We first published the article The WAP Trap: An Exposé of the Wireless Application Protocol [66] in April 2000. At that time it was the most comprehensive condemnation of WAP written to date. In it we demonstrated that WAP is crippled by patents, the result of a closed design process, inappropriately controlled by the WAP Forum, and riddled with technical design errors. We exposed WAP for what it is: a fraudulent marketing construct. Our conclusion was that WAP must be rejected and replaced with a set of truly open, patent-free, technically sound, mainstream Internet protocols.
In April 2000 we were one of a relatively small number of voices sounding the WAP alarm. At that time WAP was massively over-hyped, and a major portion of the wireless industry had succumbed to the hype. To use a phrase right out of the WAP hype machine: WAP was hot.
But in September 2001, 17 months after initial publication of The WAP Trap, our analysis and predictions have been convincingly validated.
The message in The WAP Trap resonated within the industry, and it has experienced widespread distribution and readership. Partly because of this, there is now a growing awareness of the fundamental fraudulence of WAP. The engineering community was never seriously taken in by WAP in the first place, and our raising of the alarm has had the desired effect among the business and media communities. Numerous articles have been published which support our position, including:
The body of published articles includes several which quote us
directly or otherwise build on our work. The above articles and others
are available on the Free Protocols Foundation website at
http://www.FreeProtocols.org/harmOfWap/main.html.
We will continue to augment the Free Protocols Foundation library with additional relevant articles as
they appear.
In addition, The WAP Trap has now been translated into French, under the title Le WAP a la Trappe. The translation of The WAP Trap into French represents another step forward in our campaign to expose WAP. Both English and French versions of the paper are available in HTML, PDF and PostScript formats on the Free Protocols Foundation website at http://www.FreeProtocols.org/wapTrap/index.html.
Though the tide of favor has turned against it, the WAP hype machine continues to operate. And there remain many within the industry who are still unaware of the problems with WAP. We will continue to counter the WAP hype by writing and distributing articles such as The WAP Trap and WAP Scraps.
However, the primary purpose of this article is not just to say NO to WAP. This article focuses on what needs to be done after WAP.
As we discussed in The WAP Trap, WAP has many shortcomings. But one of the major issues from a consumer-acceptance point of view is that it represents the wrong starting-point wireless Internet application. Though wireless web browsing certainly has its place, its end-user value proposition is entirely overshadowed by that of another wireless Internet application: Mobile Messaging.
This statement is fully supported by the user experiences and market acceptance of these two applications. The extremely poor end-user experience of WAP-based web browsing is very well documented in the Nielsen Norman Group field study report WAP Usability: Deja Vu: 1994 All Over Again [81]. By contrast, the end-user value of Mobile Messaging is well evidenced by the market acceptance of BlackBerry and other messaging systems, which are enjoying widespread popularity.
BlackBerry and other Mobile Messaging solutions are experiencing this popularity despite the fact that they are all closed, proprietary systems. In order for the Mobile Messaging industry to reach its full potential, these closed systems must be replaced by an open industry model, based on truly open and free protocols. All the components required to enable this, including the necessary open protocols, are now in place; and the development of the open Mobile Messaging industry is now assured. For a detailed discussion of the open Mobile Messaging industry, see the Manifesto article Operation WhiteBerry [8].
As in the case of Mobile Messaging, an open industry model is essential in order for the Mobile Web Browsing industry to reach its full potential. With the open Mobile Messaging industry well on its way, it is now time to focus attention on the development of the open Mobile Web Browsing industry.
This paper is a follow-on paper to The WAP Trap. Both papers are endorsed by and published by the Free Protocols Foundation (FPF). The FPF is an independent public forum dedicated to the support of patent-free protocols and software. The FPF regards protocol and software patents as being highly detrimental to the industry and the consumer, and part of the FPF mandate is to oppose exceptionally harmful patents and patented protocols when they appear. One such patented protocol is WAP.
The FPF is a U.S. non-profit organization, and is tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service regulations. All monetary contributions made to the FPF are tax deductible in accordance with these regulations. Any organization or individual wishing to support the goals of the FPF is encouraged to participate by joining the FPF mailing list, or by making an appropriate donation. For more information see the FPF website at http://www.freeprotocols.org.
One of the ways in which the FPF opposes patented protocols is by supporting and endorsing patent-free alternative protocols. This paper describes how WAP can be avoided by use of patent-free alternatives, and is therefore fully consistent with this mission. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of the open Mobile Web Browsing industry. In particular, we will:
We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the following persons in the preparation and review of this document: Andrew Hammoude and Pinneke Tjandana.
The authors of this article were also the initial developers of LEAP, and therefore have a vested interest in the success of LEAP over WAP.
However, we are also active participants in the Free Protocols Foundation (FPF), under whose auspices this article is being written. As participants in the FPF, we are fully committed to its patent-free principles. As noted above, part of the FPF mandate is to provide support for patent-free alternatives to patented protocols such as WAP. It is in the spirit of this mandate that this article is being written.