What will present I this morning it became real and at 12 o'clock it was announced to the public press release by which the training was announced Wholesale Applications Community(WAC), a community that includes over 24 operators from around the world and 3 of the largest mobile terminal manufacturers in the world, with the main goal of dethroning AppStore, Android Market, Ovi Store and the virtual application store of those from BlackBerry.
Among the 24 mobile phone operators are: AT&T, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, TeliaSonera, Sprint, Verizon Wirelessand Vodafone and the 3 hardware manufacturers are: LG, Sony Ericsson si Samsung. As you can see, an alliance was formed bringing together the biggest and most powerful companies from around the world to fight with 3 giants Apple, Google si Blackberry.
The community will offer developers the opportunity to make applications that will be compatible on a very varied range of operating systems intended for mobile terminals, which will ultimately lead: first of all to the satisfaction of developers who will no longer have to choose either a camp for to make applications or to make parallel applications for different operating systems; and secondly, it will give the nearly 3 billion customers of the alliance's member companies the opportunity to choose from an extremely varied range of applications for their terminal.
To be honest, it is on the one hand a very good idea because it will create a huge competition for those from Apple, Google, Nokia si BlackBerry but on the other hand, it could create a monopoly in favor WAC considering that this alliance brings together an impressive number of extremely strong companies.
Below is the entire press release.
Wholesale Applications Community to push apps market to over 3 billion customers with strong support from world-leading device manufacturers
BARCELONA, Spain–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Twenty-four leading telecommunications operators have formed the Wholesale Applications Community, an alliance to build an open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users.
"The GSMA is fully supportive of 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"
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 are committed to creating an ecosystem for the development and distribution of mobile and internet applications regardless of device or technology.
Together, these operators have access to over three billion customers around the world. The GSMA and three of the world's largest device manufacturers – LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony Ericsson – also support this initiative.
The Wholesale Applications Community aims to unite a fragmented marketplace and create an open industry platform that benefits everyone – from applications developers and network operators to mobile phone users themselves.
The alliance's stated goal is to create a wholesale applications ecosystem that – from day one – will establish a simple route to market for developers to deliver the latest innovative applications and services to the widest possible base of customers around the world. In the immediate future the alliance will seek to unite members' developer communities and create a single, harmonized point of entry to make it easy for developers to join.
"The GSMA is fully supportive of 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, GSM. "This approach is completely in line with the principles of the GSMA, and in fact leverages the work we have already undertaken on open network APIs (OneAPI). This is tremendously exciting news for our industry and will serve to catalyze the development of a range of innovative cross-device, cross-operator applications."
Jonathan Arber, Senior Research Analyst at independent analyst house, IDC, said: "Attracting and retaining developers is vital for any application store offering to succeed. However, mobile application developers currently face a high level of fragmentation in the industry, in terms of both technology platforms, and individual operators' working practices. 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. The initiative should also help to drive uptake of existing, open standards among developers, operators and manufacturers, thereby reducing fragmentation and benefiting the whole industry."
The alliance plans to initially use both the JIL and OMTP BONDI requirements, evolving these standards into a common standard within the next 12 months. Ultimately, we will collectively work with the W3C for a common standard based on our converged solution to truly ensure developers can create applications that port across mobile device platforms, and in the future between fixed and mobile devices.
The alliance will serve as one point of contact for the industry and is open to all relevant parties – from telecommunications operators and device manufacturers to internet service providers and application software developers. For more information go to www.wholesaleappcommunity.com or email info@wholesaleappcommunity.com.
via Engadget.
