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Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (2517)	10/14/1999 8:58:00 AM
From: Jim Lurgio	Respond to of 34857

Nokia Plugs Into Wire-Free Lifestyle By Sara Ledwith, European Technology Correspondent GENEVA (Reuters) - World leading mobile handset maker Nokia said Tuesday its plans to fuse the Internet and mobile technology go beyond channeling Web sites into phones, to include bigger devices in a seamless, wire-free lifestyle. ``Although we talk about IP (Internet Protocol) mobility and may make you think we lean only toward cellular, we are looking at both legs -- cellular and fixed-line telecommunications. From the point of view of the end user, it needs to be wire-free,' Sari Baldauf, President of Nokia Networks said in an interview at the Geneva telecoms trade fair. The Finnish company, which scored a mid-1990s first with its Communicator handheld portable to surf the web and handle fax and e-mail, is focusing on the mass-market potential for devices that bring wireless gadgets into the home as well as outside. Eye On Consumer Markets Given that people prefer a larger screen to watch movies, for example, she said Nokia was working on a range of devices to allow wireless broadcast on a media screen. The company demonstrated a prototype wireless regular-size television screen and keyboard, for web-surfing and movies alike. That product would be one of several connected to a wireless ``node' or home gateway, and would use so-called third-generation wireless telephone standards, expected to arrive in Europe and Japan around 2002. Nokia also said Tuesday it would team up with world-leading chipmaker Intel Corp. to jointly develop set-top boxes integrating the Internet with European digital TV viewing, with the first products to be introduced in the second half of 2000. The aim is to create more personalized television viewing, melding data and services available on the Internet. Baldauf said that while corporate needs for mobile access to the Internet and company intranets would drive early developments, ``we should not underestimate the consumer, or personal market'. Nokia forecasts that one billion of the global population of six billion will be mobile subscribers by 2003, and Baldauf said she expected Internet users to have roughly hit the billion level by then. Next-Generation Consumers ``I do believe it's going to be a massive market for consumers,' Baldauf said. ``Think about who is going to be the next generation of our customers -- now aged 17 to 23. If you took the Internet away from them, it would be like depriving them of TV and newspapers! And they have grown with mobility, it's a natural part of their lives. There is a tendency to easily underestimate the revenues from small things.' She said Nokia would continue its tight focus -- in developing devices to carry next-generation wireless services, boosting capacity in fixed broadband networks, particularly by speeding up existing copper telephone lines, and in third-generation wireless. Asked if Nokia had enough expertise in-house to meet the challenges of convergence, Baldauf said it would continue to develop this in-house and through acquisitions and partnerships. ``One way to say it is that there's a lot to do with computing, and the other is that it's increasingly about software,' she said.