BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : MAY 22, 2000 ISSUE
INTERNATIONAL -- COVER STORY The Clash of the Wireless Titans Begins Cell-phone makers are the current champs of the wireless Internet. But they won't have the field to themselves for long. Here are some industries that have their eyes on the prize: CELLULAR AND PCS SERVICE PROVIDERS Any battle that draws AT&T, Vodafone, and NTT DoCoMo is bound to be bloody. At stake: 1.3 billion subscribers to mobile Net services in 2004, says IDC. CELL-PHONE MAKERS In this corner, it's Nokia vs. Ericsson vs. Motorola--and a half-dozen hard-charging Japanese and Koreans. Tough on venders. Great for consumers. INFRASTRUCTURE COMPANIES Ericsson, Nokia, Lucent, Fujitsu, and others are dotting the earth with thousands of transmission stations. This will be a trillion-dollar business. HANDHELD COMPUTER MAKERS Palm has been reborn as a wireless Internet company. Compaq, Casio, and Hewlett-Packard are making Pocket PCs in an alliance with Microsoft. ELECTRONIC PARTS MAKERS Texas Instruments ships 2 million chips a day to digital cell-phone makers. LCD-screen companies such as Sharp also hold some high cards. WIRELESS PORTALS Yahoo! and AOL are frantically partnering with cell-phone and handheld PC companies to preserve their portal franchise in the wireless age. E-COMMERCE COMPANIES If you can sell books, groceries, and plane tickets to folks on PCs, why not hawk them to people on the move? Commerce sites could become mobile portals. MOVIE/MUSIC STUDIOS AOL Time Warner isn't the only ''content'' titan. Sony owns films and movies and is planning phones that will double as mobile media players. AUTO COMPANIES Thanks to fast wireless data services, cars will soon evolve into annexes of the home office. That's why Toyota is branching into telecom and portal businesses. SATELLITE COMPANIES For speed and ubiquity, nobody beats satellites. Despite Motorola's Iridium fiasco, consortiums such as Globalstar and Teledesic still dream of the Internet in the Sky. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Wireless in Cyberspace (int'l edition) INT'L COVER IMAGE: Wireless in Cyberspace TABLE: The Clash of the Wireless Titans Begins CHART: Across the Globe, Demand for Digital Cell Phones Is Soaring Japan's Cutting Edge (int'l edition) CHART: Japanese Internet, Cellular, and Wireless Net Users Goliath vs. Goliath (int'l edition) CHART: Western European Internet, Cellular, and Wireless Net Users Sprint's a Web Evangelist (int'l edition) CHART: Total Internet, Cellular, and Wireless Net Users in North America China Surfing (int'l edition) CHART: Asia-Pacific Internet, Cellular, and Wireless Net Users Commentary: Yes, It Really Is the Next Big Thing (int'l edition) ONLINE ORIGINAL: IBM's Mark Bregman: "The Immediacy of Data" Will Change How We Work ONLINE ORIGINAL: Let a Million WAP Users Bloom ONLINE ORIGINAL: Matsushita's Takashi Kawada: "All We Have Is a Little Time Advantage" BW E.BIZ: "Martin Cooper: A Wireless Prophet Who's Pushing 'Smart Antennas'" INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

Copyright 2000-2009, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Use   Privacy Notice