Wireless technology is taking on the Gold Rush feel that the Web had in the late 1990s. Nearly every major company, it seems, is planning a wireless product or service, Web-enabled gadgets are staples of the evening news, and there are mutual funds that specialize in wireless vendors. The rush to be in on the Next Big Thing is swelling the demand for technologists who can help build the first successful wireless portal or the cellular phone that makes the wireless Web truly indispensable.

IT workers, especially programmers, are reportedly in hot demand. "There's just not a lot of people out there who have the experience," says Charles Moore, president of Active Wireless Executive Search Group Inc. Based in South Daytona, Fla., Active Wireless is one of a tiny group of headhunters that focus on the wireless industry. Moore's company also runs one of the first wireless-focused job boards, wirelessresumes.com.

Wild about wireless

As a new industry with standards finalized just in the past two years, wireless hasn't had time to train enough workers with specialized skills in the way, for example, that HTML, Java, and C++ know-how has been developed in the Internet industry. Besides making ample use of these existing Web technologies, wireless brings with it a new set of languages and standards, most importantly the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and HTML variants such as the Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML) and the newer Wireless Markup Language (WML).

Hardware platforms and operating systems proliferate, led by the PalmOS from Palm Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), PocketPC from Microsoft Corp. (Redmond, Wash.) and EPOC from Symbian (London, England). And like the early Web, wireless has several competing browsers, including the UP.Browser from Openwave Systems Inc. (Redwood City, Calif.; formerly Phone.com and Unwired Planet). Programmers may struggle to write code that fits in the small memory capacities of the handheld platforms, though the systems themselves are relatively uncomplicated and easy to learn, according to observers.

Wireless product development takes two main tracks: radio frequency (RF) technologies related to wireless transmitters, and the information infrastructure needed to tie wireless networks to existing corporate networks or create, manage, and reformat corporate data and Web content for wireless platforms. Because such RF jobs are often filled from the ranks of telecommunications companies, most of the opportunities for programmers are in the network and server infrastructure and the application development side, according to vendors and industry observers. The IT action is by no means limited to programming: If the online job boards are indicative, perhaps a third of the open positions require strong network-engineering skills, often including familiarity with cellular standards such as CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobile communication).

The wide gap between the burgeoning demand and the slower-growing talent pool, Moore says, is resulting in IT salaries that are roughly 25 to 50 percent higher than those in other fields. The biggest demand is for programmers familiar with WAP, a standard protocol for displaying the Web on different devices. On

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