What to do? In a year or two, the answer will be simple: Use the car's voice-recognition system to dial the handheld lying on the seat next to you. That way, you won't need to fumble for the keypad buttons and won't need to steer with one hand. Instead, you'll talk through the vehicle's on-board microphone and listen through its speaker system-all via your personal cell phone.

Those capabilities are coming sooner than you might guess. In May, Ford Motor Co. is expected to announce that 5,500 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury dealerships will adopt a universal platform that will enable consumers to dock cell phones-any cell phones-in a broad range of new Ford vehicles.

Similarly, Chrysler Group has announced a universal cell phone platform to be launched this spring. The platform takes the universal concept into new territory by employing Bluetooth radio technology to enable Chrysler vehicles to communicate wirelessly with handheld cell phones. Theoretically, the communication can take place if the phone is almost anywhere within the vehicle-in the driver's pocket, on the front passenger seat or even lying on the floor. The end result is that the handheld phone does the transmitting and receiving, while the vehicle pipes the voice through its speakers.

Such universal concepts are suddenly creating a stir within the auto industry. Unlike General Motors' OnStar methodology, which now dominates the market, the universal approach is readily associated with consumer freedom and simplicity.

"What customer doesn't want to bring his phone into the car and have it work seamlessly?" asked Karenann Terrell, director of the e-Connect Platform for DaimlerChrysler, at a recent press conference. "This is just common sense."

Some of the world's biggest companies in the telecommunications and semiconductor markets evidently agree with Terrell's assessment. IBM, Intel, AT&T Wireless and Motorola are all ratcheting up to support the idea if it takes off.

"It's hard to judge latent demand, but we think the universal concept is going to be much more interesting to customers over the long term than embedded systems like OnStar's," said Dan Garretson, senior analyst for Forrester Research (Cambridge, Mass.).

That, of course, isn't what anyone was saying about the universal concept three years ago. Companies promoting the idea were banging on automotive equipment makers' doors back then with little to show for their efforts.

Cellport Systems (Boulder, Colo.), which signed the deal with Ford to supply the universal docking system in its vehicles, was one company that initially struggled to find a receptive ear within the auto industry. "Three years ago, they totally ignored us," said Pat Kennedy, Cellport's chairman and chief executive officer. "A year ago, they said, 'Interesting idea.'

"Now, with the heated competition between cell phone producers, they're looking at us and saying, 'How do we cooperate?' " Kennedy reported.

The demand for such universal platform capabilities has grown so quickly among automakers that Cellport now claims its 30-engineer crew can no longer handle it. After signing the deal with Ford, Cellport also inked agreements with Nissan and three other unnamed automakers outside the United States, Kennedy said. As a result, the company recently announced that it plans to divest itself of the business and has entered into talks with a larger tier-one automotive electronic supplier that wants to buy the company's automotive unit. "The program has gotten so big that it needs a company with several hundred engineers who are automotive-tenured," Kennedy said.

By tying the hands-free approach to the handheld cell phone, backers of the universal concept have suddenly made the handheld reemerge as a contender in the automotive telematics field, even as state governments move to outlaw these phones in cars.

Motorola Inc., however, may be making the most comprehensive push of all. The semiconductor giant is providing components for Bluetooth embedded phones, chips for automotive "head units," software for Bluetooth-enabled cell phones and module boxes for telematics-enabled vehicles, as well as the cell phones themselves.

Although Motorola is hedging its bets by remaining in embedded automotive phones, too, the company's executives say they foresee an undeniably strong market for handhelds in the automobile.

"This is definitely an emerging market," said John Hansen, director of marketing for driver information systems at Motorola in Austin, Texas. "The automotive OEMs believe their customers will want these features."

Industry analysts say that the universal approach will also benefit automakers because it frees them of the need to provide services and lets them build on their expertise in building hardware.

"This business model is more likely to succeed than any model we've seen up to now," said Garretson of Forrester Research. "Pretty soon, you'll see other automakers doing this."