From: Rohit Khare (rohit@uci.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 02 2000 - 01:41:07 PST
Mrs. XML in deed!
-- RK
PS. Can anyone say "Compton's"? I knew you could... much like that
all-encompassing multimedia CDROM 'patent', the wider the claim, the
more likely that larger constituency will say 'screw you' and the
more obviously the patent office will be forced to reconsider
challenges to it.
============================
Computergram International - Section: 01. Top Stories
Industry Gurus Join Clamor Over GeoWorks' WAP Claims
By Dan Jones
An advisor to the World Wide Web Consortium yesterday became the latest in a
growing cast of industry figures and analysts to voice criticism over
Geoworks' claim to intellectual property rights for the WAP standard.
Sally Khudairi, formerly with the W3C and now CEO of the ZOT web consultancy
group and an official representative to the W3C (who describes herself as
'Mrs. XML') said that GeoWorks' claims on the wireless application protocol
could stifle the industry take- up of the specification. "The path that
GeoWorks is laying is likely to severely limit the adoption and support of
WAP," she said. "Requiring companies to pay IPR to produce WAP-
supporting/WML-based content is most likely going to result in a
cross-industry reluctance to embrace both WAP technology as well as WML."
Her comments come two weeks after GeoWorks made public its claims that
vendors which develop wireless hardware, software and web content using WML
must pay an annual license fee of $20,000 as well as a fee of 10% or $1 for
every product sold. Jack Gold, head of the mobile and pervasive computing
practice at Meta Group says that smaller companies developing WAP content,
software and hardware could be "potentially hosed" by GeoWorks' suggested
licensing fees and royalties. If a piece of hardware or software is priced
between $29 to $49, a one dollar charge on each product is a huge burden, he
says, representing 5% to 10% of product revenues. "This could inhibit the
growth of the small guys," he said.
Gold and other industry analysts have also focused on the legal challenges
that GeoWorks is likely to face if the companies from the 120-member WAP
Forum decide not to agree to the licensing terms that GeoWorks has laid
down.
David Berndt, director of wireless market technologies at the Yankee Group
said, "Companies like Nokia and Phone.com aren't the kind of the companies
that back down and wilt just because somebody starts waving around potential
IP lawsuits. Basically, both of these companies are going to challenge
GeoWorks and say, 'show us the proof that there's a problem here.'"
Gold added, "If the whole WAP Forum gets together and says, 'screw you,'
what is [GeoWorks] going to do? My guess is that they're going to be in
court a long time...who has ever won one of these suits?"
Berndt thinks that GeoWorks will be forced to back down by the collective
muscle of other companies in the forum. "GeoWorks is going to be forced by
the market momentum to have to make something reasonable...I think the
entire WAP Forum will hunt them down if they don't," he said.
===
Section: 04. Barbed Wire
GeoWorks Patent Claim Could Relate to HTML as Well as WML
The patent that GeoWorks Inc is claiming gives it intellectual property
rights to wireless markup language (WML) could be applied to HTML and,
therefore, the entire web, according to one web guru (see separate story).
GeoWorks says that its claim relates to a US patent registered in 1994,
which relates to transforming data so that it can be read on variety of
different devices with larger or smaller screens. Sally Khudairi, formerly
with the W3C and now CEO of the ZOT web consultancy group and an official
representative to the W3C, says "The GeoWorks patent seems to cover HTML
forms as well [as WAP]." Of course pursuing a claim on HTML would be much
more challenging than merely claiming IPR for WML, Khudairi notes. "Whether
or not they are going to pursue those developing HTML-based browsers is
another facet to examine," she said.
=====
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/00/01/31/000131hnw3c.xml
Friday, Jan. 28, 2000 1:01 pm PT
HTML-XML combo finalized
By Stephanie Sanborn and Michael Lattig
THE WORLD WIDE Web Consortium (W3C), seeking to expand the use of XML
without making existing HTML elements obsolete, recommended the XHTML
(Extensible HTML) 1.0 specification as a bridge between the two
language environments.
The specification is designed to allow developers to create Web pages
that combine the data structuring of XML and the presentation of HTML.
XHTML 1.0 was created by rewriting HTML 4 as an XML application,
creating a specification that will work with HTML browsers and
leverage XML's device-independent access capabilities.
"The challenge is that XML has been fantastic, and everyone wants to
leverage its extensibility and power; however, everything being
developed now is in HTML, so how do you deal with that combination,"
said Sally Khudairi, CEO of the ZOT Group, a Boston-based Web
strategy consultancy.
Developers already writing HTML 4 documents should have a smooth
transition to XHMTL 1.0, said Janet Daly, a spokesperson for the W3C,
adding that the W3C provides tools to convert HTML 4 documents into
XHTML.
"As the Web has been moving toward the XML direction, it became
apparent that even the Web users of today and the Web authors of
today using HTML want to be able to do more," said Daly, noting the
prevalence of new devices such as smart phones and mobile handhelds.
"They want to do more structurally, they want to reach more of the
new users that are now demanding Web access."
XHTML will simplify the Web development process by obviating the need
for developing multiple versions of a single Web site based on the
type of device upon which the site will run, ZOT Group's Khudairi
added.
"[XHTML] is the immediate link between the two standards, allowing
developers to program their Web Sites without having to go through
and strip out everything and reprogram what they already have in
order to take advantage of XML," Khudairi said.
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