Webheads are now able to safely stay connected when they’re away from their keyboards–and they can thank something called the Wireless Application Protocol, or WAP. That’s the wireless industry’s technology for bridging the small-screen world of cell phones and the content-rich Net. WAP is the result of three years of negotiations between the big mobile-phone makers, Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia, and a single, 500-employee Silicon Valley start-up, Phone.com. Three years ago, Phone.com persuaded the much larger companies to collectively develop WAP, and the resulting, Web-connected phones sold well in Asia and Europe last year. With America next, analysts estimate that 1 billion portable phones will be annoying fellow diners worldwide by 2004; a fourth of those will have Web browsers. Carriers like AT&T, Sprint and Nextel are thrilled; users will pay for every stock price and piece of e-mail they receive, and are likely to stay connected longer. Not surprisingly, the lucrative new opportunities have set off a fierce battle for control of the mobile phone’s Internet gateway–some are calling it the next browser war–and the competition promises to be just as brutal as the previous face-off between Netscape and Microsoft for the desktop.
Nokia often gets most of the attention when it come to Web-connected phones, even though it was last to join the WAP forum. That’s because the company is the largest wireless-phone manufacturer in the world, and is located in the most cell-phone-crazy continent, Europe. In Nokia’s home country, Finland, an astounding 60 percent of the population totes mobile phones, which they call kanny–“an extension of the hand.” Europe is further along the wireless path because it has a sturdier network (as opposed to our patchwork of different standards), which has allowed instant messaging between handsets for two years. Bringing the Internet to mobile phones was largely the idea of 44-year-old French-born mathematician Alain Rossmann. As an exec at Apple in the mid-’80s, Rossmann helped launch the Macintosh. After starting Phone.com in 1994 (first called Libris, then Unwired Planet), he developed the first microbrowser for handsets and the accompanying Internet software that runs in the network-operations centers of carriers like Sprint, AT&T and Nextel.
The WAP forum got on track in 1997 with secret meetings at Ericsson’s headquarters in Sweden and AT&T’s office in Seattle. Agreeing to a wireless Internet standard allows the carriers to use the same Internet software on all kinds of phones; it also helps developers write one set of software for all handsets. By the middle of 1998, the parties published the first WAP specifications, based in large part on Phone.com’s “UP.Browser” and server software. Though the forum essentially opened the door for anyone to create WAP software, Phone.com has a big head start. “If you walk into a Radio Shack today,” boasts Phone.com VP Ben Linder, “every model has our microbrowser on it.”
But Phone.com is now quickly moving from the catbird seat to the hot seat. Many of the major handset makers, eager to grab the market for themselves, plan to use Phone.com software only until they catch up. Nokia says it will put its own WAP browser into all its new smart phones by the end of the year. Motorola also says its own browser will go into its handsets later this year.
Then there’s Microsoft. The Redmond, Wash. -based software giant has been sniffing around the wireless periphery for years–with little success. Last month it finally jammed a foot in the door by signing a deal with Ericsson to put a WAP version of its Web browser (dubbed Microsoft Mobile Explorer) into the Swedish manufacturer’s phones by 2001. The deal targets the lucrative territory of connecting business users with their corporate data. Windows CE general manager Jonathan Roberts says the new browser will let mobile-phone users access their e-mail, corporate databases and personal information–much of it stored on computers that use Microsoft software.
Rossmann and Phone.com seem unruffled by all the competitive jousting. That’s not surprising; since its June IPO, the company’s stock has risen a dramatic 1,500 percent on the market’s faith in the wireless Web. The company’s offices in Redwood City, lavishly furnished by former tenant Steve Jobs for his old company, NeXT, are the picture of Valley affluence. The free-floating stairwells were designed by I. M. Pei, the fancy bathroom sinks by German manufacturer Hansgrohe. Phone.com believes that only it can produce WAP software that is truly interoperable on all different kinds of handsets. As for Microsoft, Rossmann respects the software giant but says the wireless industry is “the farthest away from its center of gravity, the PC.”
But Rossmann and his team aren’t standing still. In the past few months they’ve used their stock wampum to point the company in new, perhaps more secure directions. Last week Phone.com bought speech-recognition company @Motion to remedy the fact that browsing the Web on 12 miniature buttons can be a tricky proposition. When the technology is added to Phone.com’s server software, users will be able to surf the Web on their phones with spoken commands. The company also has recently signed deals with content providers like the Weather Channel to make their sites available to mobile-phone subscribers. Gartner Group analyst Ken Dulaney calls this “a survival strategy. They’re acting like Netscape, trying to add as many features as they can and stay ahead of the game.” Considering Netscape’s defeat in the first browser war, it may not be the most comforting model for Phone.com. But then again, Netscape made history.
