Worldwide Acceptance of WAP Boosts Forum Membership to 500 LOS ANGELES, June 19 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ -- The CEO of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Forum today announced that membership in the organization has reached 500 companies, evidence that WAP continues to gain worldwide acceptance as the standard for accessing the Internet on wireless devices. "Reaching 500 members is remarkable in itself," said CEO Scott Goldman. "But it is even more important for what it says about the enormous level of acceptance of WAP by the wireless and Internet industries." Goldman said WAP Forum membership has doubled since the beginning of the year and increased 25 percent in just the past two months. His remarks came at the opening of a weeklong business meeting of the Forum in Los Angeles, attended by approximately 800 delegates working on advancing the WAP specification. The WAP Forum, an industry association dedicated to enabling Internet access through handheld wireless devices, was formed in June 1997. It reached the 100-member mark in mid-1999, and stood at 250 members at the end of 1999. The Forum is comprised of handset manufacturers, carriers, infrastructure providers, software companies and other organizations delivering solutions to the wireless industry. Greg Williams, vice president-wireless systems for SBC Communications, Inc., who serves as chairman of the Forum's board of directors, attributed part of the growth to the group's creation of an Associate Member category in June, 1999. The Associate category was designed to encourage content and applications providers to join the Forum. "We created the Associate Membership because we recognize that innovation often begins in start-ups and other new market entrants. The Forum has been energized by these new members, and all users of WAP-enabled services will benefit from their ingenuity in coming years," Williams said. CEO Goldman said approximately 25 separate working groups will be meeting in Los Angeles this week, working on such issues as interoperability, e-commerce and l-commerce applications, multimedia and rich content features, billing, and wireless applications. The Forum meets five times a year in locations around the globe; September's session is in Hong Kong, followed by a meeting in Munich in December. "WAP is an organic standard, and the Forum membership is dedicated to constantly improving and upgrading it through a consensus process geared toward making the specification usable around the world," Goldman said. "Our key goals are ensuring interoperability among all sectors of the wireless Internet and expanding WAP's role in a 3G environment," he added. "The meetings this week and in the future will help achieve those goals." About WAP Forum The WAP Forum is the industry association that is responsible for developing and fostering the growth of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) -- an open, global standard that allows mobile users of wireless hand-held devices to easily and instantly access and interact with the Internet. The forum is comprised of more than 500 members, representing 95 percent of the handsets sold worldwide and more than 200 million global subscribers. Members include worldwide handset manufacturers, carriers, infrastructure providers, software developers and other wireless solution providers. For more information about WAP Forum, including a current listing of its members, visit www.wapforum.org. SOURCE WAP Forum CONTACT: Michael Vernetti of Blanc + Otus, 415-912-2376, or [email protected], for WAP Forum; or Scott Goldman of WAP Forum, 818-591-8488, or [email protected] Web site: http://www.wapforum.org.