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It’s early in the game for wireless data

by bryan morgan
September/October 2001

Fall is here and our favorite major league baseball teams finally are winding up an incredibly long season and beginning the playoffs. I’m a big baseball fan and it occurs to me that a baseball metaphor captures the state of the wireless Internet.

Silicon Valley legend John Doerr has said that the Internet is in the first or second inning of a long ball game. I’m going to say that the wireless Internet has just made the first out in
the top of the first in its own game. You could say it’s simply had poor batting practice before the game, given the technologies and infrastructure still to be rolled out.

Who made the first out? Some would say WAP 1.0. Yet WAP still has more at-bats before the final score is posted. It’s not WAP-bashing to point out that WAP alone is not the complete answer for mobile operators and enterprise.

A number of pieces must be in place to complement a brand-new technology such as WAP before something rate of increase of new users and new e-commerce purchases, the mobile Internet still abounds with promise. A host of technologies still very much in the laboratory stage are slated to be deployed over the next 2 to 5 years.

Specifically, I believe the following technologies must converge before we have a great device that the general public would refuse to leave home without.

• Location-based services. No more searching for the nearest restaurant or theater. Simply click a couple of icons to see a list!

• Integrated WLAN and/or Bluetooth. Automatically sync your data, retrieve information or view advertising in exchange for a coupon through a high-speed connection when available.

• WAP/i-mode with XHTML support. Forget about the lack of content coded in WML. Support for XHTML in future versions of WAP 2.0 and i-mode will allow wireless Internet users to grab existing content off the Net.

• Voice and/or pen-based user interfaces. Both these technologies are possible now but are available only on a limited number of devices. Expect more options to become available as consumers continue to react negatively to data entry using the standard phone keypad.

• 2.5G minimum. Never discount the utility of an always-on connection with decent bandwidth! Most people don’t ask for LAN-like speeds through their mobile device but a smooth, reliable connection is always welcome.

• Software support for advanced technologies such as Web services and/or intelligent agents. Currently, the user is expected to interact with back-end servers just as a Web browser user would. If the site needs a credit card, you have to enter it. If you want a ticket for a concert, go find it (and, by the way, enter your credit card in order to buy it). Software technologies in their infancy promise to allow the user to dispatch intelligent agents that interact with a variety of Web services to perform a task. In addition, technologies such as Microsoft Passport (like it or not!) promise to provide a one-stop shop for your mobile commerce wallet. This places the search and data entry responsibilities back on the network and away from your handsets tiny keypad–a must if the mobile Internet is to succeed.

Companies that correctly assess customer needs and match them with intuitive, powerful products that take advantage of available technologies are most likely win.

Bryan Morgan is a software developer and regular DevBiz contributor. Contact him at bryanmorgan@home.com.