If any company could be described as putting most of its telecoms eggs into one basket, it would be Motorola. This year, the US communications company is launching six new mobile phone handsets in Europe, five of which will be designed for a telecoms network being rolled out across the continent: GPRS, or general packet radio service.

GPRS lies between the second-generation GSM digital mobile phones of today (including wireless application protocol or Wap phones, which offer internet access) and the forthcoming 3G (third-generation) phones.

Using a GPRS handset to access the internet will be significantly different from using an existing Wap phone for the same function. GPRS will offer faster connection speeds (around 3-6 times faster) and an always-on connection, which means an end to the slow and clumsy dial-up process which current Wap users must endure.

GPRS users will also be charged by the amount of data they use rather than the length of time they spend online, making it more cost-effective to use services such as e-mail.

Last year, Motorola was the first company to launch a GPRS handset, the Timeport 260, a product aimed at the business market, but the company's new generation of GPRS products is targeted at many types of end-user - from consumers to corporates.

Martin Campiche, European vice president and director of marketing for Motorola' personal communications segment (PCS), says: "GPRS and not 3G is the real revolution. Nine out of ten applications [used on mobile phones] don't need 3G" -a sobering thought for those European telecoms operators that spent $92bn on 3G auctions across Europe last year.

Revenues

Motorola has a lot riding on the success of GPRS. The company's financial report for the fourth quarter of 2000 revealed that worldwide revenues for its PCS business increased by 1 per cent to $3.5bn but orders fell by 20 per cent to $2.9bn and operating profits plunged from $242m in 1999 to $76m.

Motorola has consequently restructured its business operations and rationalised its product portfolio - an exercise that saw the company abandon plans to co-develop a combined GPRS handset and computer with UK electronics company Psion.

Motorola has invested a lot in developing the GPRS market, both in terms of financial resources and in reshaping corporate strategy, says Mr Campiche: "We had to invest in a cultural change because we can't do this thing on our own. We were known for doing things by ourselves and creating our own standards, but now we have to work across divisions internally, and work externally with other companies."

Motorola aims to launch most of its GPRS handsets this summer and has four main target users: people who need to manage time; early adopters who like new technology; consumers looking for a stylish handset; and people who need to communicate with friends and family.

One of the new GPRS products, the Timeport 288, is aimed at business users and will offer fax, data and e-mail features. It will also have a large, high-resolution screen for easier reading of stock quotes and other information, and Motorola will provide an optional Bluetooth accessory, allowing the handset to be wirelessly connected to a PC or headset. The V120, meanwhile, is a designer handset with an MP3 music player and the ability to download screensavers and tunes.

Rival handset manufacturer Nokia says its first GPRS products will not arrive before the end of the year, but Motorola knows it is not enough to be first on the market.

One of Mr Campiche's favourite sayings is "content is King Kong" - "Applications and content are crucial to the success of GPRS. It is good content that will make GPRS a compelling proposition for consumers," he says.

To help drive content development, Motorola has opened four MAGNet (Motorola Application Global Network) Centres in the US, UK, Spain and Sweden, with others planned for Japan, China and South America. The MAGNet Centres provide third-party developers with support, training and testing facilities.

In developing its GPRS strategy, Motorola has been influenced by the runaway success of Sony's PlayStation games console, which succeeded in attracting many games developers to the platform. Motorola has even employed Juan Montes, who formerly worked for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and helped devise PlayStation's European launch strategy.

Today, Mr Montes is Motorola PCS' European vice president of technology: "The leap from GSM to GPRS is bigger than the leap from GPRS to 3G," he says, "and so the lifetime of GPRS will be long. There will be three 'killer applications' for GPRS - messaging, personalisation and games."

Sony has signed deals with the Japanese telecoms operator NTT DoCoMo in Japan, to offer PlayStation games on the latter's i-mode internet phones, while in Europe, Vodafone also plans to offer its subscribers PlayStation games.

"If you look at the services offered by i-mode, the ones that have made money have been entertainment," observes Dominic Strowbridge, director of MAGNet, London.

Motorola has been busily courting game developers. "We want to bring the big brands to the mobile environment," says Mr Montes. Sega already plans to develop games for Motorola, and last month the latter announced deals with the UK games developer Creature Labs and the Finnish mobile entertainment company Codeonline.

"If there's one thing we learnt from Wap, it's that you don't talk to consumers about the technology," says Mr Strowbridge. "You talk about the benefits and the great content."