3. Тексты для рецензирования, аннотирования и реферирования Telecommunications: Samsung straddles the cellular world in a unique position of strength

Mobile phones have already revolutionized the way we talk, allowing us to get in touch wherever we are, whatever we are doing. In the space of a few short years it has moved from costly business tool to household object, used as much for chatting with family and friends as for vital commercial communication.

But this is only the start. If you think the current pocket phones are miniature marvels, wait until the next generation begins to arrive in the next four or five years. They will have big, color screens, allowing you to surf the Web at lightning speed. They will have cameras, so you will be able to use it as a videophone or simply take pictures and send them off as attachments to e-mails.

The phone will be able to recognize your voice, so you won't need to punch keys, and it will remember all your phone numbers for you. For business users, the new mobile will have a huge capacity for data – much higher than today's fastest landline modems. So computing wherever you are – on an oilrig, on the farm or simply at a customer's office will be made as simple as clicking a button.

The road map towards this mobile nirvana is now being agreed internationally, at the International Telecommunications Union. Under the trade name IMT 2000, the world's mobile phone network operators and manufacturers are devising a universal standard for the link between a phone and the network, known as the air interface, that will allow anyone with a mobile phone and subscription to get a line anywhere in the world.

One of the companies leading these changes is Samsung, the giant Korean multinational enterprise, which has а comprehensive telecommunications capability ranging from exchange equipment, network systems and cellular infrastructure to consumer equipment such as digital mobile handsets and cordless phones. The company's main involvement has been with the CDMA standard used in North America and the Pacific Rim, but is also well known for innovative handsets using the GSM standard. In 1996 Samsung established the first commercial CDMA cellular service in the world. That same year, the company shipped the first CDMA digital handsets to Sprint in the United Slates and is now the largest handset provider in the U.S. with customers including Airtouch. In Australia, Hutchison Telecom has ordered an entire Samsung CDMA system from network to handsets.

According to DataQuest, in 1998 Samsung sold 5 million CDMA handsets, 28.5% of the 18 million total sold worldwide, making it the world's largest supplier. It is also estimated that Samsung sold 6 million handsets in the first half of 1999 and anticipates that the company will retain its No.1 spot for the third year running, with a 40% market share this year.

Unusually in a mobile world that is polarized between GSM and CDMA. Samsung also has a significant GSM capability, mainly as a handset supplier. The tiny, lightweight nature of some of their smallest phones has collected a shower of awards from Europe's most authoritative mobile phone magazines.

European network operators including Italy's TIM, Britain's Vodafone, France's FTM, Portugal's TMN and Austria's Mobilkom have chosen Samsung handsets, attracted as much by their features, such as voice activated dialing, as by their jewel-like design.