"You will not get an objective, impartial opinion from me."

WAP Forum CEO Scott Goldman has seen enough of the negative press and falsehoods regarding the delivery standard he represents. He reiterated WAP's role in the future of wireless data in front of developers at Motorola's Application Development Conference, and in a later discussion with AnywhereYouGo.com .

The WAP Forum, formed in December 1997, has seen its ranks explode in the last six months, with firms such as IBM, America Online, and NTT DoCoMo joining the ranks.

"A lot of people will tell you that the 'E' in my title stands for evangelist, because that's a lot of what I do. Part of that includes talking to analysts, to educate them about the real story of WAP, as opposed to what some other people might be presuming is true regarding XML, 3G, security and so forth," Goldman said.

The technology press has savaged WAP in recent months as a limited solution with no place in the coming high-bandwidth wireless spectrum. According to Goldman, what you see on today's handsets won't be there in the future.

"Bandwidth is still not free, and it isn't even cheap. Just ask the people in the U.K., who just spent $36 billion on the last round of auctions. Now, if you take that $36 billion, and add to that the cost of building the infrastructure, marketing, building up the staff and so forth, you're looking at a huge investment. In order to maximize that investment, you have to [get] the most use out of that spectrum. That's exactly what WAP is unsurpassed at doing.

"Regardless of the amount of bandwidth, unless you have the standards to deliver the content, the bandwidth doesn't do you any good. I make the analogy of the cable TV service, where you have a 27-inch TV and a big pipe coming in to the back of the box, but no programming. Without the programming coming through the pipe, the TV set doesn't do you any good. That's what WAP is excellent at, in delivering that content to these wireless devices, and that's what WML is all about.

"Navigating, small screens, limited ROM, limited RAM, location-based services -- all of those things that are unique characteristics of wireless, strengths and weaknesses -- that is what WAP does. Just because there is going to be more bandwidth doesn't mean WAP is going to go out of fashion," Goldman said.

Push technology is already a part of the current WAP specification, and location-based services are partially covered in WAP 1.2, with enhancements coming in the months ahead.

"Using GPS and other ways of locating someone within a certain cell site... those technologies are just now starting to become practical. From an expense standpoint, and from a size standpoint, those technologies are just now becoming able to be placed into handsets. As they become more readily available, we will be able to include them into our specifications."

Much of Goldman's time recently has been spent dispelling myths of an upcoming battle between WAP and DoCoMo's wireless success story, i-Mode. The perception of a face-off between the two platforms amuses Goldman.

"Not only is DoCoMo a member of the WAP Forum, but one of their top executives is on the board of directors of the WAP Forum, and one of their top engineers is the chair of our Multimedia Expert Group. We're very pleased with the success that i-Mode has had, because it proves that the business model actually works. People are willing to pay to have internet content delivered to [their wireless devices], that they want content pushed to them.

"If you go to someone at DoCoMo, they will say that they are fully committed to WAP," Goldman said. "One of the things DoCoMo reps will ask us when we visit, is 'Why does it appear in the press that there is this battle between WAP and i-Mode, when we are both moving in the same direction?'"

Goldman believes that critics are missing the big picture with WAP, in that the protocol is moving towards a full-spectrum Internet standard, and that standard begins with XML.

"DoCoMo's next-generation is moving in much of the same direction, so you will probably see a convergence of those two technologies [WAP and i-Mode] very soon. We are certainly not going to adopt Compact HTML (c-HTML) as part of the WAP specification, because it is not a language that is based on XML, where WML is based on a foundation of XML." DoCoMo will have to make a decision to utilize XHTML in future releases of i-Mode, Goldman said, to fulfill their desire to become an Internet standard.

Goldman also points to DDI's Japanese service, which runs on WAP instead of i-Mode. "If you look at a DDI handset next to one of DoCoMo's i-Mode handsets, you will see very similar types of services. DoCoMo has about a 53 percent share of the market in Japan, as opposed to about a 15 percent share owned by DDI. Both have penetrated into their subscriber base, on almost an equal level," Goldman said.