Wireless developers reject new standards initiative

NEWS Wireless developers and analysts are not impressed with a new standard designed to improve the delivery of wireless applications. The GSM association announced the 'M-services' to a packed press reception yesterday. M-services unites a series of existing standards, including WAP, the enhanced text messaging protocols EMS and MMS. However, the foot-soldiers of the wireless revolution are less than impressed. Ian Rowley, operations director of eMobile, is also sceptical, he said: "It's too little, too late. These won't be available for a year or more, and Microsoft have got theirs already." The only new element in the protocol is a graphical user interface and a protocol for richer applications called "Download Fun". The new functions were developed by Openwave (formerly phone.com), the company which initially developed WAP, but there are already doubts over whether the industry will accept all the existing standards, let alone the new ones. Siemens, Sagem, Motorola, Samsung and Alcatel have announced their support for the standards, but as they already use Openwave software on their phones, it was not a great surprise. Market leader Nokia has not offered support and neither has Ericsson. The new software is effectively being offered free of charge, but many in the industry are suspicious of supposedly altruistic offers. Nokia also implemented a facility for downloading ring-tones and other 'fun' features on a proprietary basis, called the smart messaging protocol. They offered this solution free to other manufacturers, but so far no one is willing to use it. Ben Wood, mobile analyst at Gartner, said that Nokia is often seen as bid to dominate the market. "Many other manufacturers saw the Smart Messaging Protocol simply as a way to increase market share for Nokia's services division, Club Nokia. "With Nokia defining the standard," he added, "They will always be slightly ahead of the curve on delivering the services." eMobile's Rowley and others in the industry are also unimpressed with Openwave's record on designing the WAP protocol, blaming the company for the reliability problems of WAP. "If they can't get that right," Rowley said, "What hope is there for this new standard?" For Nick Knowles, CTO of award winning WAP application company Kizoom, the standards wars remain a distant concern. He said: "The main improvements in WAP applications haven't come from new standards so much as better software tools for overcoming the problems of different standards." Like most WAP developers, Kizoom is still using 18-month WAP standards, as the majority of handsets on the market do not support the newer ones. The major problem for most application developers is not a technical one, rather a business one. They are finding it difficult to build a viable business model in a market where mobile operators are very reluctant to share revenue.