Nokia announced this week
that it is working with Hewlett Packard,
IBM and Scandinavian e-commerce company
Nocom to develop a solution
for easy access to e-commerce sites from mobile phones.
The four partners say they plan to bring out a new over-the-air WAP solution
during the first half of 2000.
Pertti Lounamaa, vice president of Nokia Internet Communications, said
the new technnology being developed would perform a crucial function in
the Mobile Internet.
When the Nokia technology is ready, consumers should find it easy to access
mobile commerce sites from a WAP-enabled phone.
First, the user locates a mobile-enabled e-commerce site with a conventional
PC by browsing the Internet, then clicks on an icon to input the
appropriate mobile phone number. The new Nokia technology is designed
to adjust the settings automatically to enable the user to access
the site wirelessly, with no need to make any other input by phone.
European managers in large corporations are putting great faith and
huge investment into the infrastructure of the Mobile Internet.
However, whether it will work as envisaged is far from clear.
“Ease-of-use is one of the key advantages mobile phones have over PCs
today, particularly for buying things over the Web,” claimed Mark Bregman,
general manager IBM’s Pervasive Computing Division.
Bregman went on to say that Nokia’s new WAP technology makes it even
easier by taking all of the configuration headaches and “sucking them
into the infrastructure where they belong” away from the user.
Nokia will integrate its new technology into the Nokia WAP Server,
its open server platform for mobile applications.
Nearing completion, the solution is currently in beta with selected
partners.