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COPYRIGHT 2001 The Dallas Morning News
Byline: Gregory Katz
Mar. 29--LONDON--Europeans routinely transfer money without taking the time to visit their bank branch or sit down at their computer. They just flip out their cell phone, punch in a security code and move the money with a few keystrokes.
The same is true for people alarmed by news that might hurt their portfolios or looking to make a stock purchase right away. A special service allows them to use codes to buy and sell stocks on line, with commands issued from their cell phone keypad.
What's commonplace in Europe, which enjoys a single technological standard for mobile phones, is still a novelty in the United States. The United States is saddled with three competing platforms that are incompatible with each other.
Tapio Hedman, a spokesman for Nokia, the Finnish cell phone giant that has its U.S. headquarters in Irving and a manufacturing plant at Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, said intense competition in Europe is spurring the rapid development of new, inexpensive, user-friendly cell phone applications.
"Europe is clearly the world's biggest mobile phone market, with over 300 million users compared to just over 100 million in the United States," he said. "So the demand for new services and new technologies is very high."
Market growth has been boosted by wide acceptance of the GSM system, which is used in 122 countries and now offered in some parts of the United States.
The common...
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