IBM touts its wireless wares

    Monday, August 21, 2000


    Japan - eWeek
    eWeek Japan


    Developers say wireless computing support from large vendors can go a long
    way toward helping their e-businesses expand into the wireless Web

    łand IBM
    seems to be listening.

    The Armonk, N.Y, company preached the gospel of pervasive computing last
    week here at its Solutions conference and stressed that the wireless and
    device-driven world is a key part of its future.

    IBM has added support for pervasive computing to its 15 partnership centers
    around the world and next month will release its WebSphere Everyplace
    Suite, an extension for its application server that enables wireless
    devices to access Web applications.

    "You must mobilize your applications, or at least have some bridges in
    order to make your applications or model usable by devices like PDAs
    [personal digital assistants]," said Marco Bellon, a developer with Led
    srl, in Rapallo, Italy. For his pur poses, Bellon added, mobile phones are
    becoming ubiquitous. "In Europe, and especially Italy, the mobile market is
    growing at a super-fast pace," he said.

    Bellon said he'd like to see IBM get more involved with companies such as
    Nokia Corp. and Ericsson Inc. to develop APIs to help developers get to
    market faster.

    The market for wireless is expected to reach $230 billion by 2003, and IBM
    is going after $83 billion of it with services, servers, software and its
    own devices.

    John Patrick, IBM's vice president of Internet technology, said he expects
    the number of users accessing the Internet via PCs to drop from about 95
    percent now to 40 percent or 50 percent in as little as two years. "The PC
    [is not] going away," Patrick said. "But the era of the PC as the center of
    the universe and as the center of what's going on in the Internet ... is
    over. What's replacing it is many devices."

    IBM's WebSphere Everyplace Suite supports 25 networks and protocols,
    including WAP (Wireless Access Protocol), and acts as a gateway for
    devices. Also included is the key WebSphere Transcoding Publisher, which
    automatically translates data into an appropriate format for a device.

    Patrick Lee, a technical specialist for Royal Bank of Canada, in Toronto,
    recently launched a pilot project for wireless banking. Lee said he's
    interested in using IBM's transcoding technology to eliminate a middle tier
    and allow data to go from the transcoder directly to devices.

    A.K. Arcomona, an independent developer and consultant in Centreville, Va.,
    said IBM will need to enhance its transcoding because it supports only
    certain levels of servers. That said, Arcomona added that he believes the
    company is moving in the right direction.

    "IBM and any other companies are just getting started in putting together
    the building blocks," he said. "It's still very much in the infancy stage."

    WebSphere everywhere

    IBM's Everyplace Suite lineup

    Includes WebSphere Transcoding Publisher for translating data into an
    appropriate device format
    Adds Tivoli Subscription Manager
    Includes synchronization engine to keep data current across multiple
    devices
    Adds new security features
    Supports 25 different networks and protocols, including WAP
    Slated for general availability next month