MWC: Global operators aim to create a common mobile apps platform

BARCELONA --Twenty-four of the world’s largest global operators have decided that consistency and volume is a better pursuit than exclusivity when it comes to mobile applications. Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD), AT&T (NYSE:T), Sprint (NYSE:S) and T-Mobile (NYSE:DT) joined forces today with 20 other global operators at Mobile World Congress to form the Wholesale Applications Community, with the goal of creating a common application development platform over for their networks. The end result of the effort would be a developer being able to write code for a single app and have it work over every member’s network and devices, serving billions of subscribers.

“The big thing for the developers is that they’re going to have a lot more access to a lot more customers,” Alex Sinclair, the GSM Association’s chief technology and strategy officer said. If the initiative resembles the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) established by Verizon Wireless, China Mobile (NYSE:CHL), Vodafone (NYSE:VOD), and Softbank Mobile, it’s no coincidence, Sinclair said. The partnership takes the initial JIL premise, a common development ecosystem, as well as JIL’s initial focus, widgets and expands it to a much more larger group of global carriers, effectively creating a de facto standard for small-bore application development in mobile. “We didn’t want a Jack versue JIL situation,” Sinclair quipped.

Along with the US Tier 1 operators and the original JIL members, the alliance membership includes: América Móvil, Bharti Airtel, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, mobilkom austria group, MTN Group, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, VimpelCom, and Wind.

The alliance is aimed squarely at the growing fragmentation in the market among device platforms, operating systems and even runtime environments, all of which require different builds from individual developers to support. Just today Intel and Nokia released a new OS into the mix, MeeGo, which combines the two companies’ Linux open-source efforts, and Samsung released the first phone, called the Wave, with its new operating system, dubbed Bada. The effort will start with widgets, small Web-connected applications that run continuously on device’s user interface, but from there it will branch out into more robust apps.

Informa Telecoms and Media chief research officer Mark Newman said that the alliance seems clearly aimed at the mid-range and lower-end feature phone segment of the market, which far outnumber smartphones in the market but account for relatively little of overall mobile data usage and revenues. “If operators can bring out Euro 100 devices with a good mobile internet experience they may be able to sell data plans to more low-end user,” Newman said in a research note today.

But Newman question that such a diverse group of operators, many of whom are direct competitors, can achieve the level of cooperation necessary to make the effort a success. Why would Sprint and Verizon want to support the exact same catalog of apps, when they compete primarily through differentiation in services, Newman asked.

“There is also the issue of whether developers will lend their support to the initiative,” Newman said. “They are more interested in developing apps for Apple and Android and have historically distrusted operators because of the unfavorable revenues share deals that have been on the table. A number of the developers that we have spoken to would rather operators keep out of the applications development community entirely."