Washington Technology Online Telecom Watch

Lucent Shines in Wireless Market: Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, N.J., in 1996 captured the largest share of the wireless office market - 32 percent - of any one company, according to a report by Frost & Sullivan. Lucent had an even larger - 48 percent - share of the wireless local area network market.

Revenues for the wireless market in 1996 were $390 million; $218 million for wireless LAN, according to Frost & Sullivan.

Lucent has a great head start in a growing area; the research firm predicts that the wireless LAN market will triple to more than $600 million by 2000.

Online Stock Pointers: PointCast Network, the popular "push technology" service that brings World Wide Web information to the masses, has formed an agreement with online investing service E-Trade Group Inc., Palo Alto, Calif. PointCast users can get free research reports on 7,000 stocks and invest online for a commission fee.

The company reports include market charts, stock prices and analyst forecasts. The first trade for PointCast viewers will be free. The companies' Web sites are http://www.pointcast.com and http://www.etrade.com.

NationsBank Ranks First in Technology: In the past nine months it has been available, NationsBank Corp.'s PC Banking service has attracted 250,000 users. The service lets customers see account balances, plan budgets, transfer funds and pay bills online.

A 1996 Vanguard Technology Survey commissioned by Merrill Lynch ranked NationsBank, Charlotte, N.C., first among United States banks in using technology to better serve customers. The bank offers software called Managing Your Money.

We Are Our Computers: Digital certificates will be the big news in intranet identification, not passwords or personal identification numbers, says a new report by Forrester Research, Cambridge, Mass.

Such IDs will be safer, especially when issued by a known certificate company such as VeriSign or CyberTrust, Forrester said.

Paul Callahan, who wrote the report, said that over the next two years people will have the same number of digital certificates on their PCs as credit cards and other IDs in their wallets. Additionally, he said, certificate management will become a full-time job at companies.

-Shannon Henry

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