In a move that takes the telecommunications industry a step closer to Dick Tracy's two-way wrist radio, two competing versions of pagers that double as wristwatches are scheduled to be introduced next year.
The manufacturers are optimistic that this new wrinkle in "beeper" technology will expand the fast-growing market for pagers, but analysts aren't so sure.Both pagers are the products of a joint effort between an electronics firm and a watch manufacturer: Motorola Inc. and Timex Corp.; and AT&E, a San Francisco-based start-up, and Hattori Seiko Co. Ltd. of Japan.
But the similarity ends there: The products use different technologies.
The Motorola/Timex Wrist Watch Pager, which weighs less than two ounces, uses the existing radio common carrier system. But the AT&E/Seiko Receptor Messagewatch uses a portion of the FM radio band, called the subcarrier, to relay messages.
The AT&E Messagewatch is expected to begin test marketing in Portland, Ore., where AT&E's research laboratories are located, in mid 1990. Motorola plans to have its product available nationwide in the first half of 1990.
Beepers now on the market typically are hooked onto belts or carried in purses and pockets.
Philip Gugel, vice president of financial services for AT&E, expects the Messagewatch to attract customers who have never before owned a pager.
"The paging business that exists today is a subset of the market we perceive. . . . We think consumers for the first time will be interested in participating in this personal messaging business."
Jim Page, marketing manager for Motorola's paging division, has similar hopes for attracting consumers, but is more cautious. "We are excited about that as a possibility, but we don't know that that is going to happen," he said.
The pager business has grown from 1 million subscribers at the beginning of the decade to 3.35 million in 1985 and 7.5 million at the end of last year, said Michael Vernetti, spokesman for Telocator, the mobile communications industry's trade association, which is based in Washington, D.C.
Those subscribers are predominantly doctors and nurses, lawyers, and salespeople, repair and maintenance personnel.
Since the industry's infancy the goal has been to attract consumers who would use pagers for non-business purposes: working mothers who want to touch base with their children, husbands keeping tabs on pregnant wives and adult children who worry about their elderly parents.
But telecommunications industry analysts are skeptical about whether watch pagers can win over many of those customers.
"I think it could modestly expand the market, but I stress modestly. ... I would be surprised if it increases dramatically," said Jay Samstag, an analyst with Duff & Phelps in Chicago.
He expects Motorola's Wrist Watch Pager to be a big hit, but primarily because he expects many current pager customers to switch to wristwatch pagers. "No question in my mind that Motorola will be successful with this. I don't see how they can miss."
David Soetebier, an analyst with A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis, believes the watch pagers will have limited appeal, at least initially, because of the price.
The most popular pagers now on the market, alphanumeric models that display brief messages and callers' phone numbers, start at $175, said Vernetti. Pagers that merely beep, called tone-only, can be purchased for less than $100. Monthly service charges typically range from $12 to $20 a month for alphanumeric service.
By contrast, Motorola, the nation's largest pager manufacturer, expects its unit to sell for about $300, plus monthly charges.