THE WIRED INDEX
People talk about mobile commerce as though it's the Second Coming of the Internet, and it sure looks as though wireless transactions will deliver convenience that most of us, tethered to cumbersome boxes and insufficiently reliable ISPs, can only dream about. But this is just the beginning. If the next wave is mcommerce, the ocean is mbusiness.
Just as ecommerce pushed companies to connect customers, internal operations, and external suppliers, so mcommerce will drive investments inside and outside the mobile enterprise. Mbusiness will happen when machinery on the plant floor in Guadalajara notifies you instantly of a problem, even though you're fishing from a dock in Myrtle Beach; when a shipping container in Manila reroutes itself in response to a message from a shipping network; when you walk into an office and the computer in your pocket automatically identifies you to the local network.
The Wired Index companies that stand to benefit include those that provide infrastructure (Cisco, Globalstar, Vodafone, WorldCom) or furnish decision-making content (America Online, Schwab, Reuters). But the greatest opportunities lie in real-time transaction services – gathering data, organizing it, and delivering it where it can do the most good. Several recent WIRX additions sit right in this sweet spot – BroadVision, i2, and Oracle – as well as WIRX old-timers First Data, Schlumberger, State Street, and FedEx.
It's all about getting machines in homes, stores, offices, and factories – and in between – working together systematically and proactively to serve real needs. Then all business, not just end-user transactions, will be mbusiness.
– Phil Hood (phood@actnet.com)
INDEX PERFORMANCE (as of 6/1/00)
| Name | Since 11/30/95 | Previous 12 Mos. | YTD
| WIRX | +420.64 % | +43.76 % | -0.48 %
| Nasdaq Composite | +221.08 % | +37.66 % | -16.43 %
| Dow Jones Industrials | +107.36 % | -0.35 % | -8.48 %
The Wired Index tracks 40 public companies selected by editors of Wired to serve as a bellwether for the new economy. For a complete description and the latest results, see stocks.wired.com. Data courtesy Bloomberg Financial Markets.
| NEW MONEY
| Remodeling a Business Monopoly
| The New Mconomy
