MSN Extends Mobile Data Services

A new version of the MSN Mobile data service, 2.0, adds two-way Web data transfer to the earlier one-way notification service. Scheduled for release in April, MSN Mobile 2.0 enables sending and receiving e-mail on mobile phones. It also gives access to real-time stock quotes, flight information, news, driving directions, address books, and Yellow Pages entries. Although it lacks a clear revenue stream in the evolving consumer market for mobile Web services, Microsoft is vying with rivals such as Yahoo and AOL for telecommunications carrier partners, and has announced alliances with Nextel and AirTouch Cellular.

The wireless Web, the hottest of current buzz concepts, delivers data services—for example, e-mail, airline flight information, or stock quotes—to mobile phones and handheld computers (PDAs) such as the Palm or Pocket PC devices. MSN Mobile’s focus is on mobile phones and consumer-oriented data services. In December 1999, the Yankee Group consulting firm estimated that 15 million wireless phone subscribers will be using Internet-enabled “smart phones” to access data from the Web by the end of 2000, a figure projected to increase to almost 50 million by 2002.