Operators make their own app push

THE WORLD OF WIDGETS has gotten a little more complicated, with 24 mobile operators having jointly formed the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) which aims to offer a standard widget framework across a range of phones regardless of make or operating system.

The operators hope to create an ecosystem for the development and distribution of mobile and Internet applications irrespective of hardware device or software technology.

The list is made up of some of the most well known operators from established and emerging markets around the globe, consisting of América Móvil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, mobilkom austria group, MTN Group, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Softbank Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, VimpelCom, Vodafone and Wind, who jointly serve around three billion subscribers.

The operators are joined by device manufacturers LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson as well as the GSM Association. Although only operators and this handful of hardware companies have gotten behind the initiative, the GSMA stressed that any industry player would be welcome to join and contribute to the development of the WAC.

"The GSMA is fully supportive the Wholesale Applications Community, which will build a new, open ecosystem to spur the creation of applications that can be used regardless of device, operating system or operator," said Rob Conway, CEO and member of the Board of the GSMA.

The GSMA's support comes as no big surprise as the move expands the work it has done on the open network APIs (OneAPI). Furthermore, the new alliance plans to merge both the related JIL and OMTP BONDI requirements over the course of the next year, with the ultimate goal of working with the W3C to create a common standard. This is aided by the fact that all the operators involved have also been part of these initiatives.

The WAC reckons that the marketplace is currently too fragmented and wants to give application developers, network operators and users and easier time of things, something IDC senior research analyst Jonathan Arber believes this initiative help address by driving the adoption of open standards.

"Mobile application developers currently face a high level of fragmentation in the industry, in terms of both technology platforms, and individual operators' working practices," explained Arber.

"Developers want to meet the largest possible addressable market, as efficiently and painlessly as possible, and the Wholesale Applications Community initiative can meet these criteria by providing a simple, single point of access to a large number of operator storefronts."

It's still very early days for the WAC, so quite what the existing app development and delivery platforms will make of this initiative remains to be seen. Although the focus is initially on widgets rather than mobile apps, and the model is a wholesale one, that this is being driven by operators should come as no surprise as they are frequently being left out of the value chain in the entire app and content lifestyle, left only to act as dumb pipes for content delivery.

The alliance's stated goal is to create a wholesale applications ecosystem that will provide a universal route to market for developers to the widest possible base of customers around the world, regardless of the device on the end.

Quite how this will all play out remains to be seen. Whether the operating system guys come to the table or the two camps remain separate and work together in harmony or at loggerheads, this push to establish the WAC is a very clear indicator that telecom operators are getting tired of carrying the can and getting very little for their trouble. µ