The leap of faith from online to wireless

Tuesday, November 14, 2000

There's only one problem with the "mobility optimized Internet"--current wireless appliances have such small screens and slow modems that they must strip all the graphics off rich Web pages and simplify the text to a single column.

OK, OK, there's also the security problem, and there's the coverage problem, and batteries don't last long enough, and only early-adopters are using it...

But let's get back to the content problem. How do you funnel the fat Web into little wireless devices? One answer is mScope(TM), a software application from OceanLake Commerce Inc. (Toronto, Ontario, www.oceanlake.com). OceanLake markets the mScope "wireless enabling engine" through an ASP arrangement, and also offers to build new m-Commerce sites and integrate them with a client's existing e-Commerce platform.

The difference between mobile-Commerce and electronic-Commerce is vast when you count the 95 different wireless devices such as mobile phones, smart phones, PDAs, pagers, and two-way radios. mScope's strength is that it will translate an existing web page to any of those applications, without the need to write device-specific content. It supports all major web-server platforms including Windows NT and 2000, Linux, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX.

And for those who have progressed from mere surfing to committing actual acts of wireless commerce, OceanLake offers biometric voice technology called VoicePay, Voice DNA(C), and VoiceBank(C), which are designed to authenticate the user, and thus secure wireless transactions and fight fraud. The voice technology also allows users to navigate the Web, thus achieving freedom from keyboards.

The Canadian service provider Rogers AT&T Wireless uses mScope for its mobile Black Jack card game, developed for Blackberry PDAs. And Microsolve Computer Capital Inc. (www.homebank.net) uses mScope for its wireless finance suite, called HomeBanking.