Ericsson announces m-commerce platform

(Telephony) Combining products already in its portfolio, Ericsson has announced the creation of its Mobile Commerce Platform.

“The purpose of the platform is to enable a simplified way to add applications and a simplified way to get access to core features of mobile commerce: security, payment and access,” said Jason Andersson, director of mobile commerce of Ericsson.

Mobile Commerce platform combines Ericsson’s Mobile e-Pay, Safetrader--developed by the Ericsson and Hewlett-Packard joint venture EHPT--and existing security functions from Ericsson. All three aspects have been given common Application Programming interfaces to allow easy creation of mobile commerce applications.

In addition, the platform also lets carriers charge for site content--an increasingly viable option as 2.5G and 3G services begin to roll out, said Andersson. To do this, the platform supports Jaldatm, a technology that enables micro and session-based payments.

“Obviously, if you start with mobile commerce, now you want to have a platform that gives you the possibility to charge for things now,” he said.

The payment and security features of Mobile Commerce Platform are independent of the network, which allows them to use any protocol--GSM, CDMA, TDMA or others. The platform also can handle GPRS, and the core features require no adjustments for 3G, Andersson said.