Dear Editor:
This letter is in response to Tracy Ford’s May 4 Viewpoint column. It’s good to see someone who recognizes the value of non-voice services, and I’ve got some good news for you: Several North American carriers have begun offering the kind of services you discuss in the editorial, and in the next one to six weeks, several other major carriers will launch similar service offerings.
As a company responsible for creating and maintaining these personalized information services products, Intelligent Information has been busy getting services on these networks up and running.
We’ve also been busy in combating a widely held industry notion that if it isn’t a high-powered wireless data application, it isn’t worth exploring. But the fact of the matter is, consumer applications like stock quotes, sports scores or even soap-opera updates have a much larger potential market. And they add a certain level of personal utility to any digital phone offering, promoting not just use of the phone, but integrating it into the subscriber’s lifestyle.
Smart marketers recognize this and will reap the benefits of being among the first to market in this space.
Thanks for helping to counter our industry’s Euro-inferiority complex, and in raising the cry that non-voice services could be an important element on this side of the Atlantic.
Michael Forbes
Director of Marketing
Intelligent Information Inc.
Stamford, Conn.