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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: w molloy who wrote (34058)	4/10/2003 5:45:09 PM
From: John Biddle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 196584

Opinion: The Next Browser War Thu Apr 10, 1:41 PM ET James Maguire, www.osOpinion.com story.news.yahoo.com The number alone is enough to get a lot of people breathing fast: About 400 million cell phones are sold worldwide each year. Given a world population of 6 billion, that means about one out of every 15 humans on the planet has one, from the jungles of Malaysia to the jungle of Manhattan. That's a big market. By comparison, only about 130 million PCs will be sold this year. And that number is expected to stay flat. The PC market is just so ... yesterday. Forget the PC, babe, it's all wireless. But as the wireless world matures, it will go through some similar experiences as its graying friend the PC. One of the most interesting to watch will be the browser war for the cell phone market. This will be a big one. The winner of "most popular PC browser" got to dominate a big, profitable market. But the company that wins "most popular cell phone browser" could make enough money to buy all the land west of the Mississippi. Let the games begin. Browser War I You remember the first browser war. There was a company called Netscape that nobody thinks about much anymore, and it made a browser. Netscape gave Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) a run for its money. At one point in the '90s, Netscape had a huge lead. But it wasn't really a fair fight. Microsoft had a monopoly on the PC operating system (and still does), and this first monopoly allowed it to get a second monopoly for its Internet Explorer browser. Netscape's effort was like playing blackjack against the house. Long term, there was no way it was going to win. Browser War II The cell phone browser war has only just begun. Really, the mobile Internet is more of a gleam in a futurist's eye than a market reality. Ninety percent of users talk and send text messages quite happily without a browser. But it's surely on the way. As the competition for wireless browser market share heats up, it will bear no resemblance to Browser War I. The PC world is sedate by comparison to the Wild West chaos of the cell phone market. Competing technology standards make it unclear which protocol browser makers should build for. Government regulation is a wild card. Not only is there no clear winner, just keeping track of the players is tough: Telecommunications carriers, established manufacturers and startups all elbow for position. Again, Microsoft is one of the horses in the race. But it won't be able to simply build on past success. In fact, it could lose this one. Waiting for Radio Shack If there's a dominant player in the cell phone software space, it's probably OS maker Symbian, but a lead at this point means little. Qualcomm's (Nasdaq: QCOM - news) BREW has a chance, and don't forget about Palmsource's Palm (Nasdaq: PALM - news). Sun and IBM (NYSE: IBM - news) are pushing a Java-based solution. And, hey, some Linux (news - web sites) options are showing up. Microsoft's smartphone OS is a factor. Openwave makes some noteworthy applications, and Opera has a chance. The only tech company that hasn't entered the fray is Radio Shack, and the company is probably working on a browser offering. As an example of how different this browser war will be from the first, Microsoft's dominance of the PC market actually may be a negative for the software giant in its wireless bid. Manufacturers saw what happened in the PC market. Please, not again. Where It's Going But here's the weirdest possible similarity about the two browser wars: Microsoft might win this race, too. The line between cell phones and PCs is going to blur in years ahead -- it's already well on its way. Redmond's dominance in the PC market, while it doesn't seem to be a decisive factor now, will certainly be a plus. Microsoft has shown it knows how to enter a market several places from the top and become the leader. But who knows? Even predicting a winner is folly. The experts don't know, and the players themselves don't know. If someone tells you who's going to create the dominant cell phone browser, they're trying to sell you something. But regardless of who wins, this will be a more interesting browser war than the first one. Note: The opinions expressed by our columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of NewsFactor Network or its management.