Leading software, internet technology and cellular telephony companies plan to create wireless data services that make information accessible anywhere via hand-held computers and "smart" cellular telephones.
The services are expected to be available in many parts of the world later this year and industry executives predict that by 2005 "smart phones" and other "information appliances" will be as commonplace as conventional telephones.
Alliances announced yesterday by companies including Microsoft, Motorola, Cisco Systems, British Telecommunications, Netscape and others, signal the rapid convergence of data and voice services in the wireless communications arena, mirroring similar trends in the "wired" world of telephone and cable networks.
Motorola, one of the leaders in cellular technology and Cisco, the biggest provider of internet networking equipment, announced a partnership aimed at creating the technology for cellular wireless Internet services.
The companies said they planned to invest $1 billion (€887 million) over the next four or five years to extend internet standards to cellular networks. They intend to set up four centres in the US, Europe and Asia where cellular service companies could test products and services.
In a separate alliance, Motorola joined with Nextel Communications, a US digital wireless communications service provider, Netscape Communications, the internet software company, and Unwired Planet, an internet software group, to introduce a service enabling Nextel customers to access a personalised internet "gateway" and exchange e-mail.
"This is the first step for the industry in bringing about the convergence between mobile voice and data services with the Internet," said Mr Dan Akerson, Nextel chairman and chief executive.
Netscape will operate the gateway website for the new service while Unwired Planet will provide its "micro- browser" for handheld devices and other software. In another development, Qualcomm, a leader in advanced cellular technology, teamed with US West, a regional telephone company, to test high-speed Internet access via a cellular network.
Meanwhile, BT and Microsoft yesterday confirmed they were collaborating on a range of new Internet and corporate data communications services to be provided to mobile customers around the world.
Mr Sohail Qadri, BT's director of mobile strategy, said the services would be tested in the UK by some of BT's key corporate customers before being launched worldwide. He said commercial services would be available within a year.
The initial plan is to market the services to BT's 13 million mobile customers in 10 countries. Concert, BT's international carrier, would distribute the services where BT had no subsidiary or partner.
Mr Paul Maritz, Microsoft executive vice-president, said the cellular data services would bring a step closer Microsoft's goal of enabling information access from desktop PCs, mobile computers, cellular telephones and hand-held computers or from televisions and internet kiosks.
The two companies intended to work together on wireless products based on Microsoft's Windows CE operating system.
