Be Mobile, Be Wireless
By Angela Hickman, November 13, 1998
<!--WirelessKnowledge, a new venture between Microsoft and Qualcomm, aims to deliver wireless corporate data to mobile devices.-->
Accessing your corporate data over a wireless device may get a whole lot easier soon. Yesterday, Microsoft and Qualcomm announced the formation of a jointly owned company, WirelessKnowledge LLC, that's charged with enabling secure mobile Internet and corporate network access over a range of wireless devices including handhelds, desktops, notebooks , smart phones, pagers, smart TVs, and Web kiosks.
Initially, WirelessKnowledge will offer only basic data services for messaging, e-mail, calendar, contact list management, and information services via the Internet, plus access to Microsoft Exchange-based corporate networks. The company will sell its services to telecommunications carriers, including AirTouch Communications, AT&T Wireless Services, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Bell Mobility (in Canada), GTE, Leap Wireless International, Sprint PCS and U S West Wireless. The telecommunications carriers in turn sell data services to individual subscribers. More sophisticated applications, such as enterprise groupware, are expected, as are more service partners.
Windows CE Who?
Though WirelessKnowledge plans on integrating Windows CE software into its services, the company isn't focusing on the diminutive operating system's role right now. Down the road, however, the company plans to integrate Windows CE into a future Qualcomm chip. According to Microsoft president Steve Ballmer, Windows CE has huge potential in the nascent wireless data market, but the executives at the announcement yesterday downplayed its immediate role.
David Cooperstein, a senior analyst at market research firm Forrester Research, said that Microsoft's objective is to get the market off the ground. For that reason, "Microsoft isn't dedicated to the OS [Windows CE] in the market right now," he said. In fact, WirelessKnowledge's network will be OS-indifferent, working with EPOC, the operating system for mobile wireless devices developed by Symbian (a joint venture formed by Ericsson, Nokia, and Psion).
Symbian is one of the backers of Bluetooth-a new, low-cost, wireless communications solution that's based on short-range radio technology that lets devices talk to one another in real time. Plans are for Bluetooth to be integrated into notebook PCs, mobile phones, hand-held PCs, and organizers. Like Microsoft, WirelessKnowledge hasn't yet decided whether it will support Bluetooth. "Right now, anything that helps open the wireless communication market is welcome" says Alasdair Manson, a spokesperson for Symbian.
Neither Microsoft nor Qualcomm, however, plans on leaving their current wares far behind. "Leveraging current investment on existing infrastructures and technologies, like application development tools, Internet authoring software, and GSM and CDMA, is very important," says Ballmer. WirelessKnowledge will be accessible over all digital wireless wide-area networks, including those based on CDMA, GSM, TDMA, CDPD, and Mobitex.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm will continue operating its OmniTrack service and developing its newly unveiled CDMA-based pdQ smartphone. Interestingly, the device runs 3Com's Palm operating system instead of Microsoft CE, a move that reflects the company's desire to work towards wireless solutions on several different fronts.
Wireless Competition
By all accounts, the wireless data industry has been slow to get off the ground. "The coming of wireless data communications has been like watching paint dry" said a spokesperson for US West Wireless at the announcement yesterday.
But several trends are now fueling the wireless data communications market. Contributing to the market's state of readiness is the pervasiveness of digital devices. According to Irwin Jacobs, Qualcomm chairman and CEO, digital phones now outsell analog phones. He also pointed to the improved quality of both voice and data wireless technologies. For consumers, increased competition among carriers has reduced the price tag customers pay for wireless data services. Such market forces will have a direct impact on the wireless data industry, according to Microsoft's Ballmer, the result of which will be "Moore's Law type of growth over the next 10 or 20 years," he said.
The fact that WirelessKnowledge's offerings come in simple, turnkey solutions for carriers should help Ballmer's projections come to fruition. The key is that WirelessKnowledge shoulders most of the work and responsibility for getting these data services running smoothly. "The effect will be a low risk stance for carriers," Cooperstein said.
WirelessKnowledge will roll out services in phases, with commercial availability slated for the first half of next year.
zdnet.com
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