|
|
1. WAP in North America (by David Schrag)
2. ccWAP.com is looking for partners for mCommerce projects
3. Experts believe WAP boom will start not to soon
4. Windows and Bluetooth (June 2000)
5. Biggest European eCommerce portal opened (June 2000)
6. WAP-leader Sweden and its WAP-portals
7. New American mCommerce solution ( June 2000)
8. WAPit offers free WAP-platform
9. China and Siemens are working on a Chinese TD-SCDMA standard
1. WAP in North America (by David Schrag)
In matters of fashion, movies and other technology the US is usually ahead
of the rest of the world. But with WAP and the wireless web it's a different
story. While the Europeans are already used to shop and do banking
transactions with their cell phone, most Americans are still wondering what
the heck WAP stands for. Still there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Sprint, as the first major telecommunications company, has finally reacted
to the Europeans with the start of Sprint PCS (Personal Communication
Service). In a net of over 4000 cities and 300 regions, customers can surf
the net with their mobile. American Online has also started a WAP Portal and
even made a deal with Nokia and Motorola to include a one-button access to
AOL on future cell-phones. Other companies like Bell South and AT&T are
just getting ready for the first big wave of customers on their portals.
With a huge potential of 300 million possible customers in the US and
Canada, there will be a boom of the Wireless Web. But it's farther apart
than most might think.
In the US there are over 85 million users of mobiles. Only 26 % of them
have a phone which can access the internet, but the number of actual surfers
is very small. Only 2 million users surf the net once in a while. Experts
predict that this number will change within the next 4 years to 20 million
users who use the mobile internet almost daily ! Nevertheless, the US
wireless web market will differ from the European counterpart. Most
IT-companies assume that the American market will have a much bigger use of
the wireless web within companies and organizations, as opposed to private
persons. The private customer will likely surf the wireless web a year later
after it's already a regular for most business people.
Concluding, we can say that WAP and the wireless web will certainly catch up
to the European market, but it will take time. Until the middle of this
decade, private persons will most likely be better off to make banking
transactions over the PC at home than over the mobile internet. The one good
thing is that we can be sure it all works when we use it, because it will
already have been tested by the European market.
2. ccWAP.com is looking for partners for mCommerce projects
ccWAP.com has grown to one of the biggest WAP Portals world-wide. With
branches in Germany, Switzerland, Hong Kong and the US, ccWAP.com has
reached a tremendous level of popularity and now has over 7000 business
contacts to banks, venture capitalist companies and other companies in the
telecommunications- and software-field. The first wave of ccWAP products
included a WAP browser (over 60'000 downloads !), a WAP e-shop, a WAP
content management tool as well as WAP tools for database integration.
Besides being a leader with M-commerce products, ccWAP.com is also the
world-leader in V-commerce. For companies interested in a partnership please
write to partner@ccwap.com and include a brief on your company and what kind
of partnership you are aspiring. (www.ccwap.com )
3. Experts believe WAP boom will start not to soon
Forrester Research, a research company which has published many
internationally recognized studies, does not believe in WAP just yet.
According to their research and interviews of over 30 of the biggest
WAP-sites and their CEO's, Forrester Research has found out that WAP is
still a technology which will be successful in the future. The wireless web
is still much slower than regular internet connections and despite the
advantage of accessing it anywhere, it will not be as popular as the WWW
until the connections become faster. Forrester Research is certain, once
such technologies as UMTS are established, the wireless web will blossom. In
4 years time, the UK (which is where Forrester Research is based) will have
more than 41 million mobile users. By then UMTS will be a standard and
M-commerce will become an important market.
4. Windows and Bluetooth (June 2000)
Bluetooth is still a young and untested, yet very promising technology:
Microsoft and the chip-manufacturer Intel are planning to include bluetooth
on the Windows operating system. In 2001 at the latest they want to start
producing Bluetooth PC's for the regular user. Microsoft has no fears that
the recent monopoly trial will disrupt those plans, because the plans will
be carried out within a years time. (www.intel.com , www.microsoft.com )
5. Biggest European eCommerce portal opened (June 2000)
The German company Integra GmbH has opened a 24-hour e-commerce portal and
market place for any size businesses. Integra, which has its main branch in
the money-capital Frankfurt, has created a site on which companies can run
their complete e-commerce and m-commerce. Integra guarantees a server
up-time of 24 hours. Every customer will receive a finished environment in
which they can offer their products to customers. This will be great for
small businesses, but large companies will want to have more customization.
The whole service is also available for WAP and M-commcerce.
(www.integra-europe.de )
6. WAP-leader Sweden and its WAP-portals
While WAP is just starting to get popular in most of Europe and much less in
the US, Sweden has already 8 big WAP-portal sites. These portals offer
anything to buy from toothpaste to shoestrings. The biggest WAP-portal in
Sweden is www.svd.se which has more than 821 links. Unfortunately for the
rest of the world, most links are to other Swedish pages. Three of the 8 big
portals offer a calendar and a personal organizer. Seven portals also offer
free e-mail.
7. New American mCommerce solution ( June 2000)
Remit.com, a Californian payment service provider now offers the first
mCommerce money transfer method in the US. From now on, American customers
can send money over the internet with their mobile phone from virtually
anywhere. The method is based on e-mail and can be received and sent with
any mobile phone. In matters of security Remit.com has not offered
satisfying proof yet. (www.remit.com )
8. WAPit offers free WAP-platform
The Finnish company WAPit Ltd is pushing the competition; since last week
they are offering a WAP-platform for free. Nokia, Ericsson and other
companies won't be happy about that. They are charging customers up to US $
250'000 for a platform, which is only a little better. The biggest customer
of WAPit to date is Globe Telecom from the Philipines, which has millions of
customers itself. (www.wapit.com )
9. China and Siemens are working on a Chinese standard
The German multi-billion-dollar company Siemens is working together with a
Chinese academy on the new TD-SCDMA system. In 2002 this technology will
replace the GSM-standard. GSM will be used until the complete replacement
through TC-SCDMA. TC-SCDMA will be compatible to most other known standards.
This will make it possible for the huge Chinese market to communicate with
the rest of the world. (www.siemens.de )
Copyright ©
1999-2002 www.ccWAP.com / Mobilescu.com
All rights reserved
Next
|
|
