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Contacts:
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Steve Wood |
Marc KuykendallSkyTel Communications, Inc. 601-944-7416
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SkyTel
Launches New Service For Email, Voice Mail And Faxes
Mobile Platform Allows Customers To Stay In
The Know While On The Go
JACKSON, Miss., Aug. 11, 1999 – Imagine never checking your
voice mail again. Or never booting up your laptop just to see if you have
email. Or calling back to the office to see if an important fax has arrived.
There’s no need to do these things anymore thanks to a new unified messaging
service from SkyTel (NASDAQ: SKYT) that allows customers to manage voice mail,
email and faxes from their pagers.
The new service, called
SkyTel Message Center, notifies customers when they receive a voice mail, email
or fax at their office or home, and then provides several options in responding
to each. The service is available nationwide today.
“With SkyTel Message
Center, you’re always in control. Whether you’re across the hall or across the
country, our new service allows you to stay in the know while on the go,” said
John T. Stupka, SkyTel president and CEO. “SkyTel Message Center also provides
convenience and choice in prioritizing and responding to messages. Instead of
searching for your messages, let your messages find you.”
The service runs on the
Motorola PageWriter 2000 and 2000X interactive two-way pagers, which allow
users to receive and originate text messages. With these devices, customers
have a menu of options in responding to incoming messages.
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When SkyTel Message Center customers receive an email,
SkyTel will notify them who it’s from, what the subject is, the number of
characters, and whether attachments are included. The customer can then choose
to read the email, reply to it or redirect it to an alternative email address
or fax machine. Additionally, the customer can compose an email and send it to
any email address in the world and manage and store email addresses.
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For faxes, SkyTel Message Center customers will be notified
of the sender and the number of pages, and can then choose to send the fax to a
default number, send it to an alternate number or forward it to an email
address.
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For voice mail, SkyTel Message Center customers will be
notified of who called, from what number and whether the caller stamped the
message urgent or non-urgent.
If they choose, SkyTel
Message Center customers can also access all of their email, voice mail and
faxes, and view their text and numeric messages, from a secure,
password-protected home page on the SkyTel Message Center web site. So, even if
they’re away from their pagers or outside coverage areas, they can still access
all of their messages on the SkyTel web site.
Wireless Services Corp. of
Bellevue, Wash., provides the email technology and Internet platform for SkyTel
Message Center.
“This is an enormous leap
forward for wireless communications and wireless messaging,” said Steve Wood,
president and CEO of Wireless Services Corp. “SkyTel has consistently proven to
be a leader in paging technologies and convenience. We are excited to be
working with them on a product we know customers will find invaluable.”
According to the research
firm Frost and Sullivan, sales of unified messaging hardware, software and
services amounted to $329 million in 1998, and are predicted to grow to more
than $1 billion in 2000, hitting $5 billion by the year 2005.
“SkyTel Message Center is
the first unified messaging product to offer both a wireless and Internet
platform. The wireless platform is provided via two-way pagers and the Internet
platform via the secure web page on SkyTel’s web site,” explained Kerry McKelvey,
SkyTel’s vice president of marketing.
For more information on
SkyTel Message Center, call 1-800-643-0323 or visit the Message Center web site
at http://www.email.skytel.com/
SkyTel is a leader in
wireless messaging, serving more than 1.7 million customers. Since 1989, SkyTel
has led the industry toward true nationwide messaging through a series of
innovations that culminated in SkyTel two-way interactive messaging service.
This enables customers to exchange messages with the Internet and other pagers,
receive messages via email and the Internet on their pagers, and send messages
to any telephone in the United States. SkyTel is headquartered in Jackson,
Miss., and had 1998 revenue of $518 million. On May 28, 1999, SkyTel and MCI
WorldCom announced that a definitive agreement to merge the two companies had
been signed. The merger is currently awaiting shareholder and regulatory
approval.
Founded in 1996, Wireless
Services Corp. focuses on providing applications and information services to
wireless carriers and the business community. Wireless Services’ key expertise
includes wireless technology, Internet communications, and database and computer
server solutions. The company’s flagship service is AirNote, a wireless email
service that delivers Internet mail across one- and two-way paging and digital
telephone networks. The company is headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. For more
information, visit Wireless Services Corp. at http://www.wirelesscorp.com/.