VIENNA, Va.-Focusing on customer-based applications is ruining the potential of the wireless industry as demonstrated last week by the dip of Motorola Inc.’s stock price, said W. Kevin Hazzard, director of wireless services for Whitlock EBS.
Wireless Web products were oversold in Europe, leading to a backlash there because people do not want sports scores, commented Hazzard.
Motorola’s stock dipped last week after it said it expected its growth rate to slow. (See related story this issue.)
Whitlock of Glen Allen, Va., develops wireless applications for both the business-to-business and business-to-customer markets.
Hazzard, speaking to a business breakfast, said he does not believe the market is responding to wireless Web applications that are heavily advertised by Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS. Indeed, Hazzard thinks the consumer advertising of weather alerts and stock quotes is hurting the potential that wireless can be used for business services.
Sprint PCS disagrees with Hazzard’s assessment.
“One doesn’t hurt the other. We would argue that one fuels the other,” said company spokesman Dan Wilensky, noting that last year’s advertising of consumer wireless Web products spurred the launch this year of the business product. Business customers want data applications such as Microsoft Outlook address-book functions that are available by Sprint PCS, added Wilensky.
Hazzard highlighted two Whitlock products, one for a business and one business to customer application.
The business application was effective, Hazzard said, because it reduced the time information was available from weeks to instantaneous.
Whitlock has developed a product for an environmental remediation company that allows engineers to input data directly into personal data assistants while in the field and eliminates the previous infrastructure that was designed to convert the reports from the field to data and then prepare the data for publication.
“So the return on investment for being able to have the engineers in the field enter the data in … we are taking that infrastructure out. It’s instantaneous and it’s as error-free as you can get it because it is coming directly from the source,” said Hazzard.
The business-to-customer application sends wireless Web alerts to customers wishing to buy cars from CarMaxx. When a car meeting a customer’s requirements is included in the inventory, an alert is sent to the customer at 10: 30 a.m. that gives the customer mileage, color and options information on the selected car. The customer then either can schedule a test-drive or talk to a sales representative from their wireless phone, according to Hazzard.
