And, like it or not, corporate warriors need never again be out of touch while out of the office. Although WAP is available globally, it's expected to catch on particularly quickly in Asia, where cellphones have far higher penetration rates than personal computers and already are an integral part of daily life. WAP has been available in some Asian markets, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea, since late last year, but the technology has been slow to take hold. For one thing, only a very few WAP-enabled handsets are available, a bottleneck that's likely to ease in the coming months. A secure payment system for mobile transactions also isn't expected until later this year.
Most screens are too tiny to hold more than a few Chinese characters.
Those limitations mean that content has initially been less than scintillating-typical offerings include news headlines, stock quotes, horoscope readings and the like. But with the advent of a more advanced technology known as general packet radio service, or GPRS, most analysts expect WAP to take off in all major developed markets by the end of the year. Transmission speeds will soar and accessing data will be similar to surfing the Web. With the onset of the new technology, there will be increased pressure for cellular phones and personal digital assistants to merge into one handy mobile-communications device Several trends suggest WAP will be a hit. To gauge the potential of the coming revolution in mobile on-line business, look no further than Japan.