PC Week takes a close and not exactly flattering look at security and other issues in the Wireless Application Protocol.

In Hype aside, WAP has worries, PCWeek explores gaps in the security infrastructure, deployment delays, potential incompatibilities with old devices, and intellectual property conflicts.

Cell phones have longer manufacturing cycles (18 months) than software, and many devices using the older Handheld Device markup Language (HDML) are still on the market, and will be for at least another six months. These delays are also affecting security, because it will take a long time to deploy a revised WAP spec that cleans up a gap between RSA-encoded and SSL-encoded transmissions inside data centers.

The intellectual property issues surrounding the GeoWorks patent don't appear to be dissipating, either. A recent WAP Forum meeting seems to have been remarkable for the number of lawyers in attendance.