WAP and its competitors

I have been keenly following this IG and I have a great interest in it.
But my head reels.  

KVM, NTT, WAP...WML, HDML, WBXML, C-HTML...  NTT seems to have their own
protocol but they are members of W3C as well.   WAP has been submitted to
W3C for review but NTT's hasn't been.  NTT is in Japan, WAP in Europe.
From what I have read, US might go WAP.  And most of these protocols have
IPRs.  KVM is not a competitor of WAP but it has enough communication
libraries to communicate with gateways.  So, in that sense, KVM IS a
competitor of WAP.

With so many protocols and formats, how does W3C work to make sure that the
internet community doesn't end up with diverging protocols and formats?  If
there are protocols & formats in work already in the fields, how do we have
any influence on their future enhancements that would lead them towards
some sort of standardization.  

I am new to the standardization process and I would appreciate any insight
into the process in a case such as this. 



Sujatha.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sujatha N. Marsden
Chief Scientist
eTranslate, Inc.

Received on Thursday, 9 March 2000 13:56:59 UTC