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To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (22752)	2/9/1999 1:22:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Microsoft-Pegaso> Business News From CTIA '99: Feb. 9, 1999 Microsoft Boosts Wireless Offensive Microsoft Corp. created a major buzz Monday at Wireless '99, announcing a new partnership, demonstrating its free microbrowser and detailing its vision for the future of wireless data. Paul Maritz, a Microsoft group vice president, also backed away from saying the software giant's browser for mobile devices will be completely compatible with the Wireless Application Protocol. Maritz said Microsoft first wants to make its browser compatible with "existing standards," and WAP devices are not expected to be marketed until later this year. Maritz said Microsoft has four elements in its wireless data strategy: seeking industry partners, promoting open standards, developing an end-to-end platform that works for both wireless and wireline communications, and providing value-added services that consumers want and need. Maritz formally announced plans, reported last week by Wireless Week, by British Telecommunications plc for using Microsoft's BackOffice and Exchange technology to create a network solution for wireless access to corporate data. BT and its wireless subsidiary will establish a system similar to WirelessKnowledge LLC, he said. WirelessKnowledge, formed by Microsoft and Qualcomm Inc. last fall, provides remote access to enterprise data through a network operations center. The joint venture has signed up nine U.S. carriers who are expected to begin offering the service in the next few months. BT executive Andy Green said the British telecom giant has 13 million customers who will be the initial target market, but BT plans on offering the service globally through any carrier that wants it. He said the carrier plans a deliberate rollout with a series of trials with corporate customers. Microsoft also demonstrated the use of its microbrowser via the WirelessKnowledge NOC to access the Internet and to tunnel through a corporate firewall to get e-mail. Both applications showed how the microbrowser worked on the recently introduced Qualcomm QCP1960 "Thin Phone." Maritz emphasized in the demonstration that the Internet content--from the MSNBC news site--came from the same site and used the same hypertext markup language as that on a laptop computer. The microbrowser essentially strips away graphics and other bandwidth-intensive Internet content. He said Microsoft planned to make the microbrowser available as a "source code kit" so that any company that wanted to use it could do so. He said there would a "small one-time fee" for the kit but that it was basically free because Microsoft wanted to see it spread in the wireless data industry. Microsoft will make its money with the use of its Windows CE operating system and other software, Maritz said. Although some analysts believed Microsoft might open its arms to the WAP technology, Maritz seemed to pull back from complete compatibility. He implied Microsoft's microbrowser may be compatible with WAP at the transport layer but that it may not at the key application layer. He said Microsoft was "not ready" to join WAP, which is a forum of about 100 companies seeking a protocol to design specific Internet content for access by smart phones and other mobile devices. He also said Microsoft would be "happy" to provide its microbrowser to Symbian Ltd., a joint venture to use the Psion operating system for mobile connectivity. Symbian is viewed as a Microsoft competitor in the handheld device markets.

To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (22752)	2/9/1999 1:23:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Ginn Calls For 3G Resolution> General News From CTIA '99: Feb. 9, 1999 Ginn Calls For CPP, 3G Resolutions If there were an anointed Wireless '99 man of the hour, AirTouch Communications Inc. Chairman Sam Ginn might be that person. Basking in the afterglow of Vodafone Group plc's announced plan to acquire AirTouch, Ginn talked Monday with Wireless Week's Show Daily about a number of policy and technology issues affecting wireless, which he views as "a minutes factory" that will boost its share of all telecom traffic to an estimated 25 percent by 2007 compared with 4 percent today. Ginn said he has spoken to top executives at Ericsson Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. to resolve their legal fight over patents so third-generation equipment development can proceed. "I have encouraged both to look for solutions that would allow the industry to be more successful than it otherwise could be," he said. In a separate interview, Ericsson CEO Bo Dimert said, "I am hopeful we can resolve the issue in the first half." In the U.S. market, the lack of calling party pays and customer confusion about multiple technologies are "training customers not to use" wireless and negatively affecting company valuations, Ginn said. In Europe, where CPP exists and penetration already is 40 percent to 50 percent--much higher than in the United States--analysts readily accept projections of 60 percent penetration in the near future, boosting valuations. Without CPP, analysts here are hesitant to believe such rosy forecasts. "The FCC needs to mandate CPP and solve the second issue through 3G," Ginn said. Although many observers cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision shifting power from the states to the FCC as the legal basis for possible commission action on CPP and other wireless issues where states have asserted regulatory authority, he sees the issue another way. "I have been more concerned about the commission's willingness rather than its legal right to move," Ginn said. According to Ginn, CPP actually would help the commission achieve one of its other objectives: providing more communications options to underserved market segments. For example, CPP allows prepaid subscribers--who often choose preset spending limit plans because they have less access to credit--to receive wireless calls at callers' expense. "This is getting right at the policy issues," he said. On other issues, Ginn said he expects PrimeCo Personal Communications LP, the company's joint personal communications services venture with spurned suitor Bell Atlantic, will reach break-even next year. The executive said he's looking for "a business solution rather than a court solution" to the lawsuit Bell Atlantic filed against AirTouch, a suit widely viewed as a negotiating ploy in the two carriers' attempts to reach revised roaming agreements.