Hi, Gary. There are still holes in my knowledge, but this is my understanding:
WAP is a convention similar to TCP/IP that tells the receiver what the format of incoming information will look like. It can be transmitted over CDMA or TDMA or GSM. It was developed with several constraints in mind: (1) Narrow bandwidth, (2) small screen size in the handset, and (3) limited memory capacity in the handset.
It seems to me that CDMA developments address the first issue, but not the latter two. Therefore, some kind of special applications will be needed for quite awhile. Other technologies are on the horizon to address these issues. Flash costs are slowly falling, and maybe a Microvision-type technology that would let the user see the equivalent of 800x600 pixels will come out without making the user put on a silly-looking headset. Both of these are a ways away, imo.
The other point to make is that WAP is not static, either. WAP 2.0 discussions are active, with NTT Docomo (the same party Viterbi quoted) as a full participant in discussions. By the time broadband hits the market, my guess is there will be a lot of WAP sites out there, and that "the market" (in Geoff Moore's use of the term) will have a vested interest in backward compatability. We'll thus see continuous innovation from here, giving the leader(s) in Round 1 an advantage going into Round 2.
It's a very fluid situation. There are no Gorillas or Kings, yet.
Best,
John |
