While Microsoft Corp. and America Online Inc. were the stars of the Internet content provider show at Wireless 2000, several supporting players launched wireless portals of their own, some with scene-stealing flair.
They include GiantBear.com, Strategy.com, SpyglassMobile. com, WiredCEO, Logica and Speedia.com.
John Dorfman, analyst at the Strategis Group, said these companies are just the tip of the iceberg. Strategis has heard from many other companies expecting to launch wireless Internet portals soon. Like the many actors who flock to Hollywood with dreams of becoming big stars, most of these wireless portal companies won’t make it, he added.
“You’ve got to wonder, how many companies will this market accommodate?” he asked. “They really have to find out how the value proposition is going to work. The demand isn’t there yet.”
These new portals have no recognizable brand to the consumer public, he added, so the best bet is to partner with carriers to promote their offerings.
“To me, that seems like the most relevant business case at this point.”
But carriers are looking for big names like MSN and AOL, as this week’s deals show. What’s going to happen, Dorfman said, is that some of these new wireless Internet portal providers are going to offer something compelling to carriers and customers that will make them stand out. Those that don’t will just be out.
“At some point, this market has got to shake out,” Dorfman said. “There’s going to be many winners, but a lot more losers.”
The key to success for a new player, and even a well-recognized one, is to design the portal from the ground up with wireless in mind. Just wirelessly enabling an existing wireline site is not enough to ensure success. Microsoft’s realization of this was the driving force behind its redesign of MSN Mobile.
Newcomer GiantBear.com was given major kudos for this as well, and it emerged from the show as the leading contender for best supporting actor in the portal drama. The company’s booth was swamped with visitors almost from day one, and the live bear cub on hand was only part of the reason.
The company said it will provide customized, Internet-based information services for users of any text-enabled wireless device, both Wireless Application Protocol-enabled phones or current-generation text-messaging handsets. GiantBear.com also is a wireless application service provider, offering its technology hosting, back office support, strategic consulting, systems integration and content conversion services to both its information content partners and to carriers.
Also playing a role in the wireless portal game is veteran actor Spyglass Inc., which launched its SpyglassMobile.com wireless portal, based on its Prism transformation technology, to offer Internet-based news and information services to wireless devices.
Aside from providing news, stock information and weather reports directly to Internet-enabled mobile devices, the site contains a downloadable simulation of a WAP phone, Palm device and handheld computer to see how the content would be rendered on each device.
The portal, while a consumer service, mainly exists as a demonstration site showcasing Spyglass’ Prism technology, which can translate existing Web sites into language understandable by wireless devices, the company said.
Strategy.com, calling itself the Personal Intelligence Network, launched a wireless Internet portal to deliver news, sports, finance, weather and entertainment information to any wireless Internet-enabled phone.
The Strategy.com Wireless Internet portal is a collection of content providers compiled into a network of co-branded wireless Internet services, Strategy.com said. It is the wireless extension of the Strategy.com syndicated network, which has some 250,000 subscribers and more than 75 affiliates providing content.
The company said it hopes to add interactive e-commerce services to the wireless portal later this year.
CEOExpress Co. and NetMorf Inc. said they’ve joined together to offer a wireless Internet portal, called WiredCEO, geared for high-level business executives. The site combines content from CEOExpress with NetMorf’s SiteMorfer technology.
SiteMorfer is another type of transformation technology that allows wireless devices to read existing Internet content. It does so by integrating directly with a site’s back-end data source. The software recognizes the protocol requesting the Internet content, gets the content and then sends it back to the device in the appropriate protocol.
Logica, a computer consulting and systems-integration company, introduced a consumer wireless portal for both WAP and non-WAP phones. The site offers a Personal Portal feature that allows customers to customize their services, as well as security, customer care and billing features.
Finally, Speedia.com, previously providing content to wireless providers like BellSouth Wireless Data L.P., came out with a wireless Web portal, offering Internet content and e-commerce services directly to customers using WAP phones and wirelessly enabled palmtop computers.
