BellSouth Wireless Data today introduced the next evolution in wireless communications - BellSouth MyBiz(SM) interactive, a new brand that offers businesses and individuals the capability to customize their mobile worlds by selecting different combinations of wireless services for use nationwide on a single handheld device. BellSouth Wireless Data President and CEO William F. Lenahan introduced MyBiz during his opening CEO Address at WAVE 2000.
"BellSouth MyBiz interactive is an overarching vision of our e-business strategy that will result in the merging of wireless with the Web," said William F. Lenahan, president and CEO of BellSouth Wireless Data. "MyBiz interactive takes wireless communications to the next level in that it offers a broad range of services that give businesses and individuals the ability to define their own ultimate wireless data user experience.
"Under MyBiz interactive," Lenahan explained, "users have access to many wireless services from which they can pick one, some or all for use on any single wireless handheld device. They will be able to set up and manage many of these services via the Web."
Businesses and individuals will be able to choose from the following services:
- Interactive Messaging PLUS - Formerly known as BellSouth Interactive Paging(SM) service, Interactive Messaging PLUS gives RIM 950 Wireless Handheld users the ability to communicate with each other in seconds, and receive notification that their messages have been both delivered and read - a feature no other company can offer. In addition, Interactive Messaging PLUS users have the ability to exchange e-mails with Internet users worldwide, send messages to a fax machine and text-to-voice messages to a telephone. Interactive Messaging PLUS is available today. Beginning this summer, Interactive Messaging PLUS users will be able add POP3/IMAP e-mail to their Interactive Messaging PLUS service package. Users will have the ability to have their e-mail pulled at pre-determined intervals to their wireless handhelds from their existing Internet Service Provider/Internet Portal e-mail or WEBmail accounts. Users will be able to set up their wireless POP3 service on a special page on the BellSouth Wireless
Data Web site.
- Corporate E-mail - Allows mobile professionals and work groups to wirelessly extend their corporate-based e-mail to the palm of their hand. It is currently planned to begin offering wireless access to Microsoft(R) Exchange in May.
- Corporate E-mail PLUS - Combines the features of Corporate E-mail with the Interactive Messaging PLUS service. Current plans call for Corporate E-mail PLUS to be available beginning in May.
- Information and E-commerce - Individuals or businesses can access public Internet portals or Web sites to retrieve information, do applications or perform e-commerce using wireless handhelds enabled for the BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network(SM).
Partners such as Datalink.net, i3Mobile, SPEEDIA and WolfeTech already offer information services to subscribers via the Intelligent Wireless Network. Later this year, several BellSouth Wireless Data partners will begin offering on wireless handhelds an expanded array of secure e-commerce applications, including personal banking and wireless stock trading/portfolio management.
Fidelity(R)Investments already offers its customers wireless stock trading and portfolio management capabilities on the RIM 950 Wireless Handheld via the Intelligent Wireless Network through its Fidelity InstantBroker(SM) service.
Add-on Services
There also will be add-on services available to services under the MyBiz interactive brand - Personal Information Manager (PIM) and Personal Message Manager.
- PIM - which consists of address book, calendar and to-do list functions - will be available on all RIM 950 Wireless Handhelds beginning in early summer. Users will be able to purchase PIM desktop synchronization software and a synchronization cradle.
- Personal Message Manager allows individuals to manage their voice mail, fax messages and operator services using their wireless handhelds enabled for the BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network.
An enhanced version of Personal Message Manager will be available this summer.
"As more and more people discover the critical benefits that wireless data delivers to them when they are away from the desktops," Lenahan explained, "they will be looking for more and more capabilities and no two companies or people are going to have the same exact needs. That's where the services under the BellSouth MyBiz interactive brand fit so perfectly because it literally allows users to define their own wireless data communications solution."
Subscribers to the services available under the BellSouth MyBiz interactive brand will benefit from BellSouth Wireless Data's industry leading battery life, which users of BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network-enabled handhelds measure in weeks rather than days. Users can also receive messages of up to 16,000 characters - approximately 2,700 words - long, and they never receive a garbled message thanks to error correction features embedded in the core network architecture.
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