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San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc. has hitched its future to a satellite-based system that allows trucking companies to monitor and communicate with far-away rigs.
Initial response to the new product has been cautious. But Qualcomm's co-founder, Chief Technical Officer Andrew Viterbi, already is calling Omnitracs the company's most important product line.
Qualcomm expects the size of its market to be 50,000 to 100,000 trucks in three to five years, and between 50,000 to 200,000 over the next five to seven years.
And the market won't stop there, Viterbi said. The technology is expected to progress to accommodate voice communication by the mid-1990s, he said, when the company expects to target the much larger private automobile market and other transportation markets. Qualcomm already is researching this area.
For now, Qualcomm officials say their system is the only one that both pinpoints the locations of trucks traveling anywhere in the nation and offers two-way data communication.
Harvey White, Qualcomm chief operating officer, said nine trucking companies are testing the product, and six others are expected to start tests by the end of the month. He wouldn't reveal their identities, but did confirm that Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., has bought it in conjunction with testing that the U.S. Department of...