Soll man sich WAPpnen?

["Bernhard Eversberg" <EV _at__ buch.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de>]

Da in diesem Forum auch schon von WAP die Rede war und vielleicht mancher
wissen moechte, was man denn fuer unseren Bereich davon zu halten habe, leite 
ich hier eine sehr relevante Message aus der Liste DC-GENERAL weiter:
B.E.

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------

Date sent:      Wed, 17 May 2000 10:00:30 +0100
Subject:        WAP & DC
From:           Anthony Finkelstein <a.finkelstein _at__ cs.ucl.ac.uk>
To:             dc-general _at__ mailbase.ac.uk

Can I strongly recommend the following paper. An excellent summary 
and a really powerful demolition of WAP.


http://www.4k-associates.com/IEEE-L7-WAP-BIG.html

W* Effect Considered Harmful

Abstract

The Wireless Application Forum has developed an entire stack of 
network protocols parallel to, and only marginally compatible with, 
the existing Internet architecture. They are convinced handheld 
wireless devices are -- and will remain -- four orders of magnitude 
less powerful than conventional Internet hosts and thus require 
optimized transport, applications, and content. At each turn, WAP 
Forum has chosen to reinterpret existing Internet standards -- often 
incompatibly. The shift from UDP to WDP, TLS to WTLS, HTTP to WTP, 
HTML to WML, ECMAScript to WMLScript -- termed 'the W* Effect' -- is 
disingenuous at best,
and at worst, locks in early WAP adopters to today's lowest common denominator.

This report presents a summary of WAP, its history and key players, a 
layer-by-layer tour of its standards (and its competitors at each 
layer), and its market potential for handset providers, network 
operators, application servers, and content providers. This provides 
context for understanding the strategic conflict between WAP and a 
host of other, more established Standards Development Organizations 
(SDOs).


Anthony Finkelstein (Prof.)     | TEL: +44 (0)20 7679 7293 (Direct Dial)
University College London   | FAX: +44 (0)20 7387 1397
Dept. of Computer Science       | EMAIL: a.finkelstein _at__ cs.ucl.ac.uk
Gower Street,                   | http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Finkelstein
London WC1E 6BT                 | OFFICE: G20, Pearson Building
United Kingdom                  | PGP Key on request

Bernhard Eversberg
Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329, 
D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany
Tel.  +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX  -5836
e-mail  B.Eversberg _at__ tu-bs.de