Wired News reports from WWW9 in Amsterdam on conflicts and tension between the W3C and the WAP Forum.

Though the article spends lots of time wondering how these "highly technical academics ever birthed something so fun and easy to use", its core examines the impact of the WAP Forum on the W3C, without much concern for the carefully-worded joint statements and work done in common by the two organizations.

After comparing the WAP Forum's impatience to Microsoft and Netscape, the article quotes Murray Maloney as saying (on a WAP panel):

"Where is Netscape today?" boomed one indignant W3C member, Murray Maloney, at a WAP panel Wednesday morning. "It’s a part of AOL, and it doesn’t have that kind of control anymore.... The people who are working on WAP need to get with the program."

Update: Dave Sims has another report on the panel at O'Reilly Network.