Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Phone.com [PHCM] -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (245)	8/13/1999 11:47:00 AM
From: Ellen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1080

Interesting article. Thanks! allnetdevices.com Palm and WAP: Flirting With Disaster By David Haskin Managing editor, allNetDevices August 9, 1999 -- Palm Computing is flirting with the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), but unless the company commits to it soon, it will start down the road toward irrelevance. WAP is a protocol for the wireless transmission of data to Net devices. In recent weeks, Palm has joined the WAP Forum and has started providing WAP support to OEMs that license its technology. It refuses, however, to use WAP for its own devices, sticking instead with its proprietary Web clipping. It claims that, while WAP works well with teensy smart phone screens, Web clipping works better with comparatively larger handheld screens. Message to Palm: Technical superiority is beside the point. This is strictly a marketplace and business development issue. You are walking down the middle of the road by supporting WAP for your OEMs but not in your own devices. If you continue, you'll be flattened by traffic coming from both directions. Sorry, Palm, but life isn't always fair and technical superiority isn't always rewarded. Just ask Apple. WAP has been gathering market momentum at a breakneck speed. While WAP isn't universally admired in the developer community, it is, by far, the most widely accepted standard. In fact, Palm is the only significant holdout. Palm is deluding itself if it thinks that content providers will develop Web clipping applications because Palm maintains a market share lead over Windows CE. First, that market share lead is starting to erode. Second, few in the content delivery community can afford to develop content for Web clipping when most wireless devices in the world will support WAP. The sheer number of WAP-enabled devices means that WAP wins and Web clipping loses, whatever their relative technical merits. Palm also is delusional if it thinks corporate information technology (IT) folks will embrace Web clipping in the face of overwhelming support for WAP. These are busy folks and they soon will have smart phones to support, virtually none of which will support Web clipping. IT departments don't have the time to support multiple standards. Palm brags that lots of people are writing applications for Web clipping. True, in the last few weeks some interesting and significant Web clipping applications have emerged. That changes nothing. Ten years ago, dozens of new applications for the Mac OS were released in the months before Microsoft rolled out Windows 3.0. Even so, except for a few die-hards, the developer community all but abandoned Apple within a year. Most of those die-hards are now either dead or firmly in the Windows camp. Palm hasn't unequivocally closed the door on WAP, but its options are limited. It can abandon Web clipping, its devices can support both technologies, it can make Web clipping WAP-compatible or it can propose a middle ground standard that encompasses both. If it's technically feasible, the latter option could succeed because of all the good will toward Palm in the marketplace. However, Palm will punt away its market leadership to Microsoft if its next wireless handheld doesn't support WAP and if another vendor releases a WAP-compliant Windows CE device. That would prove that life isn't always fair. Related stories and analyses: Palm's Four Do-or-Die Challenges Palm and Apple: An Affair That Shouldn't Happen Next Six Months Will Tell Handheld Future Palm Embraces WAP -- Sort Of