NEW YORK-Denmark-based Bosch Telecom Inc., which introduced the World 718 phone in June, has decided to close its Dallas office for U.S. sales and marketing, although it will continue selling the handsets here.
The World 718 phone can operate on Global System for Mobile Communications 1900 MHz and 900 MHz networks. Its June debut was applauded by the North American GSM Alliance L.L.C. as representing “a breakthrough in international wireless communications.”
By early December, about 65,000 Bosch World 718 phones “were out in channels,” said Phillip Redman, program manager for wireless/mobile communications for The Yankee Group, Boston.
“For an introduction, it did pretty well. But it’s hard when you’re working in this market because carriers want a fuller line of analog and digital phones,” he said.
“Bosch tried through acquisitions to obtain GSM, [Time Division Multiple Access] and [Code Division Multiple Access] technologies, but [its attempts] didn’t work out.”
Echoing that theme, Kristine Ryan, public relations manager for Siemens Wireless Terminals, Richardson, Texas, said rapidly falling handset prices and demands for a broad product line have caused that phone manufacturer to rethink its strategy for the United States.
“North America is critical to Siemens, and we are not exiting the business,” she said.
However, Siemens will only make its S12 GSM phone product line available here through the first quarter of 1999. Meanwhile, the company is working to develop a portfolio of wireless products for the United States.
“We only have one GSM phone, and GSM is a small piece of the (domestic) wireless market,” Ryan said.
Early this year, Siemens said it had scrapped plans to offer its own CDMA handsets.
“We need to broaden that and are looking at a variety of options in order to compete, (including the possibility) of developing lower-cost phones through acquisitions,” she said.
For Bosch’s World 718 phone, Omnipoint Communications Services Inc., BellSouth Mobility DCS and Microcell Telecommunications Inc. were the primary buyers, while other members of the GSM Alliance, including Western Wireless Corp., Powertel Inc. and Pacific Bell Mobile Services, “didn’t buy into it,” Redman said.
Redman is one of at least two market analysts whom David McCartney, vice president of marketing and sales for Bosch in the United States, told early last week of the decision to eliminate the Dallas office, including his own job. The other is Dataquest’s Matt Hoffman, said Jennifer V. Chase of Socket Public Relations, a spokesman for Bosch. Hoffman could not be reached for comment at RCR press time.
Redman said his understanding is that “Bosch is pulling out of the U.S. business altogether.”
Not so, said Chase. She initiated contact with RCR Dec. 7 in order to set up a telephone interview with McCartney “for updates on the status of U.S. marketing activities.”
McCartney failed to materialize for a scheduled noon interview Dec. 9 due to airplane connection difficulties, Chase said. Later that day, Chase told RCR Bosch “has declined to comment on this situation.”
Louis Antoniou, vice president of PCS wireless technologies for Audiovox Communications Corp., Hauppauge, N.Y., said Audiovox would continue to distribute the World 718 phone in North America, as it has since the June debut.
“We’re still selling the phone next year and counting on the relationship, and we’re still working with Germany,” said Ellen Webner, public relations manager for Omnipoint, the first carrier customer for the handset.
Jeff Battcher, media relations manager for BellSouth Cellular Corp., said the World 718 phone “has been a good seller for our (BellSouth Mobility DCS) customers in North (Carolina) and South Carolina who travel back and forth overseas.
“Our understanding is that [Bosch] is moving its marketing department to Germany, and the phones already are made in Denmark. We feel confident in [Bosch] and will continue to sell the [World 718] phones.”
In August, pioneering cellular handset manufacturer Oki Telecom Inc., Suwanee, Ga., announced it had stopped manufacturing, sales and marketing of all analog and CDMA digital mobile phones in the United States.
Earlier this year, Northern Telecom Inc. closed its Matra Nortel Communications GSM handset manufacturing plant and sold the joint venture’s research and development unit in Germany to Nokia Corp. Nortel said it had decided to focus on the network infrastructure side of wireless telecommunications.
