Jon Tetzchner wants to kill WAP. And he’s not alone.
“It makes no sense to have two systems,” said Tetzchner, chief executive officer of Internet browsing company Opera Software ASA.
Tetzchner is hoping to kill WAP by making it obsolete. He’s got company-Nokia Corp., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications L.P., Motorola Inc. and other major wireless players have rallied to the plan by installing the Opera browser into their high-end mobile phones.
Tetzchner explained that there are two versions of the Internet-one wireless and one wired. The wireless Internet is mainly written in the WML programming language and viewed through WAP browsers installed in mobile phones. It’s an Internet few have seen, and even fewer enjoy. The wired Internet, on the other hand, is mainly written in the ubiquitous HTML programming language and viewed on desktop computers worldwide. It’s a Web that surfers know and use on a daily basis.
“There’s billions of Internet sites out there, and most of them are not going to make a specialized page for the mobile format,” Tetzchner said.
Tetzchner predicts a future that will feature only one Internet, one that all users-wired and wireless-can view. Content providers won’t have to build separate WAP Internet pages for wireless users, and wireless users won’t be limited in what they can access. This, Tetzchner said, more than anything will drive the use of wireless data.
“What Opera has is a browser the size as in mobile phones but powerful like the ones on the desktop,” he said.
Tetzchner’s bold vision is backed by some of the biggest names in wireless. A handful of the world’s most advanced smart phones, including the Sony Ericsson P900, the Motorola A920 and the Sendo X, include a built-in Opera browser. And Nokia, which generally relies on in-house technology, installed the Opera browser in three of its high-end devices, the 9210i, the 6600 and the 7700.
“What you are getting is a full Web browser,” Tetzchner said.
Opera started in 1995 as a research project inside Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor. Opera’s founders started out with $7,000 and a plan to develop a slender Internet browser that would work on both low- and high-speed computers. Today, the company counts about $8 million in annual revenues and 130 employees. It is the world’s No. 3 Internet browser provider, although well behind market leaders Microsoft Corp. and Netscape.
Opera sells two versions of its desktop browser, one that is supported by advertising and costs nothing and one that is ad-free and costs about $40. But the company’s main business is no longer in desktop computers-two-thirds of Opera’s revenues come from embedded browser sales. Gadgets from interactive TVs to automobiles to a prototype IBM Corp. refrigerator feature an embedded Opera browser. The company’s main source of embedded sales is in mobile phones.
“You’re getting the same code on a mobile phone as on the desktop,” Tetzchner said.
Opera’s wireless browser can render HTML, JavaScript, XHTML and even the WAP language WML-meaning that it can display most wireless and wired Internet pages. However, simply rendering the page is not enough. Some mobile phones and personal digital assistants can view Internet pages, but due to the small screen and lack of processing power, users are forced to wait for several minutes while the entire page is downloaded. Then, users can only view a small slice of the page at a time, and must scroll down or side-to-side to see the entire page.
Opera’s wireless browser addresses those drawbacks with its Small-Screen Rendering technology. The technology reformats Internet pages for mobile-phone screens, and does so with little processing power. In a cursory surfing session, Opera’s browser quickly and successfully rendered several complex Internet pages, including CNN.com and rcrnews.com. The browser essentially squeezes the pages into one long column, and users can scroll down to see the contents of the page. PalmOne Inc.’s Blazer browser, which is installed on the company’s Treo devices, works in a similar manner.
“If the phone screen can handle WAP, it can handle Opera,” Tetzchner said.
Opera’s wireless browser can run on devices that have screens of 100 pixels or more and processing speeds of 30 MHz or more. Most of today’s high-end mobile phones, and some mid-range phones, meet those requirements. And, as the industry continues to advance, more phones in the future will be able to support Opera’s browser.
Opera is working to sell its browser to the world’s mobile-phone makers, and so far has met with some significant successes. But Opera also recently released a product aimed at wireless carriers, a move the company hopes will spur further sales into the wireless market.
Under Opera’s new Platform offering, wireless carriers can create a branded start page on an Opera-supported mobile phone, and can update the information on the page over the air. The offering essentially would turn a phone’s main screen into a Web page, allowing carriers to continually update and change the page. For example, a carrier could promote its newest wireless service, or could offer updated news and sports headlines. The start page also would include basic phone information such as battery status, as well as user-defined information such as the time and location of an important meeting. The rest of the phone’s user interface, such as the address book and the settings selections, would remain unchanged.
Already Opera has made some headway into the carrier market, with Portuguese carrier Optimus installing the Opera browser on its Nokia 3650 phones. The deal did not include the Platform offering. Optimus said its GPRS data traffic increased 416 percent from May to August, which the carrier said was in large part due to sales of phones with the Opera browser.
“The important part is that we’re seeing a change,” Tetzchner said. “You’ll have Web browsers on a majority of mobile phones, and we’ll try to have a significant part of that.”
