American Mobile Changes Name to Motient Corp.

Reinforcing its change of corporate direction, American Mobile Satellite Corp. (Reston, VA) has renamed the company Motient Corp., a new name that it hopes will convey a sense of information in motion. The idea is to create a parallel between the company name and the mobile professionals it is seeking to serve.

"Part of the frustration of having satellite in the name has always been that the company is sandwiched between Globalstar and Iridium, and that's not what we do," said Walter Purnell, Jr., Motient president and CEO. It was time for a more visible explanation of what the company is trying to accomplish. The new name does not signal a change, Purnell added. Rather, it records a change that the company has been making over the last couple of years as it has steadily moved away from being a satellite voice business to a business that offers both a voice and data system, with a focus on the data.

As part of this migration, the company has made a series of distribution partnerships in various industry segments to help solidify its data presence: In the pager/reseller area, it has established relationships with Skytel, Metrocall, and, most recently, TSR Wireless. In the corporate arena, with Computer Associates and IBM, and in the mail service/ASP market, it has established partnerships with Critical Path and Central Messaging. It also has formed a relationship with Inciscent, a joint venture of Aether, Metrocall, and PSINet.

Now that it has some key relationships established, the newly named company will put in motion its branding campaign, a key part of which will be joint marketing with its partners. Although the company's focus will continue to be on small businesses and home offices, some of the recent partnerships also suggest that the company is headed for a more consumer-oriented focus. The ground swell from the small business segment likely will leak into the consumer market, and it might make sense to get into some retail distribution later this year, Purnell said.

In the meantime, the company plans to work on establishing its new brand and binding it to its new image as a provider of wireless data solutions and mobile Internet access.

By Ellen Jensen, Managing Editor