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So there’s considerable hubbub these days about WAP. Nokia seems to be pushing it and given all the bumfuzzling going on (including at Cisco) in other standards and the lack of a coherent direction, I think WAP will win.

There’s also a good WAP article in this month’s Industry Standard.

-Ian.

——– Original Message ——– Subject: WAP & Palm Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 12:03:03 -0700 From: Gregory Alan Bolcer Organization: Endeavors Technology, Inc. To: fork [at] xent [dot] com

Looks like a job for 4K. 3Com eyes using WAP for devices. How this made CNN is beyond me.

Greg

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9907/19/palmwap.idg/index.html

3Com eyes WAP for use in Palm devices

July 19, 1999 Web posted at: 1:46 p.m. EDT (1746 GMT)

by James Niccolai From…

(IDG) — 3Com Corp. is exploring an emerging technology called the Wireless Access Protocol for possible use in its Palm computer, a move that would bring new Web browsing capabilities to the popular handheld device, analysts and sources familiar with the matter said this week.

Moving to WAP would be a significant step for 3Com, which has invested heavily to develop a text-based technology called “Web Clipping” for its wireless Palm VII, which was launched in May in the New York area. But analysts said the momentum growing behind WAP might not leave 3Com with any choice but to switch to WAP.

Web Clipping allows mobile users to download short bursts of text information from Web sites that have tailored content for 3Com’s technology. Web Clipping doesn’t allow users to surf the Web at large, but downloads information to “query applications” offered by more than 60 firms, including United Airlines, The Weather Channel, ETrade Group Inc. and The Wall Street Journal. The list of content and service providers using Web Clipping is growing, and users can download new query applications from Palm’s Web site, 3Com said.

In contrast, WAP provides a set of open standards that allow mobile devices like cell phones, pagers and handheld computers to browse content on the Web. Sites, however, must be reformatted to support a programming language called Wireless Markup Language which supports both text and bitmap images.

WAP still is an emerging technology, but the industry momentum behind it, combined with its potential to offer users greater freedom to surf the Internet, may force 3Com to make a transition from Web Clipping to WAP, analysts said.

“I think they would be foolish not to support WAP. They’re trying to push Web Clipping as a metaphor for surfing the Web, but I don’t think they’ll be that successful,” said Ken Dulaney, vice president of mobile computing research with market analyst firm Gartner Group Inc. in San Jose, California.

Dulaney characterized 3Com’s apparent reluctance to move to WAP as “a touch of Microsoft-itis.”

“I think it’s stupid for them to wait,” he said. “They ought to be in the middle of things. They’re obviously waiting, but what they’re waiting for I don’t know.”

3Com denies it has any plans to move away from its proprietary technology, although the company acknowledges that WAP is on its radar screen.

“We’re certainly looking at WAP and find it very interesting, but we don’t have any imminent plans” to use the technology, Tammy Medanich, product marketing manager with 3Com’s Palm Computing division, said in a recent interview.