Nokia, HP sign WAP agreement

HP and Nokia have signed a deal to deliver Internet facilities on mobile phones. The deal, is attractive to Nokia because of its e-services, said Gerhard Roman, VP of marketing at Nokia. Roman demonstrated two applications on mobile phones that would use HP's expertise. Those were mobile airline ticketing services and online banking, where money could be transferred from one account to another using WAP services. Peter van der Fluit, VP of HP alliance programme in Europe, said: "By 2003, 50 per cent of mobile phones will be WAP enabled." That meant that 80,000 servers would be needed by 2003 to handle the transactions. Those would mostly be HP servers, he hoped. But IBM immediately attempted to steal HP's thunder. It has just released a statement saying that it will sign a deal with Nokia next week. Nokia must just be lapping all this attention up. ®