This story appears in the
July 2000 issue of
Entrepreneur.
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When the topic turns to wireless Web, one of the first acronyms
you'll hear is WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). Intended as
a standard way to handle Net access over smart phones and handheld
devices, the widely endorsed WAP offers a binary delivery system
that's more efficient than HTTP at lower bandwidths and
provides a version of XML (the extensible markup language) designed
for small screens. It also features protocols for orchestrating
complex e-commerce transactions.
However, there have already been some problems. The usual
squabble over technical standards is being exacerbated by the fact
that shortcomings in security features have prompted conflicting
revisions of the standard. By the time Version 1.3 corrects those
problems and is approved sometime this summer, it won't be
compatible with prototype phones designed for Version 1.1. And
because it takes about 18 months to design a phone compatible with
a new microbrowser, volume shipments of WAP-enabled phones
won't start until late 2001.
Then there's the patent issue: A small company called
Geoworks is threatening to enforce a series of patents it claims
for WAP. According to Mark Zohar, an analyst at Forrester Research,
"What happens if Nokia or Ericsson or others follow suit with
their own patents? It could become a real disincentive to support
WAP."
While waiting for WAP, older technologies refuse to go away. For
example, companies are pushing ahead with applications based on the
Short Message Service (SMS) paging and e-mail standard and the HDML
(Handheld Device Market Language) screen formatting technology.
All this isn't to say the wireless Web isn't coming.
It's just that it may not be called WAP.
Eric Brown, a regular contributor to pcworld.com, is a
writer living in the Boston area.
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