HP and Nokia Partner to Develop and Promote Business-Critical Wireless Application Protocol - WAP - Solutions - Company Business and Marketing

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, Sept 27, 1999

In a move that changes the landscape in the mobile Internet market, Hewlett-Packard Company and Nokia Corporation Tuesday announced a global agreement to jointly develop and promote business-critical mobile Internet solutions for enterprises. This alliance will enable customers to access e-services over the Internet with mobile handheld devices, such as Nokia media phones.

Nokia announced that the Nokia WAP Server software will be available on both HP-UX(1) and the Windows NT operating system. Under the terms of the agreement, HP will resell the Nokia WAP Server software for both operating systems worldwide through its direct and indirect channels.

The first HP 9000 Enterprise Server to support the Nokia WAP Server software will be the L-Class entry-level server, introduced Tuesday The L-Class is ideal for the emerging WAP market because it brings high-end business-critical capabilities to the entry-level market. This business-critical support enables companies to offer reliable Internet and intranet access to their customers and employees. WAP-based solutions enable customers to access valuable data and e-services from wherever they are.

"What is revolutionary here is that now we can get access to business-critical data wherever we go," said Pekka Ala-Pietila, president of Nokia Corporation. "We can use that in various forms building the freedom, creating the capabilities and access to services that people never dreamed of having in a mobile environment. By combining the Internet and mobility, we can truly start building a mobile information society that will change the way we work and communicate today. As we see this to be an industry effort, we are glad to announce collaboration with HP, a global leader in business-critical computing, and we look forward to successfully collaborating in the mobile e-services arena."

"This move into the wireless Internet market is a critical building block in the construction of an open-services market," said Ann Livermore, president and chief executive officer of HP Enterprise Computing. "With a mobile giant such as Nokia, who shares our e-services vision, we can help people and businesses develop and deploy business-critical WAP services and solutions and derive new value from the Internet."

In addition, HP and Nokia will work together to optimize the Nokia WAP Server on all HP 9000 and HP NetServer platforms, allowing easier deployment of WAP-based e-service solutions in business-critical environments. Not only will corporations be able to deploy and administer WAP solutions much more easily, but HP will provide one-stop shopping for both hardware and software as well as an expert understanding of the security, reliability and scalability concerns that customers have in deploying e-service solutions.

The first available e-service solution will be a WAP-enabled mail access solution based on HP's OpenMail business messaging product. OpenMail users can also have the added security enabled by the HP Praesidium VirtualVault trusted Web-server platform, which provides U.S. Department of Defense-grade, "B-level" security mechanisms, to thwart even the most sophisticated attacks. The Nokia WAP Server is the first in the world to implement Wireless Transport Layer of Security (WTLS) service in its first software release, allowing end-to-end secure access over the cellular network from mobile devices to this environment.

About WAP

The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an open, global specification that empowers mobile users with wireless devices to easily access and interact with information and services instantly. For more information about WAP see: http://www.wapforum.org/

Nokia is paving the way to the mobile information society with its innovative products and solutions. Nokia is the leading mobile phone supplier and a leading supplier of mobile, fixed and IP networks including related services. It also supplies multimedia terminals and computer displays. In 1998, net sales totaled EUR 13.3 billion (USD 15.7 billion). Headquartered in Finland, Nokia is listed on the New York (NOK), Helsinki, Stockholm, London, Frankfurt and Paris stock exchanges and employs more than 51,000 people.

Nokia Wireless Software Solutions, part of the Nokia Internet Communications unit, focuses on the development of WAP technology and mobile solutions and applications for corporations and service providers, as well as mobile software platforms for software developers and system integrators. Internet: www.nokia.com/corporate/wap

Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services for business and home -- is focused on capitalizing on the opportunities of the Internet and the proliferation of electronic services. FMI: http://www.hp.com.

(1) HP-UX Release 10.20 and later and HP-UX Release 11.00 and later (in both 32- and 64-bit configurations) on all HP 9000 computers are Open Group UNIX 95 branded products.