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Technology — Digital Pictures May Be Worth More Than 1,000 Words

Technology: Photo Firm

Partners With Qualcomm

To Send Wireless Pics

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words.

Pictures are also worth a lot of dollars , billions, in fact.

San Diego-based PhotoJet LLC plans to help further develop the photography market with a new line of wireless digital cameras.

Last week, PhotoJet signed a multimillion-dollar agreement to license Qualcomm, Inc.’s code division multiple access (CDMA) and high data rate (HDR) wireless technologies for use in a series of wireless digital products.

The first product, a wireless digital camera, is expected to be rolled out later this year or early next year. Specific financial terms of the licensing agreement were not disclosed.

PhotoJet’s wireless camera will capture a digital image and immediately forward it to a Web site for instant accessibility. Users will also be able to automatically E-mail the image to someone.

While the market for digital cameras is still evolving, Dan Cota, PhotoJet’s vice president of sales and marketing, believes digital wireless cameras will soon catch on.

“A lot of consumers still haven’t adapted to (digital photography), but the market is exploding,” he said. “The real restraining factor for us is the bandwidth of the networks.” Some countries already have the higher-speed CDMA networks. The United States should have those higher speed networks soon. At that point, this will be an extremely viable application.

Prepositioning

“What we’re doing is positioning ourselves for when everything gets faster and cheaper.”

It’s estimated more than 10 million digital cameras will be sold worldwide next year. International Data Corp., a Massachusetts-based analysis and market research firm, predicts worldwide digital camera shipments will reach 4.7 million this year and 22 million by 2003. By then, the digital camera market will have $6.4 billion in sales.

Lia Schubert, a research analyst for Boston-based InfoTrends Research Group, said wireless is the next step for digital photography. But she said wireless digital photography won’t be adopted right away by the average consumer.

“Digital photography was initially adopted by business users and industries such as insurance and real estate,” said Schubert, who covers Internet imaging. “It’s been moving now down to the consumers. Digital cameras were one of the hottest items last Christmas. Initially I would say wireless digital cameras would start off the same way.”

Partnering

Cota agreed. That’s why, he said, PhotoJet will initially market its cameras to journalists, photographers, law enforcement agencies and the like.

He said the key to PhotoJet’s success will be partnering with other technology leaders, such as service providers and photo sharing Web communities.

“We felt the technology partner was the first key to the solution, which was Qualcomm,” Cota said.

The recent licensing agreement with PhotoJet further reveals the viable uses of CDMA, said Diana Baldwin, a Qualcomm spokeswoman.

“I think it’s an example of what types of devices will use CDMA technology. I think it’s an example of what’s here today and what’s coming,” she said. “We’re very excited about the future.”

As for the future of wireless digital photography, Schubert said the technology’s heightened popularity will boost the market for photo-sharing Web sites.

InfoTrends estimates these types of sites have attracted 100 million users already.

“These images have to go somewhere and various companies are really going to fight to be the destination for these images,” she said.

PhotoJet is not stopping at wireless digital cameras. The company plans to eventually come out with other types of applications and services for imaging over a wireless network, such as video and medical imaging.

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