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Two Views on: Why WAP is a $0 Billion Industry Geoff Goodfellow. Wireless Wednesday - Praha. Introduction: Geoff Goodfellow. High school & American drop out Involved in the ARPANET & Internet development at SRI (1974-1986) Founded RadioMail: First Wireless Internet Service Provider in 1988
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Two Views on: Why WAP is a $0 Billion IndustryGeoff Goodfellow Wireless Wednesday - Praha
Introduction: Geoff Goodfellow • High school & American drop out • Involved in the ARPANET & Internet development at SRI (1974-1986) • Founded RadioMail: First Wireless Internet Service Provider in 1988 • Today: DJ & Aspiring Restaurant Critic, as well as Private Investor , Portfolio Manager & Entrepreneur
WAP View 1: It’s a Guy Thing • Guy’s love to buy new technology Toy’s • Guy’s make more money than women • Guy’s have bigger ego’s than women • Guy’s like to show off their latest Guy Toy’s to other Guy’s
WAP View 1: a Guy’s Observation • Surfing the “wired web” is not a pleasant experience, now try this wirelessly? • WAP phones are bought on The Buzz factor • WAP euphoria (excitement) seems last about 2 weeks • Some don’t even activate the WAP features
WAP View 2: The not real issues for WAPs failures • HDML vs HTML • 40 second circuit connect times vs GRPS • Walled gardens vs the open Internet • Screen sizes • Keyboards
WAP View 2: Latency Issues • VOICE: Extremely latency sensitive • WAP: Very high latency sensitive • SMS: Low latency sensitive
WAP View 2: Phones are devices for talking & listening • Phones interface really well with “ears” and “mouth” • Phones interface poorly with “eyes” and “fingers”
WAP View 2: Where & How • Listening & Speaking can be done almost anywhere successfully: walking, driving, jumping out of an airplane, making love • Reading & Typing requires User Dexterity and requires a different type of attention (you can’t be doing much of anything else)
CONCLUSION: • WAP is a wonderful “by product” of the “foo-foo” and “la-la” nature of Silicon Valley where there is a great proclivity to create new “gee whiz” technology in search of questionable (non-existent?) markets • The Mobile phone vendors got “sucked in” to the “gee whiz” and Internet Buzz factor • So did the Network Providers!
Questions? Geoff Goodfellow geoff@iconia.com