London ? (15 July September 1999) ? More than 180 leading technology companies from across the world are gathered here this week at the members meeting of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Forum (www.wapforum.org). WAP is the de-facto global standard for providing Internet communications and advanced telephony services on digital mobile phones, pagers, personal digital assistants and other wireless terminals. WAP Forum members are meeting to advance the development of WAP technology and ensure that users of low power, low memory portable devices can securely access and instantly interact with Internet/intranet information and other forms of wireless data.
The WAP Forum joins together leaders from today?s fastest growing technology sectors ? the Internet and wireless communications ? including top manufacturers of mobile phones and PDAs, network operators, wireless infrastructure providers, computer and software vendors, e-commerce providers and content developers. The Forum?s charter is to bring together all companies providing solutions to the wireless industry to ensure interoperability and growth of wireless Internet-based services.
In June, the Forum released the WAP Version 1.1 specification, which is enabling the rapid commercial deployment of WAP-ready products worldwide. With WAP technology, consumer and business users of wireless devices have near anytime, anywhere access to mobile media services such as:
Banking, share trading and other financial transactions News, sports and weather information Driving directions and traffic reports Air, rail and other travel schedules and the capability to book itineraries Event, cinema and show schedules and the capability to purchase tickets E-mail and corporate intranet access Value-added wireless services such as account billing and customer care applications
"This is the most exciting time in the WAP Forum’s history," said Gregory Williams, board chairman of the WAP Forum. "The close cooperation of this organisation has culminated in a rich offering of exciting new services for all wireless consumers. It will be extremely gratifying for us all to see the fruits of our efforts come to life in the explosion of WAP product launches over the next few months. However, the road is just beginning. Our continued membership growth will allow us to improve and enhance WAP into the next millennium."
Due in part to a new Associate Member category, more than 60 new members have joined the WAP Forum in the last three months. The new category is designed to enable content and service providers, application developers, tool vendors and non-infrastructure industry suppliers greater participation in the Forum and development of WAP. To follow is a list of companies that have recently joined the Forum
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