Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : General Magic -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bnad who wrote (3759)	9/21/1998 8:05:00 PM
From: Austin S.	Respond to of 10081

Wilfire is lacking in several respects as it compares to Portico. Initially, it lacks (1) a calendar and no TrueSyn, thus it cannot remind you of appointments, anniversaries, and cannot create appointments on-the-go,(2) news (internet feeds) or the ability to page you with news announcements, and (3) stock quotes and the ability to page you with news on stocks or movements in stock prices. It also does not permit you to interact and/or interrupt the virtual assistant at anytime. As for carrier announcements, Wildfire has made numerous announcements of this type. Before the Canadian Bell Mobility announcement, the last one involved Pac Bell and an obscure phone company in Colorado, I think. So the recent Bell Mobility release wasn't their first "carrier" announcement. Wilfire's stated strategy is to build enterprise workgroup solutions, and this resulted in a small (about $2M investment from MS, $2M from Intel and $8M from private investors...last year sometime). These Network Wildfire services are not their strategic direction, just opportunistic. They have all but closed their Massachusetts location in favor of their Seattle location. Their VP of Sales recently resigned, etc. Also, you should notice that Bell Mobility did not make and has yet to make any such announcement. And as Steve Markman has stated many times, there will be at least 4-7 wireless carriers competing in each region of the US. Thus there's lots of room for competition since each carrier will need to differentiate from the other. Markman has also said that GMGC is currently tracking over 40 companies in some part of this space and takes each one very seriously even though no competitor out there is currently is fielding what GMGC is now. The developments GMGC is undertaking will keep Portico well ahead, from a feature point of view, for quite some time. In the final analysis, GMGC is going to be very successful and U.S. "carrier" announcements are forthcoming, IMHO.