Word: wirelessed
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Starbucks shrugs off such dire predictions. "Analysts love the doom and gloom," says Lovina McMurchy, director of Starbucks Interactive. "We believe there is money in wi-fi," she insists. This past summer Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz even pointed to wireless as a factor contributing to the company's $410 million in revenues in June 2003, a 27% increase compared with $323 million in June 2002. Neither Starbucks nor T-Mobile will say how many people are using the service or how much money the venture has actually made...
...will wireless ever pay off for Star-bucks? It's hard to say. After all, who would have predicted that we would be queuing up every morning to hand over $3 for a cup of coffee? If Starbucks can manage that trick, perhaps it can make wi-fi profitable too. But one thing is almost certain: relying on cash-strapped students isn't likely to work. Trouble is, the much sought-after mobile professionals who can afford the wi-fi fee also prefer a more private space where they can conduct business and talk on a cell phone in peace...
...there is one group of road warriors for whom wireless works well: Starbucks' employees. Before wi-fi, the 600 regional managers--all of whom work with laptops--had to drive back to the office every day to file reports and order supplies for the six to 10 shops that each of them oversees. Now they can do all that during their store visits. The company says wi-fi has increased its managers' presence in stores as much as 25%, since they spend less time shuttling back and forth from the office...
...more serious threat to Starbucks' plan is the competition from free wi-fi--the crazy quilt of free wireless networks springing up in San Francisco, Seattle and other high-tech cities. Starbucks customers have been known to hop on a free Internet node and bypass the store's paid service entirely. "Why pay if you don't have to?" says Kevin Lawrence, 28, a software-industry entrepreneur, who spent hours typing on his laptop but hadn't bothered to buy anything during a recent visit to a Starbucks in Manhattan...
NEXT STOP: HOLLYWOOD Digital artists at Framestore, a firm that creates special effects for movies and commercials, rely on heavy-duty workstations to create new scenes. Using a secure wireless network, producers can then review the artists' work on their laptops and suggest changes...