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Everybody’s Business

Dallas business analyst David Johnson on Travelocity’s "dream map," fancy phone technology, and cool gadget Ricochet.
By David Johnson |

HIT THE ROAD…WITH LITTLE JACK
Lately it seems like every time Alan Greenspan and his buddies at the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee come out of their “holes,” they see their shadows and we get six more weeks of a slowing economy.

As the economy sputters, penny-wise travelers are turning to Fort Worth-based Travelocity.com to lift them out of the doldrums. Travelocity’s new “dream map” does the trick. Faced with spring break or a free weekend and a budget, web surfers simply enter an amount of money they can spend and the search engine tells them how far they can go. The “dream map” conjures up all-inclusive Mexican vacations, long weekends in Las Vegas, even roundtrips to Europe. If the dream fits your fancy, a few more clicks and you’re off.

Wall Street is warming to affable CEO Terry Jones’ prediction that Travelocity will turn profitable by the second quarter of this year, six months earlier than had been projected. Alliances are part of the success of TVLY. Reservations at any of the 50,000 hotels they offer are handled by Dallas-based USA Networks Hotel Reservations Network. If you click on “travel” at the nation’s most popular web site, Yahoo, you’re directed to Travelocity. The same is true with AOL.

Now, if only your bags would arrive when you do.

MEN IN BLACK
As a visitor to this year’s hotsy-totsy Sundance Film Festival in January, I witnessed a telephonic phenomenon. The LA beautiful people, dressed in black on black on black, all seemed to be sporting two or three cell phones. Call traffic was so high that cell sites were jammed. I overheard conversations that went something like this, “If you can’t get me on the Sprint number, try the AT&T or Verizon numbers.”

It’s a good thing those little buggers keep getting smaller.

OFF THE COUCH AND INTO THE MALLS!
The days of running to Best Buy or Comp USA to buy the hottest new PC are over. Store shelves are filling up with 17” monitors and azure-colored Apples. The same thing is true in the world of mobile phones. It used to be exciting to replace your hard-wired car phone with a clunky Motorola portable that had 20 minutes of talk time. Now, however, the prospect of e-mail retrieval and multicolored faceplates is hardly enough to get buyers into stores.

Enter the vaunted 3G, or third generation of communications. 1G was the analog phone that allowed you to check in with the babysitter from your car. 2G is the digital wonder you’re now using that offers longer talk times, text and voice messaging, and caller ID. 3G will allow all of those things, plus high-speed Internet access, bigger screens, MP3 audio, and even streaming video. 3G will allow you to watch All My Children or CNBC from the comfort of your commute.

Here’s the rub. Licensing for the technology is just beginning and startup costs are high. While the delay continues (it looks like Dallas service won’t start before late 2002), Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and Fujitsu’s sales volumes of existing phones continue to drop. Texas Instruments, who makes the all-important semiconductor chips for the handsets, is languishing, and retailers are looking to other avenues like headsets and disposable batteries to pay rent.

I’VE GOT NO STRINGS
As an admitted “gadget freak,” I’ve been enjoying a trial subscription to Ricochet, a new wireless Internet connection that gives near-DSL-speed access to the Internet. San Jose-based Metricom (Nasdaq: MCOM) makes the paperback-sized wireless box that plugs into your laptop. Unlike Dallas-based MobileStar Network, which makes a wireless device that will work in Admiral’s Clubs, airports, hotels, and soon in Starbucks, Ricochet gives you wireless access at 128 kbps anywhere within a geographic area.

Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, and other cities already have the service, and the company promises 46 markets by next year. Ricochet has a strong North Texas connection: Their network operations center is in Plano.

Downside? The box costs $99 to $200 and the service runs $70 to $80 monthly. That’s a lot of money to check your horoscope, but there are many users who don’t have access to cable modems or DSL, and freeways are full of road warriors who’d gladly change lanes to stay connected.

STATS

3,366,618
Population of Greater Dallas

1,146,050
Population of Greater Austin

9
Dallas’ national rank in size

21
Austin’s national rank in size

470,000
Number of new jobs Dallas gained 1990-1999

259,100
Number of new jobs Austin gained 1990-1999

140,000
Number of businesses in Dallas

10,167
Number of businesses in Austin

9
Dallas’ rank in Fortune’s “Best Cities for Business in North America”

0
Austin’s rank on that same list

Sources: Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce, Austin Chamber of Commerce

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