Wireless Web is talk of mobile-phone industry convention

"I'm not sure than 10-plus years from now, we won't do everything
wirelessly. That's why we and others are investing so much in this
wireless future," said Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com.

Wireless transactions aren't a big driver at Amazon.com, the best-known
e-commerce company, he said, "but take it far enough into the future, I
think they'll be 100 percent of revenue."

At a series of speeches Tuesday morning, industry leaders including Mr.
Bezos, Compaq Corp. CEO Michael Capellas and Alain Rossman, president of
Phone.com agreed that it will make the most sense in the future for
customers to use a variety of devices - not some super-communicator that
combines features of the phones, personal computer and handheld
organizer.

They also said that joint ventures will be more important than ever, as
Internet, computing and telephone companies try to meet in the middle.

"The ability to partner and build alliances may be the most important
core competency that any company has as they go out into the Internet,"
Mr. Capellas.

For instance, Compaq wouldn't try to build the wireless
modem it wants for its new handheld Windows CE computer, because it
would be cheaper and faster to find a partner.

The industry hasn't found the best business model for e-commerce
services. Some mobile phone companies will want to own the content
services, while others will simply charge subscribers for the
information they download and others will handle billing services for
content providers and collect a fee based on what consumers spend.

"What I would like to give customers somehow is flat-rate pricing on
wireless Internet access," Mr. Bezos said. "We saw in the wireline world
that that really drove adoption. That would be a huge win, not only for
the customer, but for all the companies providing these services, too."