FRAMINGHAM (02/25/2000) - The cellular phone collides with the Web at Wireless 2000 in New Orleans next week.
The convergence of wireless communications and Web technology has rarely been the focus of such a big confab. Such notables as Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates will deliver keynote addresses to more than 20,000 cellular industry officials and information technology managers from companies that buy communications services and products.
"We've been talking about this convergence coming, but it's come like a vengeance this year," said Tom Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association in Washington, which sponsors the show.
"Everybody realizes that wireless and the Internet are the two hottest technologies," said Craig Mathias, a wireless analyst at The Farpoint Group in Ashland, Mass.
Technologies envisioned for 2002 and beyond would give mobile workers wireless access to corporate servers and vital data via smart phones, at speeds many times the current 9.6K bit/sec.
"The wireless data industry is in its very early stages, and that's why we're seeing a landgrab going on," with large companies saying they will produce wireless Internet products or services that they hope cellular carriers and hardware makers will provide to users, said analyst Mark Zohar at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.
In addition to Gates, industry luminaries who will deliver keynotes include Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc., Michael Capellas of Compaq Computer Corp. and Steve Case of America Online Inc.
Market Muscle
Analysts said the presence of such companies is more important than any product or service announcements they might plan to make because it shows the sheer muscle being exerted in the market.
For example, Microsoft is planning to announce wireless services in The Microsoft Network that mainly affect consumers, but the announcement is "nothing major," according to Zohar.
In preparation for the show, Oracle Corp. this week announced OracleMobile.com, a new subsidiary that will offer the first comprehensive consumer wireless Internet portal.
And Xerox Corp. in Palo Alto, Calif., this week announced MobileDoc, software that will give mobile workers the ability to control and distribute documents on a corporate server via a Motorola Corp. pager and eventually through Wireless Application Protocol phones.
Alan Reiter, an analyst at Wireless Internet and Mobile Computing, a consultancy in Chevy Chase, Md., said Proxicom, a Web design firm in Reston, Va., will be featured at a Wireless 2000 program because it's being asked by many large corporations to design portions of their Web sites to make them accessible via wireless devices. Such designs call for fewer or no graphics and require fewer clicks to navigate through information, he said.