Mercury Paging Ltd is attempting to update the Cinderella image of the UKP100m-a-year UK paging market by offering a new alphanumeric pager with a value-added news feature courtesy of BBC Ceefax, and a cute line in options and peripherals. As a simple alphanumeric device, the 4oz Messenger One pager accepts and stores up to 16 personal messages totalling 2,000 characters in its memory, for immediate or delayed display; with the built-in information service, to be offered free of charge for the rest of this year, users are automatically notified every time the news flash page of the BBC Ceefax information service is updated, which is on average about 12 times a day. Marketing director at Mercury Paging Mike Marrs explained that newsflash messages are distinguished from personal messages by a single chirp call as opposed to the traditional continued bleep. Aimed at senior management, journalists and City dealers, the information service is the result of a partnership between Mercury Paging, in which Motorola has a 49% stake, and BBC Enterprises Ltd, a separate profit-making entity that sells BBC services around the world – BBC Enterprises will be taking an undisclosed share of the total Messenger One revenue. In addition to the news service, Marrs also stated that Messenger One users would be able to enjoy a more intimate relationship with their Motorola pager, which, apart from being the smallest on the market, is available with a number of harnesses to secure the thing around various parts of the body, such as the upper arm or, more improbably, the leg. Not only that, but – wait for it – there is a vibrator option as standard to replace the chirp or bleep notification: in situations where the user would prefer not to be bleeped, the pager can be set on vibrator mode, and it will start to vibrate gently as a message or newsflash comes through. Messenger One will come complete with all these features for UKP36 a month during 1990 – after that, the news service will cost an extra UKP2 a month. Messenger One certainly takes the pager several steps forward in terms of functionality, but the commercial usefulness of keeping up to date with general news in this way has still to be proved surely, if anything, news on stocks and share prices would have a more obvious market. Mercury Paging is still waiting to see how much impact this new service will have on its current 13% of the UK pager market, but whether or not Messenger One is a success, the vibrator mode used in conjunction with the leg harness attachment is sure to bring a whole new immediacy to the delivery of news. – Mark John
