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To: Gus who wrote (6718)	7/31/2000 11:28:39 AM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 34857

By David Haskin Managing Editor, allNetDevices July 31, 2000 Will consumers embrace Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) or is it just another example of over-hyped BWC (Because We Can) technology that the public will ignore? That's the crossroads at which WAP now stands. WAP has undeniable momentum within the industry. Phone.com claims 100,000 have registered for its WAP developer program and the number of member companies participating in the WAP Forum was, the last I looked, approaching 300. Unofficial tallies indicate there are about 24,000 WAP-ready sites and that number is growing quickly. However, it's equally undeniable that the public in North America doesn't yet care about WAP or about wireless Internet access in general. Last week I cited a study by International Data Corporation saying that there are only a paltry 560,000 people in the U.S. acccessing the Internet via wireless phones. Now, a new study by Forrester Research says that 72 percent of U.S. households have no interest in receiving data on their wireless phone and 75 percent are uncomfortable with wireless e-commerce. I am most assuredly not writing off WAP, but given all the hype it has received, its chances for long-term success deserve a hard, sober look. First, here are five powerful reasons why WAP could fail. The user experience of accessing the Internet with a phone is lousy and WAP doesn't help much. Keypad input is frustrating, screens are too small for viewing even plain text clearly and low bandwidth makes for absolutely maddening delays. The current group of off-the-shelf WAP content and applications aren't compelling. AOL on a phone? Be still, my racing heart. Consumers are forced to pay a premium for this lousy user experience and mediocre content. WAP faces significant competition. Short Message Service (SMS) can transmit much Internet-based information and e-mail to zillions of existing phones. NTT DoCoMo is trying to internationalize its i-mode protocol, which is wildly popular in Japan. Plus, wireless ISPs are coming fast, bringing the Internet to handhelds with larger screens that don't need WAP. The WAP patent mess could retard innovation from small application and content vendors. After all, why should these vendors invest in development when they may end up paying Geoworks a significant royalty? Having said that, here are three reasons why WAP may succeed. It is a good idea for enterprise applications. Field personnel already have phones, so why not use them to deliver data? Enterprise data is a more natural fit for phones than consumer content since it is field-based and, usually, not richly formatted. WAP is about to be built into the XML standard by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This essentially makes the WAP protocol a standard, which will foster its use, particularly in the enterprise. Phone vendors may yet deliver on their pledge to WAP-enable all their wares and not charge a premium. Since studies show that consumers acquire a new wireless phone every 18 to 36 months, it wouldn't be long before everybody had a WAP phone. If that occurs -- or if wireless operators are clever enough to subsizide WAP phone prices -- WAP will become part of the landscape and, over the long haul, user acceptance will grow. The hysteria around the wireless Internet is starting to feel like the push boondoggle of several years ago. Wall Street whipped itself into a frenzy and vendors from Microsoft to a zillion startups announced push products. The public could have cared less and the technology has been all but forgotten. Wireless access to data won't go away -- it's simply too compelling. However, while the wireless Internet has good long-term prospects, WAP is hardly a shoo-in as the dominant underlying technology.