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This brings us to the software side-- unfamiliar territory for a manufacturing giant, but an increasingly critical aspect of any technology-based business.

Software Subtleties The twists and turns of Motorola's efforts to lead a confused industry toward a ubiquitous wireless software platform began with Waveguide, a middleware solution billed as a hardware- and network-independent protocol stack and associated application programming interface. The purpose of Waveguide was to shield software developers from the intricacies of the network, allowing applications to be quickly ported onto whichever network fabric was fortunate enough to attract subscribers. Waveguide was designed to insinuate itself into the guts of every wireless data product, part of a stealth strategy to influence the industry from within. Unfortunately, it was a little too stealthy, never achieving critical mass amongst developers.

Next came MNI, or Mobile Networks Integration. MNI, known as Monet to its friends, was Motorola's first "cloud"--an attempt to dominate the industry by enveloping the customer. Announced to great fanfare, MNI was positioned as a network of networks, an intermediation engine that would connect all of the availabl e wired and wireless infrastructures into one big happy family. MNI would broker air time, resolve hardware and software incompatibilities, manage multinetwork solutions and back-office connections, and present the customer with a single monthly bill. It made great slideware. But building, testing and deploying the monster proved impossible.

Motorola's AirMobile product line fared much better, a more modest approach to wirelessly enabling popular products like Lotus Notes and cc:Mail. Developed for Motorola by a small start-up called Nettech, one of the few survivors prospering in the wireless middleware niche, AirMobile actually delivered on its promises. But because it is such a focused product, it couldn't be leveraged to create over-arching strategic advantage.

This Time for Sure The latest incarnation of the panacea for portable platforms is a product called Memos. Memos is a client/server software development environment consisting of a new operating system along with device drivers for ultra-thin clients--the kind that might run on portable digital assistants, or whatever they get called this time around. Memos includes a server and a scripting language with which users can build voice messaging, fax, e-mail and Web browsing applications. Initially targeted at Motorola's advanced paging networks, including one-way FLEX systems as well as two-way ReFLEX and InFLEXion networks, Memos also will be usable on cellular and Personal Communications Services (PCS) networks, perhaps forming the foundation of future smartphone products. Among Memo's early adherents is none other than Philippe Kahn of Starfish Software, former CEO and founder of Borland, now back to his roots trying to build a wireless business around Sidekick. The enthusiasm with which Kahn is jumping into the market is so refreshingly charming I think I'll hold off sending him his "I Survived Wireless Data" T-shirt until he's built up enough scar tissue to wear it with pride.

You think this sounds harsh? The toughest thing to explai n to outsiders is that I'm really a genuine fan of Motorola's grit. What other company could conceive of a business unit called AirVentures, tasked with performing market reconnaissance while keeping the body count within acceptable limits? Motorola's new commander-in-chief Bob Growney--the Ulysses S. Grant of wireless data--has many battles yet to fight. I just hope the bean counters don't get the best of him before that big breakthrough we're all waiting for.

Bill Frezza is the President of Wireless Computing Associates. He can be reached via e-mail at frezza@interramp.com or at his online forum at techweb.cmp.com/ nc/frezza/frezza.html.