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ROOFTOPS 2001 Microsoft! Starbucks! Oh, and Some Guys in Texas While news of Microsoft's racial discrimination suit spread Wednesday, MS announced a wireless partnership with Starbucks and MobileStar Network. Not that we heard much about the mystery networking company; apparently it's more fun to muse about the surfing, sitting and sipping habits of urban latte addicts. Since 90 percent of Starbucks customers are heavy Net users, it makes
sense to offer wireless access to gadget-toting coffee drinkers. But don't
use the c-word. "This is not going to become a cyber-cafe,"
Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz told the Wall Street Journal. "Internet
cafes are dark, cold places - everything we're not," echoed another
Starbucks exec in a Forbes.com article, adding that the store's wireless
access points won't be obvious. (Let's hope for usability's sake they're
not completely hidden.) Interactive Week's Todd Spangler didn't accept
Starbucks' semantic wrangling - or didn't hear it. "The effort represents
the largest-scale attempt to date to bring the 'Internet cafe' concept
to the United States," wrote Spangler. Forbes.com's Amy Doan raised some issues about the deal, such as the lack of an a la carte plan (Starbucks customers will have to subscribe to MobileStar to use the service.) "Customers who do subscribe will be confined to Microsoft's MSN and will likely get extra helpings of Microsoft content," said Doan. And the planned customer card, which would enable customers to order coffee via mobile phones, "could be a logistics nightmare." Interactive Week backed up Doan's subscription complaint with the cost of the monthly MobileStar subscription card: $15.95 to $59.95. The wireless access card would be $79 to $199. Even a venti frappucino doesn't cost that much. So Starbucks adds a perk to its shops and Microsoft gets more publicity
for MSN and its .Net strategy. What about MobileStar, the company actual
ly providing the service? It took a Seattle reporter, the Seattle-Post
Intelligencer's Dan Richman, to actually call the Texas-based MobileStar
in addition to the hometown crews at MS and Starbucks. MobileStar's chief
exec admitted that only "a small number" of machines are decked
out for wireless access, but he called the deal "transformative"
for the company, which currently maintains networks mostly in airports
and hotels. Richman also provided some key techie details: MS software
will control the network, but devices from rivals like Palm can work on
it. Net-enabled cell phones won't work, and businesspeople may be able
to access their corporate intranets. Hey,
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