RE: Versatility is the watchword of the WAP phone

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From: Lloyd Wood (l.wood@eim.surrey.ac.uk)
Date: Sat Feb 26 2000 - 10:14:28 PST


On Fri, 25 Feb 2000, Josh Cohen wrote:

> The thing that the WAP forum has done best is
> not technology, but marketing.

The best comparison with WAP I can think of is with IRDA - fills a
niche, built into everything for a while until they discovered that
no-one actually uses it because it's just so inconvenient. Then 802.11
comes along and suddenly IRDA is history - you know the age of a
laptop from just hearing that it has IRDA built in.

> They pretty much have all of europe beleving that
> WAP can browse the web, better than your PC, faster
> than your PC, can replace your PC, can do video, sound,
> all the things that PCs do.

WAP may actually have a market among people who - get this - _don't
have PCs_.

> The perception is often that we are "way behind" in mobile phone
> stuff, but in some ways we are very much ahead..

The modifications to the Palm to work with GSM (goodbye transparent
connectivity) seem like an interesting example of this.

L.

<L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>


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