Microsoft, Nextel need to rethink wireless portal strategy

Microsoft recently took an equity stake in Nextel Communications and committed to building a co-branded Internet portal for Nextel's wireless data customers. Strategically, it's a smart move for both firms. Microsoft gains access to Nextel's fast-growing customer base of business users, many of whom spend a lot of time on the road and crave untethered access to the Internet. And Nextel gains much-needed capital for implementation of its nationwide wireless data network, overlaying its already well-established wireless voice system. The deal will also enable Nextel to present a default start-up page for its wireless data customers to access e-mail, calendaring, electronic commerce and other applications.

But nothing in Microsoft and Nextel's announcement shows even the slightest vision regarding the special requirements for a road-accessible wireless portal. Read between the lines and you will see a wimped-down version of the msn.com portal, reformatted for a small screen and limited keyboard, not a tool for the road warrior.

What's missing from Microsoft and Nextel's vision of the wireless portal? It lacks understanding of what mobile users truly need from the 'Net: information services tailored to the localities through which they're passing - where to stay, where to eat, where to entertain themselves, where to get medical help.

Bill Gates summed up Microsoft's cluelessness on this point: "Microsoft and Nextel will deliver the next generation of wireless services to enable people everywhere to stay in touch with the information they need, regardless of location." But as far as mobile users are concerned, to paraphrase political consultant James Carville: "It's the location, stupid." Microsoft should integrate its portal with Nextel's user-location database, so it can deliver real-time information services appropriate to the user's current coordinates.

Also missing from Microsoft's wireless portal is any notion of vertical markets and their needs. Nextel's customer base consists only of vertical markets: public safety, field support and transportation personnel. Microsoft is dropping a horizontal-market consumer portal into an environment where users need information tailored to their industries. Microsoft should team with the 90-plus organizations crafting industryspecific applications for Nextel's wireless data net.

Another flaw with Microsoft and Nextel's proposed wireless portal is heavy reliance on "pull-mode" Web browsing. Most mobile users rely on lightweight pushed communications, such as paging and text e-mail, to supply them with information. Instead of HotMail, users need an IMAP4 e-mail service that will let them filter and control the messages they download or preview. Most information services should be delivered to Nextel users either through IMAP4 or paging, depending on how time-sensitive they are.

Speaking of wireless e-mail, Nextel's users already have access to the two-way Short Messaging Service (SMS), which is integrated with the carrier's Integrated Dispatch Enhanced Network (iDEN) airlink protocol. Does Microsoft plan to integrate its portal's e-mail service with Nextel SMS? It would be a serious disservice to Nextel's customers if they were required to check two e-mail inboxes: SMS and MSN HotMail.

Most fundamentally, the wireless portal must serve as the user interface for unified communications services, integrating delivery of telephony, e-mail, paging, voice mail and fax services to Nextel subscribers. There is no mention of a unified communications strategy in Microsoft and Nextel's announcement. There is no indication whether Nextel and its iDEN technology provider, Motorola, are designing their subscriber phones with a unified communications interface in mind. Any such terminal interface must dovetail closely with the design of the Microsoft-Nextel portal.

For most Nextel wireless-data customers, the carrier's portal will be their porthole to the Internet, and they will not be inclined to point their microbrowsers anywhere else. Let's hope Nextel, Microsoft and other business partners don't blow the chance to design a wireless portal to be proud of.

Kobielus is an Alexandria, Va., analyst with The Burton Group, an IT advisory service that provides in-depth technology analysis for network planners. He can be reached at (703) 924-6224 or jkobielus@ tbg.com. The opinions expressed are his own.