in Boulder Creek, Calif. "When
cell phones came out in the '80s, voice mail was just coming of age, and
the two went hand in hand. Now, e-mail is just coming of age, and we
have [wireless] data services -- and the two also go hand in hand."
Many companies are trying to do more than just provide e-mail, however.
They're designing scaled-down versions of Web browsers that work in the
limited display space of hand-held gadgets.
Mobile-phone makers, for example, are rushing to put software in their
handsets that will allow for Internet surfing on the phones' display screens.
Qualcomm Inc., of San Diego, is putting a special phone browser
developed by Phone.com Inc., of Redwood City, Calif., into its entire line
of Thin Phones -- a line of smaller phones designed specifically for Internet
applications. The phones are only two-thirds of an inch thick and two
inches wide, but feature larger-than-average five-line screens.
Meanwhile, Motorola Inc. is putting Phone.com's browser into its i1000
Plus series of phones. Sometime between 2002 and 2005, nearly all
Motorola phones will come with a Web browser installed, says Jim
DeBelina, director of strategy for the Internet and networking group at the
Schaumburg, Ill., electronics company.
The browser helps you find things on the Web by taking you through a
series of scrolling menus. When you start your phone, one of your options
will be to launch the browser. Then you'll be able to scroll through
categories -- sports, health, finance, travel and more. Those categories will
then point to a series of Web sites, and the browser will translate them so
that they display only the sites' text on the page. Users can also set up
bookmarks for favorite Web sites.
"Over time, you're going to see an increased importance of these devices
to people's everyday lives," says Rob Bennett, group product manager for
the consumer and commerce group at Microsoft Corp. The Redmond,
Wash., software company's goal, of course, is to make sure that if there is
a new platform for accessing the Internet, it is a Microsoft platform.
Any company that fills this niche will have to confront a few basic
problems. One is that sites -- primarily those that are graphics-intensive --
may not work well with microbrowsers unless they're specially formatted
for the devices' small screens.
Some devices solve that problem by working only with specially formatted
sites. In order to give the Palm VII about two weeks of battery life and still
keep it relatively small, 3Com has equipped it to do only what the
company calls "Web clipping" rather than full-scale surfing. That means
users can do very specific tasks -- looking up someone's phone number or
getting driving directions from sites that have agreed to create scaled-down
versions for palm-computer users. (A Web site that wants to make a
Palm-friendly version can use a set of tools provided by 3Com.)
The device's e-mail capabilities are also limited: The Palm VII can
download only two screens' worth of a message at a time -- about 500
characters -- and doesn't accept attached files.
Getting Small
Several start-up companies -- including AvantGo Inc. of San Mateo,
Calif., and ProxiNet Inc. of Emeryville, Calif. -- are attacking the size
problem by serving as go-betweens that reduce Web pages to a more
manageable size. Users attach wireless modems to their Palms -- not
including the Palm VII -- or to the hand-held devices that run on
Microsoft's Windows CE operating system. AvantGo and ProxiNet's
software then strips down Web content -- by removing the graphics from
Web pages, for example -- so it can be viewed on the hand-held's small
screen.
But that strategy has some very real limitations. Wireless modems are
bulky, coverage is limited and data-transmission rates can be slow. So,
while such software can be great for grabbing bits of information, it is far
from the ideal way to surf.
Felix Lin, chief executive of AvantGo, estimates that only about 10% of the
100,000 or so people who are using AvantGo are using it wirelessly.
(Most people still use the application to download and convert Web pages
while their PalmPilots are attached to their personal computers and
receiving data from them.)
Other companies are working to scale the Web down even further,
breaking Web pages down into bits of text intended for the tiny screens of
pagers and mobile phones. Such services have already found big audiences
in Europe. Yankee Group, a Boston market-research firm, found that
about 700,000 mobile-phone users, or 11% of those using the services of
U.K.-based Orange PLC and Vodafone AirTouch PLC, receive text
messages on their mobile phones through services known as SMS, or short
messaging services.
While most of those people are using the service for personal messages,
Yankee suggests that in some places SMS has caught on as a way to grab
Internet content via a version of "push" technology -- users subscribe to
services that e-mail news updates, sports scores and other information. In
Finland, for example, Yankee Group estimates that about 25% of all the
short messages sent to subscribers of Sonera Group Oy's phone service
are content such as jokes, scores and travel information.
Microsoft has taken such a text-based approach in its first stab at a
"wireless portal" -- a starting point users turn to when they first go online.
In June, the company launched MSN Mobile, which sends information to
pagers and mobile phones equipped to receive short text messages -- from
50 to 500 characters, depending on whether they are as simple as a stock
quote or as complex as a news story. The rate of transmission depends on
the carrier and traffic levels; on a fast carrier, the messages pop up almost
instantaneously.
At the moment, Microsoft is pushing information such as weather
conditions, stock prices and horoscopes to users who register at the MSN
Mobile site, with the service available free to any consumer with a phone
that can receive text messages. Basic accounts are free, and there is a
$9.95 charge for premium services. Consumers will need the premium
service for news headlines and sports news and to get more than 10 stock
quotes a day.
By year's end, the software giant hopes to let consumers using certain
wireless services grab information off the Web when they want it.
So far, Microsoft has announced a deal only with Nextel Communications
Inc., but Mr. Bennett says the company plans to offer deals to other
wireless-service providers. Ultimately, he says, the plan is to create a
commerce portal that will allow users not only to get information they need
but also to make transactions based on that information. For example,
consumers could set up a system that notifies them if a flight is canceled,
then access a travel area where they could actually book a ticket for an
alternative flight.
A Way In
Web portal Yahoo! Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., and Sprint PCS Corp., a
wireless firm controlled by Kansas City, Mo., long-distance carrier Sprint
Corp., are working on a similar product that will integrate a user's e-mail,
online calendar and address book with other content available from
Yahoo's site, such as weather and horoscopes, and allow Sprint PCS
customers to access them on mobile phones.
Much like MSN Mobile, in its first iteration this service will consist of
messages sent to consumers' phones. The arrangement allows for
messages of up to 120 characters that should load very quickly, depending
on network traffic.
Separately, in August Yahoo launched Yahoo Mobile, a reformatted part
of the company's Web site that consumers can access wirelessly to get
stock quotes and other basic information. To use the service, consumers
have to download special browser software.
Another would-be wireless portal is AirFlash.com Inc., a Redwood City
start-up with plans to help consumers with browser-enabled phones find
nearby products and services. To use the service, consumers call a special
number and enter a ZIP Code to indicate where they are. Then they can
choose from a series of categories, much like a phone-mail tree, to help
them find the business they are looking for. Among the options are food
and dining, hotel and travel, and entertainment. Each category is then
divided into smaller categories and subcategories, such as restaurants and
then Mexican restaurants. When consumers get to the option they want,
AirFlash will send out short messages: the Mexican restaurant's address
and telephone number, for instance.
Rama Aysola, chief executive of AirFlash, says he plans to introduce a first
version of the service in September once he does a deal with a wireless
carrier. As with Microsoft, his plan is ultimately to allow transactions --
such as ordering flowers -- to be completed right over the phone. A later
version of the service, he says, will pinpoint location based on the cell a
user calls in on, eliminating the need to enter a ZIP Code.
A bit simpler is an application from Geoworks Corp., an Emeryville, Calif.,
company that hasn't had much success designing hand-held operating
systems and is now focusing on offering special Internet applications for
mobile devices. In June, the company launched DiscPro (short for
"discounts and promotions to go"), a free service that sends messages to
pagers or mobile phones alerting consumers to deals at retailers that have
signed up to participate in the service. To redeem the offers, consumers
call a special number and give a special code to the retailer or visit a Web
site. Participating merchants include software retailer Egghead.com Inc.,
clothing retailer J. Crew Group Inc., and T.G.I. Fridays, the restaurant
chain owned by Carlson Cos.
Geoworks won't disclose how many people have signed up for DiscPro,
but it says several large wireless carriers, including Sprint PCS and
Dallas-based paging-service provider Paging Network Inc., are offering
the service.
In terms of content, DiscPro might seem somewhat far afield from the type
of service other wireless-device entrepreneurs are rolling out, but it's that
sort of information that could draw new users of Internet-enabled mobile
devices. And it points the way toward the kind of applications people may
want when such devices become more commonplace.
After all, says Mohan Vishwanath, vice president of Yahoo's Yahoo
Everywhere wireless unit, mobile Internet use may now be largely the
domain of road warriors sending e-mail messages, but who knows what
new groups -- such as teenagers -- are going to want to do online on the
go?
"E-mail is turning out to be the most common application of wireless data"
for the moment, he says, but he adds that "many things are changing very,
very quickly."
-- Ms. Bransten is a staff reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Interactive Edition in San Francisco.
|
