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Technology Stocks : The New Qualcomm - a S&P500 company -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Boplicity who wrote (7881)	3/24/2000 1:09:00 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 13582

Ignition!' now I can't find it, but it was a joint venture with QUALCOMM, Microsoft and some others to get internet stuff going or something like that. It was in the past week or so. There is so much going on now it's hard to keep up. An 'ignition' search on the Press Room in QUALCOMM didn't locate it. Anyone got a link? Sorry, Morry.

To: Boplicity who wrote (7881)	3/24/2000 1:54:00 AM
From: waitwatchwander	Respond to of 13582

Microsoft, McCaw veterans look to ignite wireless By Scott Hillis SEATTLE, March 9 (Reuters) - Veterans of Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and the mobile telephone industry on Thursday launched a $140 million investment firm called Ignition Corp., hoping to touch off an explosion in wireless Internet services. Boasting some of the brightest stars from the software and wireless industries, Ignition has also enlisted backing from other technology leaders, like Qualcomm Corp. (NASDAQ: QCOM), the high-flying wireless pioneer, and Japan's Softbank Venture Capital . Based in Bellevue, Wash., Ignition will be headed by Brad Silverberg, who ran Microsoft's Windows division from 1990 to 1995 and then tackled an ambitious turnaround of its lagging Internet efforts. "We are people who identified and made big bets on the technology tidal waves of the 90s: the PC, wireless and the Internet," Silverberg, who is chief executive and chairman of Ignition, said in a statement. "We believe the next tidal wave is the wireless Internet. Like the tidal waves before it, the wireless Internet will fundamentally change the way we live, work and communicate," Silverberg said. Ignition would invest in and develop companies around the world focusing on bringing the Internet to wireless devices like mobile telephones. Bringing Internet services such as e-mail, shopping, maps and telephone directories to wireless devices has been a fast-moving area in recent months, with many analysts saying the business could match that of the PC-based Internet. Ignition said wireless traffic was 98 percent voice and only 2 percent data, while more than 50 percent of fixed line traffic was data. But it expected wireless to eventually catch up to fixed lines. "Wireless really enables computing to move to devices that are on your person and that allow you to communicate anytime, anywhere," Jonathan Roberts, a 13-year Microsoft veteran who is Ignition's director of marketing and business development, said in an interview. Besides bankrolling companies, Ignition will also dole out advice on everything from technology to marketing and business development, Roberts said. Ignition was still reviewing candidates for investment, he said. Also among the eight Microsoft graduates on the Ignition team are Cameron Myhrvold, brother of Microsoft's on-leave Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold, and John Ludwig, a key lieutenant for Silverberg in the Internet division. Weighing in with wireless expertise will be Steve Hooper, the former chief executive of McCaw Cellular, a mobile phone company founded by Seattle billionaire Craig McCaw that was bought by communications giant AT&T Corp. (NYSE: T). in 1994. Ignition's founders have put up half of the company's initial $140 million in funding themselves, with the rest coming from Qualcomm, Softbank, and Seattle-based venture capital company Madrona Venture Group. Ignition's birth also highlights a growing brain-drain problem for Microsoft, which is losing many executives who are leaving the steady-as-she-goes company for the big thrills and potentially big payoffs of start-ups.