70% of Chinese wireless developers will deploy applications by Fall 2004

A report released by Evans Data Corporation says that nearly a third of developers in the People’s Republic of China focused on wireless development indicated that they are deploying wireless applications now. A further 37% will deploy wireless applications within the next 12 months and only 10% indicated a deployment timeframe of more than two years.

Of Chinese wireless developers writing commercial applications, 43% expect to mobilize more than 10,000 end users and 54% plan on mobilizing more than 1,000 end users, according to the September 2003 survey.

"It shouldn't be surprising that so many developers are deploying wireless applications so quickly to so many users. In August 2003, the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry announced that there are more than 250 million mobile phones in China; it's an astonishingly large market,' said Esther Schindler, Evans' Chinese Wireless analyst. "A market where there are boundless opportunities to the companies that are quickest to project completion and deployment."

Other findings from the bi-annual survey of more than 600 wireless developers working inside China:

Palm’s announced support for the Chinese marketplace has increased the number of developers targeting the platform by 42% in last 6 months.

End-to-end security was selected as the most significant barrier to wireless-enabled Web services, up by more than 90% in six months. It was followed by ambiguity in Web services standards and how to architect and integrate services-oriented applications.

Bluetooth is the most used wireless LAN technology, followed by Wi-Fi and Ultra Wide Band (UWB).