No problem, Rob
Here is another article talking about the upcoming new products and services available for the broad application (beyond voice) wireless market
zdnet.com
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Untethered enterprise
moves closer to reality
By Carmen Nobel, PC Week Online
February 28, 2000 12:00 AM ET
IT managers looking to give mobile employees access
to internal and Web-based information will soon have
more offerings to choose from?though not necessarily
from traditional wireless service providers.
IBM, Xerox Corp. and upstarts such as NetMorf Inc. are
stepping in where wireless carriers have failed to deliver
with packaged solutions that give users access to
corporate data from gadgets such as pagers, cell
phones and other handheld devices.
At the CTIA Wireless show in New Orleans this week,
IBM plans to introduce the first packaged product to
use transcoding technology developed in the company's
Pervasive Computing Group.
Websphere Transcoding Publisher translates data into
a wide array of protocols and languages so it can be
viewed via smart phones and handheld devices, officials
at the Armonk, N.Y., company said. The server-side
software, due to ship at the end of March, will run on
AIX, Linux, Solaris and Windows 2000.
In addition, IBM plans to package several of its software
offerings into a single service/product
platform?tentatively dubbed Websphere
Everywhere?to provide transcoding, synchronization,
protocol support and basic management for enterprises
providing wireless access to corporate data. The suite
is due March 13.
IBM's Pervasive Computing Group has been partnering
pell-mell with both carriers and enterprise customers.
Companies such as Delta Air Lines Inc. have dealt far
more closely with IBM than with their service providers
to get their wireless initiatives off the ground.
Delta has been working with IBM and Modem Media, of
Norwalk, Conn., for several months to provide wireless
access to Delta's Web site. Delta uses Sprint PCS for
the network connection, but that's pretty much where
the Sprint relationship ends, said Rob Casas, manager
of e-commerce development for the Atlanta-based
airline.
"IBM has come in both on the consultant side and also
provided development resources for us for the
application side," Casas said. "We have worked with
[Sprint] to some degree, but the fundamental thing is an
IBM-Delta collaboration."
In addition to its work with Sprint, IBM is also teaming
up with AT&T Corp. The companies announced last
week an agreement to develop new wireless services for
corporate customers.
While companies offering wireless data applications are
happy to partner with wireless access providers, they
acknowledge those carriers' limitations.
"Many wireless carriers aren't currently equipped to
deliver the high-value services," said Andrew Ordonez,
director of marketing for Xerox Mobile Solutions, a new
branch of the document company based in Palo Alto,
Calif. "Obviously, the carriers will always be an integral
part of the equation, but selling through them requires a
significant amount of handholding," Ordonez said. "So
alternative channels to the enterprise?e.g., wireless
ASPs [application service providers]?are advisable."
At the conference, Xerox Mobile Solutions will introduce
its first product, MobileDoc, which will enable
customers to access files on their corporate servers via
pagers and then signal the servers to forward the files to
a fax machine or e-mail address. The product will
support Motorola Inc. pagers at first, with support for
Palm Inc. personal digital assistants and Wireless
Access Protocol phones later this year.
Separately, NetMorf this week will announce
SiteMorpher 2.0. The software, which sits on top of an
application server, transfers back-end data to wireless
devices and automatically detects the correct protocol,
generating the correct format for the device.
The new version includes SiteMorfer Designer, which
provides templates for designing sites with wireless
access in mind, said officials at the Boston company.
Due March 31, SiteMorfer 2.0 starts at $20,000, with
additional fees for consulting services.
Executives at Sprint PCS and other wireless
telecommunications providers said carriers have been
slower than the rest of the industry to offer applications
specific to enterprise customers, although most of them
are testing several companies' solutions. Sprint PCS, of
Kansas City, Mo., is the leading U.S. carrier in offering
Internet access on cell phones, but it won't begin
offering nationwide wireless access to corporate
intranet data until the second quarter.
With startup wireless ASPs and companies such as
IBM offering more immediate services, the carriers are
battling a growing perception that they're little more
than a "bit pipe" to the network. "We are one, but we
don't want to be just a pipe," said an executive at a
major U.S. carrier. "We plan to offer some of these
services ourselves. But we still have a lot to learn." |
