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WAP Insight Vol: 2 Issue 20 May 14th 2000They won't WAP
Successfully
catching the headlines, wireless developer, Anywhereyougo.com, has revealed that
one in four of the WAP sites it tested doesn't work as intended. The actual
figures were 28 per cent of the 50 WAP sites tested. For the fledgling WAP
industry, therefore, Anywhereyougo.com is offering its services as an
independent testing house, to be known as the Wireless Internet Lab. The Lab
will take advantage of the proprietary test software Anywhereyougo.com has
developed. One customer, Damian Brown - CEO with Kizoom the wireless travel
advisory service www.kizoom.com revealed
that field performance of its WAP site bore no resemblance to the promise held
out by development tools. Hence Kizoom intends to use the Wireless Lab to ensure
its product performs efficiently across multiple WAP devices. Kizoom will provide its software free to phone users and aims to make
money by licensing the service to web portals and selling tickets on line. Press
release WAP Labs A Summer of WAP
phones
If
all the handset manufacturers exhibiting at this week's Mobile Expo show in
Birmingham, England are to be believed, this will be a Summer full of new WAP
handsets. First new entrant should be Sagem with the MW 930 a dualband GSM
handset which has a WAP 1.1 browser and support for WTLS security. Next off the
blocks could well be Siemens with three models: the C35i; the M35i; and the S35i
which is claims should hit retail outlets by June [2000]. The C35i is an entry
level handset which the company claims will retail at around US $30-$50. Next up
is the M35i which is a ruggedised model while the fully fledged S35i is aimed at
the business user and features an infra-red port and internal modem. Mobile Expo
also witnessed a first public showing for the MultiMobile – a joint product
development between Siemens and Casio. Due by December 2000 it should support
both WAP and HTML browsers while
running Microsoft’s Pocket PC o/s. Another
nearly ready supplier is NEC which was showing the DB6000 which is another dual
band GSM handset as is Benefon with the Q handset. WAP Insight's personal show
favourite was the A110 dualband GSM WAP handset from Samsung. Roughly equivalent
in size to Motorola's V 3688 handset, it will feature Phone.com's 4.1.8 browser
and when it appears in September should cost around the US $225 mark. Additional
features include personal organiser and diary plus no fewer than 7 games. It has
a built-in modem and infra-red too!! Halifax in big WAP
give-away
British bank, the Halifax, has promised to give away 150,000 WAP handsets in a deal struck with BT Cellnet. The cost of the deal to Cellnet has been estimated to be in the region of US $22.5 million. The phones will only be made available to those taking out a current account and a credit card with the Halifax. Significantly Halifax argues that the cost to the end user to process a transaction via a Wap handset will be around US 7.5 cents whereas the equivalent voice call would cost as much as US 60 cents. Reports claim the Halifax deal follows the collapse of a similar agreement between BT Cellnet and Exhange holdings which operates the Moneyextra web site. Analyst dismisses
WAP
Ever
wondered exactly who is WAP’s harshest critic? Try this. As part of its analysis of wireless portals, Herschel Shosteck Associates
believes that many of the startup wireless portals such as Yodlee, MyPhone.com,
MyAladdin.com, GiantBear.com, and SpyglassMobile.com will
fail to gain significant market share. The same will happen with mobile
ISPs such as YourWAP, MobileID, SmartRay, and WAPIT. It argues that there is
little differentiation between such services from an end-user's standpoint.
Jane Zweig, executive vp with Herschel Shosteck Associates, says, “All
wireless portals on WAP phones will be essentially identical in content and
appearance. As such, no wireless portal will serve as a differentiator for the
network operator." The report entitled Wireless Internet Content: Any
Content, Any Device, Anywhere costs US
$1,995 for the paper version. Snippets
The
world of WAP is very definitely set to explode if French manufacturer, Sagem, is
to be believed. It claims to have firm orders for 3.5 million WAP 1.1 enabled
GSM handsets from both European and International network operators. Compare
this to a recent estimate by Patrick
Jenkins in the Financial Times that there are still only around 200,000 WAP
handsets in operation in the British market. Forward Concepts has estimated that
around 435 million handsets will be manufactured worldwide in 2000 growing to
900 million by 2003. However, IC Insights has predicted that there won't be
enough Flash memory chips to go around PCs, handsets and games machines over the
next 6 months. Statistics apparently show that there are
approximately 25 million redundant mobiles sitting around in homes and offices.
UK owners who wish to donate them to charity should 0800 09424593 to receive a
freepost envelope to send the phone in. |
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