Psion CEO David Levin has been warning today that WAP is over-hyped and doesn't put "the Internet on your phone" as some over-enthusiastic promoters have been suggesting. This is refreshing, since the emerging generation of WAP devices is going to be a considerable disappointment for many users until there is a broader band network. Levin said in Hong Kong that there needs to be "less hype and more delivery".

Coincidentally, Psion chairman David Potter was musing yesterday in London to Reuters that if Microsoft were broken up and accepted the concept of open markets, he could envisage a collaboration with Microsoft in the developing wireless market. Potter said he believed in alliances and partnerships, and thought that there could be synergy in a Microsoft relationship. It would be quite a leap from the position stated by Microsoft's chairman in emails, where Symbian was portrayed as the being less-than-welcome at Microsoft's table.

With three main OS protagonists - Symbian, Windows CE, and Palm - any future relationship could be good news for Microsoft if it provided a way for it to evolve away from CE, and bad news for Palm. But there again, maybe Palm would make a deal with Symbian too. Surely there couldn't be another of these "natural monopolies" in prospect? Perhaps not, at least for quite some time. ®