BellSouth Wireless Data Unveils Broad Plan to Provide E-commerce On-The-Go - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, Sept 27, 1999

BellSouth Wireless Data is preparing to offer a wide-ranging portfolio of secure wireless e-commerce offerings beginning by the end of 1999 under a comprehensive strategy that it unveiled Wednesday during the PCS '99 show. BellSouth Wireless Data also announced several companies that it is working with to develop wireless e-commerce infrastructure and applications enabled for the BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network.

"E-commerce is virtually exploding across the Internet and wireless will play a large role in this incredible growth area," noted Janet Boudris, senior vice president, Strategic Marketing for BellSouth Wireless Data. "As our society becomes increasingly more mobile many people who buy goods and services via their computers also will want the same flexibility, freedom and control to easily and securely make purchases when they are on the go as well.

"BellSouth Wireless Data is well positioned to meet the demands of this mobile marketplace," Boudris said. "Our powerful, highly reliable and interactive Intelligent Wireless Network today can accurately and quickly deliver nationwide the critical information that consumers and service providers alike need to execute a wide range of transactions."

Fidelity Investments' wireless enablement last January of its InstantBroker personalized financial information and trading service via the Intelligent Wireless Network and RIM Inter@ctive Pager 950 was the first step in BellSouth Wireless Data's wireless e-commerce plan. BellSouth Wireless Data also has numbers of other initiatives in its plan, including adding infrastructure to its network that will allow other wireless e-commerce offerings to be deployed, and for the development of applications in such markets as finance, healthcare, personal banking and mobile shopping.

BellSouth Wireless Data is working with several companies to execute its wireless e-commerce plan, including Diversinet Corporation, First Call Corp. - a Thomson Financial company, and eButler.com.

Diversinet Corporation, a Toronto-based company, develops products based on public key infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificate technology. Diversinet's technology is capable of providing BellSouth Wireless Data subscribers with digital, electronic "signatures" that will verify their identities so that they can securely access personal and confidential information, purchase goods and services, write prescriptions and the like wirelessly using compact, handheld devices.

BellSouth Wireless Data and Diversinet will begin testing the PKI technology in conjunction with the BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network in October using a financial application from Boston-based First Call Corp., the global financial community's leading source of real-time broker-sourced research, earnings estimates, equity and fixed income ownership information, insider trading information, and corporate news releases. The First Call application will be used by select financial analysts to have confidential quote and rating information regarding companies they are tracking delivered wirelessly to the RIM Inter@ctive Pager 950.

BellSouth Wireless Data and Diversinet are also evaluating opportunities in the healthcare environment and are in active discussions with a national medical company to market wireless e-commerce solutions to the medical community. Among the solutions to be developed will be the ability of doctors to wirelessly transmit prescriptions to pharmacies even when they are on the road at a conference or traveling to and from the hospital.

BellSouth Wireless Data is also working with other partners to explore broader opportunities in the world of wireless e-commerce. The company is working with a major financial institution to build a personal banking application enabled for the BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network. BellSouth Wireless Data also is partnering with Holmdel-N.J. based eButler.com, a subsidiary of Instanetics, which is developing an application that will allow users to order and pay for groceries, all from the RIM Inter@ctive Pager 950. This type of offering is one that will be used by consumers only when circumstances don't permit them to shop in person and, therefore, will be bundled in the future with other similar convenience applications.

"The potential is huge and the applications are seemingly endless," Boudris said. "Forrester Research projects that U.S. business to consumer e-commerce sales will increase to $18.1 billion in 1999 from $7.8 billion just a year ago. Business-to-business sales will jump from $43 billion in 1998 to $109 billion this year. And the numbers will just keep growing as innovators and entrepreneurs devise more ways to conduct business in an Internet setting."

BellSouth Wireless Data, L.P., headquartered in Woodbridge, N.J., is an expert in providing proven wireless data communications solutions that eliminate the barriers between critical information and mobile users. The company, a winner of the prestigious Sears Innovation Source of the Year and Partners in Progress awards, delivers a competitive advantage and increases personal productivity for aggressive, innovative companies and individuals leveraging communications technologies to meet their strategic goals. BellSouth Wireless Data operates its wireless data service throughout the United States, covering more than 93 percent of the urban business population located in 492 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and non-MSAs with a total population of 200 million people.