Will the SEC force tough new rules on the mutual-fund industry or
settle for a few trophy prosecutions? Some 95 million American
households own mutual funds, so one thing's for sure: Donaldson's
efforts to deal with market-timing and other questionable practices
will have a large audience.
GUENTER WEINBERGER
Who CEO and President, Sandbridge Technologies
Why Watch? His "universal" cellphone chip could mean huge
breakthroughs for business travelers.
Okay, ready for the quiz? Please match the following incompatible
network standards (TDMA,
GSM, CDMA,
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) with the
long-distance carrier(s) that operate on them (Verizon, Sprint,
Cingular, AT&T, Nextel).
Caution: Some companies use more
than one standard, while one on the list uses none.
Millions of cell-toting Road Warriors have flunked that test while
lamenting, "There's gotta be a better way!" At his 40-person shop
in upstate New York, Guenter Weinberger has heard their cries. This
year, he may have an answer - the "every mode" phone chip.
Think of the Sandbridge chips as the
Sweden of the chip wars -
neutral, standard-agnostic, ready to play nice with everyone.
Heading to a different part of the
United States, or to another
country? No sweat. Armed with one of these chips in your phone, you
just download some software and you're ready to gab with the
locals.
Weinberger, who once headed
Siemens' wireless
semiconductor group,
hopes to start selling his programmable chips sometime this year.
He's got company, though; mighty
Texas Instruments has its own
plans for a single-chip cell design in 2004. If Weinberger makes it
to market first, he'll be the emancipator of the cellphone. And
business travelers will pass the quiz every time.