-Commerce Report: Revamping The Model: The Wireless Web -2
From The Wall Street Journal
For those who get a WAP phone, the biggest shock may come with "surfing." A
WAP phone can't take you everywhere on the Net -- far from it. "You're not
going to enjoy the full Internet experience as much as you would on a PC,"
says Dirk Bout, senior analyst at Dataquest in Amsterdam.
Companies have to create special versions of their sites that can be viewed
from the tiny mobile-phone screens. And depending on your Internet service,
you may be able to visit only the WAP sites the provider has selected.
"There is a lot of dissatisfaction with WAP," says Robert Tercek, president
of the programming division at PacketVideo Corp., a Santa Monica, Calif.,
developer of wireless-communications software that puts video on mobile
devices. "It's a pretty thin interface, with all the emotional appeal of a
phone book."
A host of European -- and U.S. -- companies, in fact, are hurrying to fix
that.
Merita Nordbanken, with 6.5 million customers, is among the early players.
This large Finnish/Swedish bank, based in Helsinki, began offering some
banking services over WAP phones in October and by February had 200 to 400
hits a day on its mobile site, estimates Bo Harald, an executive vice
president. In January, the bank made it possible for Finnish customers to
buy and sell securities over their mobile phones. Currently, it is testing
WAP-based account and payment services to its Swedish customers.
Maconomy, the Copenhagen business-applications provider, has made its Time &
Expense application available over WAP. Already it has won corporate
customers in France and Denmark. Of its customers, 10% access the product on
the Web. By year end, Mr. Knudsen hopes, 10% of his customers will file
time-sheet and expense data over their WAP phones.
Such services aren't confined to Nordic Europe. Around Europe, several
established and mobile-Net companies have launched WAP portals.
Excite UK Ltd., a joint venture between British Telecommunications PLC and
Excite At Home Corp., made its WAP portal available in January, offering
access to local movie listings, stock prices, news items, weather reports
and sports scores. Excite plans to launch a WAP portal in Germany, and
perhaps France, in the second quarter. The company also has its eye on
Spain, says Evan Rudowski, vice president and managing director of Excite
Europe, an Excite At Home unit. "Getting first-mover advantage is critical,"
he says.
Belgium's Europeaninvestor.com already signed UBS AG of Switzerland as a
client for its WAP portal, which it customizes with stock quotes and
business headlines for business clients, such as brokerage firms and banks.
Customers of SFR, a mobile-phone service unit of Cegetel SA, France's No. 2
long-distance phone carrier, can check the e.medi@ portal on their WAP
phones to view traffic updates supplied by Webraska Mobile Technologies SA,
a Poissy, France, provider of real-time traffic information and navigation
services for mobile-Internet phones. Streets plagued with traffic jams are
highlighted to help drivers save time.
Travel services, which appear to be ideal for mobile-phone users on the go,
are showing up in several markets. In February, Last Minute Network Ltd. of
London launched in Britain and Germany the first WAP version of its
Lastminute.com Web site, which discounts travel, entertainment and gift
items. Users can view available flights and soon may also be able to
purchase tickets via WAP, says Sep Riahi, the company's vice president of
business development. More WAP opportunities for hotel bookings, gifts and
entertainment are being developed.
Next month, customers of Havas Voyages American Express, a French travel
unit of American Express Co., New York, will start using a pilot WAP service
developed by France's Cross Systems. The service, which allows users to
enter an entire trip itinerary into their mobile phones, also sends out
alerts about delayed flights or trains, reserves airport taxis and helps
travelers find additional reservations when trip plans change. First
available in France, the service will later be rolled out across Europe,
says Mr. Kremser, the Cross engineer.
France's Aladdino.com, founded in December, got $500,000 in venture funding
to develop a WAP portal. The company launched its site with some 40 content
providers in February, and hopes to expand to the U.K. next quarter and
Germany in the following quarter, says President Yvon Corcia. Aladdino.com
had a letter of intent for $3 million more in financing by mid-March and
hopes to secure another $3 million this spring.
While mobile-Internet products and services are beginning to storm the
market, some say consumers should take their time buying a WAP phone because
of other concerns with the technology.
Some people worry about WAP's lack of security features for
electronic-commerce transactions. Still others note that WAP browsers aren't
standardized enough to display all WAP sites the way they were designed --
much the same way sites viewed in Netscape didn't look as good in Microsoft
Explorer when that browser hit the market.
"We're exactly in the same situation today," says Christophe Comparin,
managing director at the I-Lights Studio division of Infogrames SA, a French
company that is developing games for mobile phones. "There is not much of a
browser standard between phones."
But the many impediments of WAP are being addressed. Phone.com Inc., the
Redwood City, Calif., company that pioneered the concept of putting a WAP
browser on mobile phones, has set up a lab in Belfast that tests WAP product
compatibility. And a host of security options are on the way from companies
such as Sonera SmartTrust Ltd., a wireless e-commerce services unit of
Helsinki's Sonera Ltd., and France's Gemplus SA, one of the world's largest
smart-card developers. A new version of WAP, due in June, also promises to
take care of some concerns about online-payment security.
Robert Leonardi, mobile-commerce analyst at Giga Information Group in
Stockholm, advises buyers to "wait until the summer at least" when more WAP
phones and associated services are available and running smoothly.
Others say the technology is still in its early days, meaning that there's
room for the next Netscape or Microsoft of the mobile Net to emerge.
"There are new players popping up every week -- I don't think we're seeing
the real big players yet," says Mr. Leonardi, adding that everyone from
start-ups to Microsoft itself is starting to see the market's potential.
The mobile net, says Merita Nordbanken's Mr. Harald, "is only a newly born
baby, but soon it will walk and run."
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Ms. Borzo is a staff reporter in Paris for WSJ.com, the online Journal.
(END) DOW JONES NEWS 04-17-00
12:27 AM
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