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To: T L Comiskey who wrote (67652)	2/22/2000 5:15:00 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 152472

Wireless Knowledge rebounds after troubled year By Mike Drummond UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER February 22, 2000 SAN DIEGO -- The wheels flew off Wireless Knowledge last year amid technical woes, personnel defections and the sudden departure -- some say ouster -- of its chief executive, but company officials say they have retooled and are now back in the fast lane. The joint Microsoft/Qualcomm company last year promised that its technology, called Revolv, would deliver e-mail and calendar and other corporate information to a variety of mobile devices. Wireless Knowledge today is expected to announce the launch of a rechristened variant of its aborted flagship service, which new CEO Eric Schultz says "puts us into the driver's seat . . . to create the mobile work style for business users." The service, if successful, could be the propellent needed to take the company public. "This signals a strong intention to move to the public market," said new Chief Financial Officer David Morash, formerly of San Diego-based Safeskin. "It would make us very happy if San Diego could be blessed with another company that goes public . . . this year." The new service, called Workstyle Server, transports information residing on Microsoft Exchange servers and does what Revolv was supposed to do. However, instead of relying on wireless phone companies to sell and deploy the service, Wireless Knowledge will market and help with the initial heavy lifting of installation and upgrades. The service will target Lotus Notes and other types of corporate networks later, the company said. Schultz acknowledged that with Revolv, the company had "trouble quickly provisioning clients." The service also struggled with communicating through corporate firewalls, the security measures that prohibit unauthorized access to company networks. "Now, we can literally drop in the software on the server, open up the firewall and have wireless access," Schultz said. "We want to end this year as the market segment leader." As for Revolv, it "goes away," he added. Some analysts are pleased to see Wireless Knowledge emerge from the dark period when it was "running silent, running deep" amid less-than-stellar trials and the unexpected exit of CEO John Major in November. Major is a former Qualcomm executive. Schultz came from Microsoft. "With the changing of the guard and Microsoft's renewed interest, I think that bodes well for them," said Barney Dewey of Andrew Seybold Consulting Group, which last year wrote glowingly about Revolv. Iain Gillott, a vice president of International Data Corp., said in a prepared statement that "Wireless Knowledge's Workstyle Server . . . is perfectly timed to deliver high-value applications to the business user to start to drive this market." Wireless Knowledge said it has deployed its new service in a number of successful tests. The fact that it timed the announcement of the service a week before the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association trade show in New Orleans likely will generate booth traffic and insider buzz. Although the wireless data market is still emerging with no clear front runners, time is not a luxury most companies can afford. This is particularly true for Wireless Knowledge -- Microsoft in December announced a partnership with Ericsson to launch a Sweden-based company that delivers e-mail and calendar and other corporate information to mobile devices. Wireless Knowledge says the two companies will complement each other, while some observers see them in clear competition. Regardless, a company hoping to sell shares on the open market needs to have a product, preferably one that works. "The expectation is to make themselves known in the market and do something," said Greg Blatnik, managing director at Zona Research. "It's like I used to say to my old card-playing buddies, 'I don't care if you throw down the wrong card, but do something quickly.' " signonsandiego.com