World Wide Web Consortium Issues XHTML Basic as a W3C Recommendation

World Wide Web Consortium Issues XHTML Basic as a W3C Recommendation

XHTML Basic Provides the Key to Full Web Access to Mobile Devices

Contact America and Europe -- 

 Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.2613 
 Ian Jacobs, <ij@w3.org>,    +1.617.253.2613

Contact Asia -- 

 Kazuhiro Kitagawa <kaz@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170 

Web Resources for XHTML Basic

Press Release:
  http://www.w3.org/2000/12/xhtml-basic-pressrelease

Testimonials from Access Co. Ltd., Ericsson, 
J-Phone East Co., Ltd., NTT DoCoMo, Inc., Openwave Systems Inc., 
Panasonic, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Toshiba Corp., and the WAP Forum:
  http://www.w3.org/2000/12/xhtml-basic-testimonial

HTML Activity Overview:
  http://www.w3.org/MarkUp

XHTML Basic Recommendation:
  http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xhtml-basic-20001219/


http://www.w3.org/ -- 19 December 2000 -- 
Continuing its mission to create one Web for all users, the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today released XHTML Basic as a W3C
Recommendation. The specification reflects cross-industry
agreement on a set of markup language features that allows
authors to create rich Web content deliverable to a wide range of
devices, including mobile phones, personal digital assistants
(PDAs), pagers, and television-based Web browsers. A W3C
Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable,
contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the
W3C Membership, who favor its adoption by the industry.


XHTML Basic Brings Both Simplicity and XML Power

In January 2000, W3C published the XHTML 1.0 Recommendation,
which combined the well-known features of HTML with the power of
XML. In another W3C specification entitled "Modularization of
XHTML", W3C's HTML Working Group describes a mechanism that
allows authors to mix and match content from well-defined subsets
of XHTML 1.0 elements and attributes. The XHTML Basic
Recommendation combines some of these XHTML modules in a manner
well-suited to mobile Web applications.

"Interoperability has always been essential to the Web," said Tim
Berners-Lee, W3C Director. "The simplicity of early versions of
HTML made interoperability easy. While XHTML 1.0 is a powerful
language, support for the full XHTML 1.0 feature set may be too
much to expect browsers on cell phones and other small devices to
handle. XHTML Basic offers the simplicity and wide
interoperability of early versions of HTML and reflects ten years
of Web experience, including advances in XML and accessibility."


XHTML Basic Delivers the Web to Mobile Devices

XHTML Basic is designed so that it may be implemented by all user
agents, including mobile devices, television-based devices, and
other small Web devices.

"The minimalist nature of the XHTML Basic document type ensures
that all Web clients, including mobile phones, PDAs, pagers,
set-top boxes, and PCs, can support a common subset of XHTML,"
said Dave Raggett, W3C Fellow and Senior Architect at Openwave
Systems Inc. "XHTML Basic provides a powerful building block for
use across increasingly diverse platforms, and can be extended
with various specialized markup such as for multimedia (SMIL),
mathematics (MathML), vector graphics (SVG), and forms (XForms)."


XHTML Basic Enjoys Wireless Industry Support, Authoring Tools

The XHTML Basic specification is the result of significant
collaborative efforts of the W3C HTML Working Group, including
participants from AOL/Netscape; CWI; Ericsson; IBM; Intel;
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.; Microsoft; Mozquito
Technologies; Openwave Systems Inc.; Philips Electronics; Quark
Inc.; and Sun Microsystems. In addition, the Working Group
integrated feedback from the W3C Mobile Access Interest Group and
the WAP Forum in an effort to ensure demonstrable functionality
in wireless devices. Many industry players support, or have plans
to support, XHTML Basic, including the WAP Forum.

Today, content developers interested in making XHTML Basic
documents can create them with W3C's own browser/editor, Amaya.


About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by
developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure
its interoperability. It is an international industry consortium
jointly run by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS)
in the USA, the National Institute for Research in Computer
Science and Control (INRIA) in France and Keio University in
Japan. Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository
of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users,
and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use
of new technology. To date, over 480 organizations are Members of
the Consortium. For more information see http://www.w3.org/

###

Testimonials:

  Access Co. Ltd. | Ericsson | J-Phone East Co., Ltd. | 
  Openwave Systems Inc. | Panasonic | Sun Microsystems, Inc. | 
  Toshiba Corp. | WAP Forum

 XHTML Basic is the important basis both for Wireless Internet
 services and for Internet-access enabling small information
 appliances such as cellular phones. Since ACCESS submitted
 "Compact HTML" specification to W3C in 1998, ACCESS has been
 involved in defining XHTML Basic as a micro browser
 supplier. ACCESS is very pleased by the release of XHTML Basic
 as a co-editor of this specification. ACCESS has released more
 than 10 million copies of cHTML micro browser, especially for
 NTT DoCoMo's i-mode phones. For coming 3G Wireless Internet
 services, XHTML Basic will become the common and extensible
 service platform for cellular phones. We plan to support XHTML
 Basic in our micro browser "Compact NetFront".  
-- Tomihisa Kamada, Executive Vice President and CTO, 
   Access Co.  Ltd.

 Ericsson welcomes the release of XHTML Basic as a W3C
 Recommendation. We have long felt the need for a subset of XHTML
 that Web authors can write to in order to reach the maximum
 range of Web clients with different capabilities; especially
 including mobile phones. Furthermore, XHTML Basic brings XHTML
 to mobile phones with all the benefits of XML, and without the
 baggage of existing HTML features that are not served well in
 constrained devices.  
-- Thomas Carnehult, Strategic Product Manager, Ericsson

 XHTML Basic is the core of mobile phone markup languages and
 J-Phone Group is pleased to see that it has become a W3C
 Recommendation. We have been deploying mobile Internet services
 such as E-mail and WWW access for several years in Japan, and
 believe that mobile phones will become the most familiar
 Internet appliance in the ubiquitous communication society of
 the future.  The standardization of mobile phone markup
 languages is very important. From this perspective, J-Phone
 actively supports XHTML Basic as the common language for
 Internet appliances.  
-- Kyoichiro Kouri, Chief Operating Officer, 
   J-PHONE EAST Co., Ltd. EAST

 NTT DoCoMo is delighted to see the advancement of XHTML
 Basic. In our almost 2 years experience of running "i-mode", we
 have been a quite successful for providing mobile Internet
 service. The greatest achievement of "i-mode" service is its
 content development. In this context, our choice of adopting an
 HTML subset as the Markup Language, was the key to maximizing
 the variation and quality of contents. Therefore, we expect that
 XHTML Basic would satisfy our requirement for the next step of
 content description.  We strongly believe that this evolution is
 vital for the continuous success of wireless Internet
 applications.  
-- Keiichi Enoki, Member of the Board and Managing Director, 
   Gateway Business Department, NTT DoCoMo, Inc.

 Openwave's contribution to the development of XHTML and XHTML
 Basic demonstrates our dedication to open standards, innovation,
 and delivering Internet-based communications anywhere, anytime,
 over any device. XHTML Basic is a significant step forward in
 the development of a universal Web and the cornerstone in
 expanding the potential of mobile services.  
-- Bruce Martin, Vice President, Technology, Openwave Systems Inc.

 Panasonic is very pleased that the XHTML Basic specification has
 been approved as a W3C Proposed Recommendation. XHTML Basic will
 take a very significant role as the common denominator for the
 universal Web access with digital home appliances, such as
 digital TV sets or cellular phones. As one of the leading
 companies for digital home appliances, Panasonic highly expects
 that XHTML Basic will become the foundation for a wide variety
 of Web appliances.  
-- Yasunori Tanaka, Manager, Digital Network Development Center, 
   Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

 Sun Microsystems joined the WAP Forum in June of 1999 with the
 goal of motivating the convergence of the WAP protocols to those
 of both the IETF and W3C. The publication of XHTML Basic as a
 W3C Recommendation will surely help to solidify support in the
 WAP Forum for XHTML Basic as part of WAP's next-generation
 architecture requirements.  
-- Bill Yeager, Senior Software Architect for Java Wireless
   Solutions, Sun Microsystems

 Toshiba is pleased to see that XHTML Basic has become a W3C
 Recommendation. XHTML Basic will provide a base framework for
 Web services delivery to various devices, including PDAs and
 mobile phones. Toshiba already has many Web services for mobile
 phones, providing the same service in different languages. We
 believe that XHTML Basic will enable efficient and effective
 development of Web services.  
-- Tsutomu Kawada, Vice President of iValue Creation Company, 
   Toshiba Corporation

 The WAP Forum applauds W3C's Recommendation of XHTML Basic. As
 mobile devices continue to become fully integrated into the
 world of Internet access, XHTML offers developers the
 opportunity to use consistent, familiar tools to bring
 compelling content to a variety of devices, including the mobile
 user community. Accordingly, the WAP forum is basing its next
 generation markup language specification on XHTML.  
-- Scott Goldman, CEO, WAP Forum


-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Tuesday, 19 December 2000 10:50:58 UTC