Since announcing its new vision last fall, the Wireless Data Forum has taken several significant steps in the last weeks to move toward its goal of transforming into an industry-wide organization
Most recently, the organization hired Mark Desautels as the WDF’s new managing director. Desautels began work March 2, replacing Smith Buckland, the company that handled the managing duties in the past. Desautels hails from the Congressional Budget Office, where he formerly was assistant to the director of the Office of Inter-governmental Relations, functioning as a press spokesman and public information officer.
Another new addition, Maggie O’Hayre, rounds out the WDF management. O’Hayre previously was with the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association’s Industry Affairs Group.
At its Wireless ’98 conference last month, CTIA bestowed its President’s Award to WDF President Dick Lynch, executive vice president and chief technical officer of Bell Atlantic Mobile, for his work in restructuring the former CDPD Forum toward this new vision. Lynch dedicated the award to the entire WDF.
At an organizational meeting held just after the conference in Atlanta, the WDF’s board of directors met to discuss several issues, including expanding the board’s membership, new administrative positions, the expansion of its website and its strategic plan for the next six months.
The board decided to increase its size from nine to 15 directors in an effort to better reflect the scope of its membership. As such, it appointed representatives from Unwired Planet Inc., IBM Corp. and Microsoft Corp. to the board. The three remaining board members will be elected by the entire organization in the coming months.
The Wireless Data Forum is the expanded incarnation of the former CDPD Forum, which voted last year to expand its membership and mission to move beyond the Cellular Digital Packet Data protocol focus. These new members are a direct result of the WDF post-protocol philosophy, the organization said.
In a related move seen as an extension of its hand to those who actually use the technology, the WDF’s also welcomed the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority as its newest member. “We are going to continue to pursue new members that will reflect this broader outlook,” Desautels said.
The board also expressed its wish to establish strategic relationships with other wireless data organizations, such as the Wireless Application Protocol Group. Desautels couldn’t name any other organizations in particular the WDF plans to pursue, but said he feels the members would like to see it take a more international scope.
“There are some feelings on the part of the membership for us to think a little more internationally and not be so North American-centric,” he said. “They have expressed to me that we should begin to have a little more of an international focus and approach.”
Also new to the forum is an emphasis on communication and providing information to both members and potential customers. As such, WDF announced its new newsletter, called DataLine, and said it will introduce a newly expanded website May 1 to act as a “comprehensive source of information for all wireless data development issues for both industry insiders and consumers interested in wireless data products and services.”
According to Desautels, the forum is evaluating what of the old organization to retain and what needs changing, as well as what new areas should be addressed. He mentioned WDF’s technical specifications team as a particular source of value in the past, citing the recent publication by the Telecommunications Industry Association of a series of documents it presented for CDPD system specifications. The publishing of the series of 44 interim standards and 20 telecom system bulletins is the first step in establishing them as first a TIA standard and later an American National Standard, the organization said.
Desautels said the forum plans to continue developing its agenda over the next several months to emerge at the Vancouver Convergence Summit in June demonstrating a solid new vision.
“I’m very excited about being here,” he said. “You keep looking at all the market data and think `how can this not be a rocket you’re strapping yourself into?’ My personal goal is to have these market expectations come to pass … I think it’s time those industry projections stop moving out.”
