And they don't support video and audio at all, although the company is working on the problem. Because it's hard to figure out how to split the functionality of Java and JavaScript applications between the proxy server and the handheld, they're difficult, but not impossible, to transform for handheld display, Fox says. Furthermore, Web pages with high graphical content don't look good squeezed onto handhelds. Fox says advances in Extensible Markup Language will help solve that problem. Applications that pump a lot of data out to the client don't perform smoothly, either.
Wireless channels tend to be slow and error-prone compared with physical connections.
The challenge is writing transformation utilities for proprietary applications. But, according to Jerry Hall, vice president of marketing at Proxinet, enterprise applications are some of the easiest to transform. But when HTML was created, no one thought much about smart handheld devices, mostly because there weren't that many around. The specification is loaded with features that work best on desktop monitors. The handheld market's dying for a small-screen HTML, and several proposals are on the table.