SYDNEY, Australia - The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Forum and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced a formal liaison relationship to define next-generation Web specifications that support participation of wireless devices on the World Wide Web. The WAP Forum and W3C are working together to develop a common process of producing next-generation XML-based Web specifications, define testing and implementation processes, and promote these specifications to the industry at large.
The WAP is the de facto global standard for providing Internet communications and advanced telephony services on digital mobile phones, pagers, personal digital assistants and other wireless terminals. The W3C develops open, interoperable specifications that reinforce and extend the scalability, robustness and capability of the Web as a universal communications medium.
By working together, the WAP Forum and W3C hope to enable wireless devices to participate as full peers in the universal information space of the Web, largely through the incorporation of the WAP`s Wireless Markup Language (WML) features into the W3C`s XHTML, the next-generation markup language for the Web.
Coordination between the two bodies began in Sydney, Australia, in conjunction with the WAP Forum`s members meeting. The WAP/W3C Coordination Committee will meet on a regular basis to maintain consistency between the specifications of the WAP Forum and W3C, promote common specifications wherever possible, and enable cooperation between the working groups in the WAP Forum and W3C.
