WAP
Insight Vol: 3 Issue 5 10th February 2001
Rally
to WAP says GSM Association
Speaking
at the WAP Forum's Plenary Meeting in London, Robert Conway, CEO with the GSM
Association, has backed WAP by pointing at Dataquest forecasts predicting a
userbase of 100 million WAP enabled terminals by Q1 2002 in Europe.
"Location based services, m-commerce (mobile commerce), personal preference
schemes and instant access to information will all play important parts,"
Conway predicted, "but the real catalyst for the re-birth of WAP is GPRS.”
"It
could be seen as crazy (to try) to
cram the desktop PC on to the mobile phone screen," argues Conway.
"Instead, we should be partnering to attract customers, by playing
to the intimacy, immediacy and mobility of the global wireless environment. WAP
could and should be the winner in this market," he said.
"But the secret lies with minimising the hype and maximising the
effort on cooperative standardisation. "From
a slow start, some 15 Billion text messages are now being sent every month on
GSM," he explained. " The i-mode service in Japan has reached 18
million active users by January 2001, barely after two years from launch -
that's one in 7 Japanese people using the service. These facts prove that the
market exists for mobile data services tailored for the wireless user."
www.gsmworld.com
Press release GSM rallies to WAP
AnywhereYouGo.com
says WAP backlash over
With a
marked increase in the number of WAP handsets bought and used for mobile
Internet last Christmas, AnywhereYouGo.com believes that the so-called 'WAP
Backlash' is reaching an end.
"2001
is seeing a more determined and professional approach from WAP content
providers, said James Pearce, director of The Wireless Internet Lab. "Organisations
are now working harder than ever to build positive customer experiences,
overcome interoperability and usability issues, and combat the unrealistic hype
that previously drove consumers away from WAP services." As an example the
company cites games company, JamDat Mobile, which came to the Wireless Internet
Lab to test the European WAP version of its game 'Gladiator'. The games
generated over 700,000 gaming sessions in just three months in the USA, a feat
which it hopes to repeat in Europe. In the UK, FT.com has also used the Lab for
continuous and regression testing of its service.
OnWeb gains mobile support
The
latest version of NetManage’s Web publishing system, OnWeb 5.0, has gained
support for WAP phones and PDAs. OnWeb
is designed to let customers create e-business solutions and other Web based
applications using data held by existing mainframe computers or other legacy
systems. The company claims to have the widest range of tools for integrating
legacy systems including IBM and Unisys style hosts. The advantage to OnWeb over
its rivals is that the data remains unchanged and applications are built by
creating scripts rather than requiring re-programming in a new Web friendly
language such as C++. OnWeb is able to output
information in either WML or XML for WAP based applications and HTML for
standard Web based applications.
www.netmanage.com
Benefon & CT Motion offer location services
Thanks to a new agreement between the two companies, using the Mobile Phone Telematics Protocol
(MPTP)developed by Benefon, its Track and
Esc! handsets will now work with CT Motion’s Cellebrity application management
platform. The aim is to enable the immediate deployment of mobile location
services. The types of services covered include personalised advertising,
M-coupons, Mobile Yellow Pages and travel related services. Other applications
supported cover safety and security services, content and lifestyle information
applications in addition to CT Motion's Mobile Workforce Management application,
which enables the management of field workers and mobile professionals,
www.benefon.com
Snippets
Gordano
has added WAP and PDA support to GLWebMail 2.0, the latest upgrade to its Web
based mail solution. Users can now access their messages using a range of PDAs
such as Palm, HP Jornada, and Psion, or any handheld devices using the WAP,
iMode, HTML, or cHTML standards. The product requires no client
licenses, just a standard web browser. Users can also collect messages from
multiple POP3 servers. GLWebMail 2.0 can be accessed immediately for a one-time,
fixed rate cost with multiple support options. Prices range from GBP 345 to GBP
3,565 for 10,000 users. www.gordano.co.uk
…
XY
Network has just launched XY News, which is now available through WAP or the
Internet. The news is sourced from Reuters and gives users the choice of six
different bulletins (World News, UK Top News, Entertainment, Sport, Business
plus 'Oddly Enough' (XY's quirky news round-up). The company claims XY News is
the first ever service to offer on-demand news bulletins in audio format to
mobile phones. http://www.xy.fm/ . . .
Over
50 Bollywood and Bhangra (Asian) ringtones are now available from iTouch Phone
but only on selected Nokia handsets. Calls cost only UKP 1 a minute, with an
average download taking two minutes. www.itouch.co.uk
. . .
Users
of WAPPUP.com, the French WAP portal, now have direct access to Maporama
services via the portal's Travel menu. Simply
by keying-in the desired address and the WAP phone’s screen displays a street
map of the area or the requested itinerary. www.maporama.com
Finally
Openwave (the company formed from the merger of Phone.com and Software.com)
cites Genie Internet Q4 2000 registrations which were up 38 per cent and
WAP page impressions are up 513 per cent as more proof the WAP backlash is
ending. It also says that connection times were to blame and it aims to times to
carriers from 20 seconds to 12 seconds. The total number of active mobile
subscribers using Openwave products grew by 5.2 million to over 12.1 million by
Q1 2001 from 6.9 million by Q4 2000. www.openwave.com
WAP Site of the Week
(By Geoff Dennis)
This week’s theme is . . . free logos
We've located a site where such a service isn't just 'coming' or 'on hold':
- Boltblue. You must register on the fixed web site (www.boltblue.com), from where you
will be sent a TIN number via a message to your phone. Use this number to complete
registration. You can then select free logos to download from the Fun&Games section, either from the main site or from the
WAP site http://wap.boltblue.com
