They said they believed the sites would drive incremental revenue and attract new customers. DHL's Joyce, who has already deployed a wireless site, sees it the same way. Generally, U.S. corporations are thought to be about 18 months ahead of European companies in deploying e-commerce applications. The reason is obvious. Currently, only about a third of Americans own mobile phones-and nearly 70 percent of those are analog machines.
Digital phones work infinitely better in the digital world of data transmission.
In fact, Sprint PCS has already come out with several wireless Web products. Industry research firm Dataquest says 3 million users in the U.S. subscribe to wireless data services. Dataquest predicts that figure will be more like 36 million in three years. As the take up in digital wireless increases, expect to see more American companies embrace wireless Internet access. The next generation of Palm Pilots, for example, will offer wireless Net access.