Newsletter Archive 6

Newsletter 6 - 2000

0. Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola work on a M-Commerce standard
1. New time-management tool for any WAP-mobile
2. Debitel and UTMS
3. PR Newswire and Pactive revolutionize the WAP-news world
4. Cable New Media Cologne realized WAP-Voting Application for Motorola
5. WAP-Surfers stay anonymous in Germany
6. One Million WAP- Handys in Japan
7. Hotel Information- Service via WAP- Handy
8. TFG takes over Jcatalogue shares
9. IBM-Software translates Web- Sites for mobile phones and -computers
10.CAA shows worlds first WAP-Car
11.Transtec offers Wap-Service : Virtual Warehouse via WAP Protocoll available
12.AUDI now offers WAP service

0. Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola work on a M-Commerce standard (April 2000)

Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola are the dominating forces in mobile phone manufacturing. Together they want to introduce a security standard for any kind of crucial transaction over mobile-communication devices. The plan is to have a strict frame of rules and restrictions to secure encryption, identification of persons and other crucial transactions by the end of May 2000. The 3 mobile manufactures agree that the rest of industry will most likely follow and adjust to the given guidelines, since Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola are the ruling powers in that field of business.

1. New time-management tool for any WAP-mobile (April 2000)

CAS Software has developed a new planning tool for the German communications giant T-Online. The TimeManager includes a calender, a personal-contact manager, a phone index and much more. The TimeManager can be customized with an array of features. More at www.timemanager.t-d1.de .

2. Debitel and UTMS (April 2000)

While most people in the US are still wondering about WAP, the Europeans are already battling for the next generation of mobile communication. UTMS, as the new technology is called, has been at the center of attention of the German company Debitel which is trying to be the first one in the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) to get a license. Experts are sure that the costs for a license in any of the countries will be in the billion-dollar range. Because of the high costs, Debitel is now trying to get together with other companies.

3. PR Newswire and Pactive revolutionize the WAP-news world (April 2000)

London, England: PR Newswire, one of the biggest news agencies in the world, will get together with the Swedish company Pactive (www.pactive.se) for the biggest news service over WAP. Pactive will in turn deliver the news to Nokia and Ericsson. PRNewswire sends over a 1000 full-text news messages to over 30�0000 recipients. They hope to be the world-dominating force in the WAP-news market. More at www.pactive.se .

4. Kabel New Media K�ln is realizing WAP-Voting application for Motorola (March 2000)

Music-interested mobile-phone users now have the possibility to vote their favourite band right into the Motorola web-charts by WAP-mobile phone.
Formerly the voting, which songs will make it into the weekly TV- Show, was only possible via the Internet Web-site. Now music- ans can choose their 3 favorites for the show by WAP-mobile.
After applying http://mtvhome.de/wap/webchart the selection of the songs takes place just as on the web-site.
With this interactive WAP-voting Kabel New Media K�ln allows ist users a direct infuence on their favorite TV-Show by cell-phone and realizes so an intelligent application of the opportunities of the Wireless Application Protocol.

5. WAP-Surfer will stay anonymous in Germany (March 2000)

In the United States phone numbers of clients who have accessed internet contents have been encrypted. Data protection commissioners are now concerned that phone numbers could be abused for marketing purposes or for drawing up a user profile. The four German mobil-telecommunication Servers T-MOBIL, MANNESMANN Mobilfunk, E-PLUS und Viag Intercom
are not allowed to pass phone numbers to Servers of WAP-Contents.
Whenever there�s authentification needed, for example to request the bankaccount -the client has (depending to the provider) to identify himself with a password or PIN-code. Companieclose sources told ZDNet, that sellers of WAP-contents already tryed to find out about the possibility of phone numberpassing at -at least- three different providers.
Using the function "suppress phone number" or "don�t show phone number, the client can be assured to stay anonymous.

6. One Million WAP mobile phones in Japan (March 2000)

The number of phone-users owning Wap-mobile phones in Japan has climbed over one million. Services based on WAP-Technologie are offered in Japan since April 99. A couple of hundred WAP-Sites already exist, which are legible at the WAP-phone-display via Wireless Application Protocoll.Businessnews, weather forecasts, timetables, horoscopes are just a few of the services which are available in a lowprice monthly subscription.
WAP-carriers compete with NTT DoCoMo,who are marketing their own system under the name i-mode. Even though this technic is very different to WAP, for the users it�s the same, because both offer the same informations and services.
4,6 million Japanese already decided for i-mode.
In Germany the WAP-Market is still in its very beginning : Wap-phones can be ordered, but most are not deliverable yet. Incidentally tecChannel offers ist tecNews on WAP-format since February 2000.

7. Hotel information via Wap-Handy (March 2000)

Hotel information and -booking online on the road; with the new Wap mobile-phones everything is possible !
With the hotel information-and reservation-system HOTELdirekt mobil WAP-Phone users can look for a hotel,find out about "up to date -room-free -offers", ask for special rates and make the reservation directly via phone. Under the address wap.hoteldirekt.de WAP-Phone users can retrieve information fast and easy-online at anytime and everywhere.
A clear and simple user-guide on the phone display leads the user through the system.
After you�ve decided for a hotel all you need to do is call and make the reservation directly on the phone. For the hotel managers the new system is an inexpensive booking service . Participating Hotels pay, next to a small monthly fee, only 2 Euro per telephone- contact. Agent�s commissions don�t exist any longer. Plus: the hotelier has access to a medium, which makes him able to put rooms suddenly cancelled back on the market immediately.

8. TFG takes over 8% of j-catalog Software Shares (March 2000)

TFG-Venture Capital just took over a 8% Share of j-catalog Software AG.
One of the companies basic functions is the supporting of WAP-Technology for using the internet- services via mobile phone or organizer. The Software is market leading in terms of its database- format encroaching XML-Standards.
The j-catalog Software AG is not only e-commerce-wise a Pioneer...
Last year the companie made 3 mio.in sales- for the year 2001 at least 9 mio are expected. The IPO will be at the end of next year.

9. IBM-Software translates Web-sites for mobile phones and mobile computers. (March 2000)

IBM wants to realize that WAP-Handys and other mobile internet- instruments that are able to transfer web-sites to the Display. The Software "IBM Websphere Transcoding Publisher translates HTML-Documents including embedded Pictures automatically in mobile Formats such as the wireless markup language (wml), as the company reported in Stuttgart, Germany. Up to now, information for WAP cell phones have to be transformed from the internet standard
HTML to WML, which is a tiring process. The IBM-Solution is based on a JAVA-architecture and is available for the operating-systems Windows NT/2000, Linux , Solaris and AIX.
IBM assumes that approx. 70% of all new Phones and 80% of the handheld-computers will have an integrated internet-access by the year 2004.

10.CCA presents the worlds first WAP-Car (February 2000)

On March 6th 2000 CAA GmbH from Filderstadt, Germany will represent the first fully functioning vehicle with an integrated Wap-Browser at the DETROIT MOTORSHOW. All WAP-Services can be accessed from the car in a very comfortably . All tools for the "complete communication" have been integrated into the drivers-information system CARPC II . Former separately operating instruments like radio,telephon, seat-position-control, navigation, e-mail, or AC-control and online-access via WAP is now possible within this one system. Especially interesting here is the utilisation of m-commerce -services like for example stocktrading or travelbooking. "Right now",Hans-Peter Schmidt,Co-founder and managing director of CAA,says "the same WAP- Services are offered for car and phone. But we expect that there will be a variety of special services for cars by WAP like dynamic car navigation or street-condition news."

11.Transtec offers WAP-Service: Virtual Warehouse to call via WAP-Protocoll (March 2000)

The Business to Business (B2B ) system producer and directseller Transtec reinforces e-business-strategy. From now on users have access via WAP-Protocol to the entire Virtual Warehouse supply from 25.000 IT-Products at present. With this online-service Transtec is reachable fast -anytime and everywhere. The direct access to the product trading system of the company located in Tuebingen, Germany has been expanded with the "mobile version WAP".
At http://www.transtec.de Transtec offers the opportunity to ask for prices and availability. After inputting the product-code the user will receive a brief information about the requested article and its price. If the article is available direcly from the stock it will show on the display automatically.

12.AUDI now offers WAP service (March 2000)

Ingolstadt- AUDI AG is now offering its first own internet information service for mobile phones- the first German car manufacturer to do so. This service, known as WAP (Wireless Application Protocoll), can be called up at the address http://wap.audi.de from WAP-compatible mobiles. Users can find out the latest company news and highlights. It is also possible to search for all Audi dealers throughout Germany : The user defines his or her search with the parameters zip-code or city and , in return, receives the address and the telephone number of the required Audi dealer in his area .
The WAP services "News" and "Highlights" are adapted to the special features of WAP mobiles. The information which appears in the mobile phone display is brief and clearly organized.

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