Mobile phone industry unites behind Web language for handsets (270)

A proposed standard for Web applications on mobile phones has won support from all the major players in the market.

Eight suppliers are now backing two technologies from start-up Unwired Planet - an enhanced version of Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML), a cousin of HTML for mobile phones; and Up.Link Platform, which provides security and authentication for wireless Internet applications. Unwired has submitted its technology to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as a standard Web language for building Net applications for handsets.

The top three mobile phone suppliers, Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola, had already endorsed Up.link and are now joined by Alcatel, Mitsubishi Electric, Nortel, Philips Consumer Communications, and Siemens Private Communication Systems.

The group has submitted its version of HDML, which includes a micro-browser for mobile phone screens. An HDML standard, when it emerges, will address the prospective market for pushing stripped-down Internet content to digital cellular phones with screens. It will be independent of underlying airlink standards, and will initially be targeted at GSM networks.

Handset manufacturers and network operators are currently working on technology to handle such services and are expected to start offering them as a value add to subscribers next year, although suppliers are keeping their plans closely guarded.

Up.Link can be used by software developers to create interactive applications and Web content for the new generation of ?smartphones?. Typical applications could be sending news headlines or stock prices to users' mobile phone screens.

The draft language protocol will be made available to phone manufacturers and operators by September. However a software developer?s kit is available now.

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