Newsbytes PM: Motorola, Yahoo Latest In Series Of Web/Smartphone Deals 10/14/99 >BY Staff

Motorola, Yahoo Latest In Series Of Web/Smartphone Deals 10/14/99 >BY Staff
Newsbytes PM,  Oct 14, 1999

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SCHAUMBURG, ILLINOIS, U.S.A., 1999 OCT 14 (NB) Newsbytes. Motorola Inc. [NYSE:MOT] has teamed with Yahoo Inc. [NASDAQ:YHOO] in a deal that the companies say will result in Yahoo content and services being accessed from Motorola‘s Internet-connected wireless devices. It is Motorola‘s second wireless-related deal in as many days - signing with Oracle Corp. [NASDAQ:ORCL] on Tuesday to develop a new generation of "smart" mobile phones, along with a voice portal technology for mobile phone networks.
In the newest deal with Yahoo, Motorola says some of its "newest, most innovative devices" will link to Yahoo to access a range of services from the portal company formatted especially for display on mobile devices.
"Our goal has always been to extend Yahoo‘s Web services to a range of PC, phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), access and communication providers," said Mohan Vishwanath, vice president of Yahoo‘s Yahoo Everywhere.
The services will be available over Motorola‘s Mobile Internet Exchange, the company‘s integrated voice and data platform. The company says that dedicated bookmarks will appear on its phones‘ display to connect directly to its Web site for individual Motorola account information or to purchase phones and service.
Yahoo services available via the Motorola phones will include: Yahoo Mail to view, originate, reply and delete e-mail messages; Yahoo Address Book with full search and retrieval functionality; and, Yahoo Calendar to add, edit or delete appointments.
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Shipments of the new Motorola Internet-connected phones are planned for the fourth quarter.
This week, Motorola announced a teaming up with Oracle Corp. [NASDAQ:ORCL] to develop "smart" mobile phones. In that deal, Sun Microsystems Inc.‘s [NASDAQ:SUNW] Java and Jini technologies will be utilized to allow intelligent use of the mobile phone‘s resources, as well as the software company‘s new "Portal-to-Go" technology on servers attached to the cellular carrier‘s network.
The technology agreement will eventually allow users of Motorola mobile phones to have voice-driven access to online features that normally require a PC/Web-style user interface.
Oracle only announced the Portal-to-Go wireless Internet software this week, claiming in typical understated Oracle rhetoric that it is the first extension of e-business and Internet access to the wireless world. Formerly code-named "Project Panama," Oracle Portal-to-Go will reportedly allow any wireless device to access Internet content and e-services.
At the time of the announcement, Oracle also claimed that, in extending Internet access beyond PC-based access points to the 305 million wireless handsets currently in use, Portal-to-Go will permit a three-fold expansion over the present number of Internet users.
A raft of other companies have been targeting the wireless device market with announcements in the past week alone. E-commerce services and stock trading in particular being two of the applications for development.
Just today, mobile-phone maker Nokia and personal information portal Visto announced a deal to provide users with mobile phone access to Web-based personal content. The agreement will let users manage personal information like e-mail, calendar and address book using a Nokia Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)- enabled mobile phone and Visto‘s Web-based personal information service.
Cellular phone giant Nokia featured in another e-commerce deal this week when the company teamed with IBM [NYSE:IBM] in a global deal under which they will develop enterprise Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) products designed to bring wireless e-business to the mobile consumer.
Under terms of that deal, IBM plans to market and distribute the Nokia WAP Server software on its PC servers. Big Blue will also license Nokia "core WAP technology" for integration into other IBM server platforms.
WAP is a relatively new protocol intended as an open, global specification designed to let mobile devices connect to the Internet.
E-commerce is something many major information technology (IT) companies are interested in - Hewlett-Packard [NYSE:HWP] being one example. This week HP announced plans to extend its Internet e-services into the cellular world.
HP said it wants to integrate Internet services and mobile devices much more closely - teaming with about two dozen partner companies, including Microsoft and Nokia, on the mobile e-services initiative in doing so.
HP says that e-services are value-added Internet-based services, such as customer services, for completing complex tasks and financial transactions and accessing personalized information - deployed over mobile telephony networks.
Web trading via wireless devices is one application which is garnering considerable interest industry wide.
Also this week, online brokerage firm Ameritrade Holding Corp. and Sprint PCS said they will offer the first Web trading using wireless phones. To be available at the end of October, the services will reportedly allow Sprint PCS customers to access their Ameritrade accounts, place trades and receive stock quotes. There will be no extra charge for Sprint customers to access their accounts.
In Europe too, share trading is seen as an innovative use for wireless e-commerce. This week also, Credit Suisse, Switzerland‘s largest bank, and Swisscom, said that the interactive trading of shares will be possible by mobile phone at the start of next year.
The new mobile interactive share trading service was presented at Telecom 99 in Geneva. With the service, customers of Swisscom, Switzerland‘s leading mobile operator, will be able to make stock exchange transactions with Credit Suisse anywhere in Switzerland using their mobile phone and the bank‘s "youtrade" service.
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com
(19991014/WIRES ONLINE, BUSINESS/)
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