Image from Google
The original idea behind WIPI was to give interoperability to Korean mobile content providers, who had to re-develop their applications for different carriers that were each using different mobile application platforms. Before WIPI was introduced, SK Telecom was using its own VM (virtual machine), KTF was using Qualcomm's Brew, and LG Telecom used Java. As such, content providers - say a mobile game developer - had to re-develop their applications at least three times if they wanted to serve customers through all three carriers. Multiply this to the number of handsets they had to optimize their apps for, and you could imagine how much pain in the arse it had been for them.
Came for the rescue was WIPI. WIPI was a middleware that could theoretically run both Java (MIDP) and Brew applications on top of it. How wonderful - It was like developer's dreams come true. But in practice, there had been lots of small rough edges; Also, the WIPI requirement effectively kept certain phones from entering into the Korean market, most notably the iPhone. (Do you honestly believe Apple would even toy with the idea of getting WIPI onto their iPhone just for the smallish Korean market?)
WIPI was (and honestly, still is) a noble concept, and it did its part very well. Thanks to WIPI, Korean mobile content developers could save lots of energy and time. But it was still only a Korean standard (despite Korean government's hard efforts to globalize it), and in this open era any technology standard that's bound to a specific country doesn't sound terribly good. So it looks like we'll have to say goodbye to WIPI - and hopefully say hello to iPhone.
