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Technology Stocks : Glenayre Technologies(GEMS)- a pure cellular PCS play? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (2371)	12/12/1997 10:02:00 PM
From: van wang	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3431

Subject: TekNow calls on paging system to enhance service Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 17:58:14 -0800 (PST) From: staff@quote.com Reply-To: support@quote.com To: quotecom-users@quote.com ============================================================ Interested in the Swiss Financial Marketplace? Get Quotes, Charts, Financial News and Information, Research and Analysis on...Swissinvest.com swissinvest.com ============================================================ News Alert from Phoenix Business Journal via Quote.com Topic: Motorola Inc Quote.com News Item #4791747 Headline: TekNow calls on paging system to enhance service ====================================================================== The Business Journal A small Phoenix company hopes to do for the paging industry what Microsoft did for computers with a universal paging terminal software platform that will provide the first widely accepted alternative to the closed systems most use now. Officials with TekNow Inc., a 10-year-old wireless communications supplier, say they are poised to transform the business with PhenX, a Windows NT-based system that provides an open platform for software developers and paging services. The system quickly is becoming the first viable alternative to Glenayre, a proprietary terminal hardware setup used by more than 90 percent of the paging industry. Paging terminals are the heart of most messaging systems, acting as a gatekeeper for message traffic. TekNow officials say PhenX will reduce operating costs by accommodating a variety of hardware from different manufacturers. It also will add a host of new services such as paging from a web site, receiving faxes as text messages on a pager and sending email via pager. Most importantly, TekNow officials say, the system should spur further innovation as third-party developers take advantage of the open architecture and begin developing new applications. "What we're seeing in the paging industry is a transition to more of a messaging industry, where the receiving device really is transparent or independent," said Tim Manning, the company's marketing director. "Part of the value of an open modular system is that it's much more flexible than the closed architecture our competitors have used historically," he said. By making the system compatible with several networking and paging protocols, the company hopes to make the current paging infrastructure a nexus for all sorts of wireless data communications. In addition to text-based messaging, PhenX can accommodate data transfers of any kind, including pictures and other computer files, using the nearly universal TCP/IP protocol. The product line already has caught the attention of some big names in the wireless communications industry, nabbing customers that include AT&T Wireless, Ameritech, Skytel and Arch Communications. The system promises to make it easier for wireless providers to differentiate themselves in what many see as a commodity market. But developing new uses for the paging infrastructure has become more than a competitive advantage, TekNow officials say. It's an economic imperative. "For years and years and years, the industry got away with not spending any money on their research and development," said Robert Freeman, TekNow's vice president for engineering. "But Wall Street has put its foot down and demanded to know how many more subscribers there's going to be and how much additional revenue per subscriber there's going to be." He said one of his company's biggest challenges was persuading carriers to switch from the industry standard-bearer to a relative unknown. But with customers that include six of the country's 10 largest paging providers, TekNow officials are confident they can capture a significant market share. Even its two largest competitors, Glenayre and Motorola Inc., have purchased the system and are helping develop new applications for it. "This is a very closed industry; everybody knows everybody," Manning said. "But all the advanced features of this system pretty much makes the sale."