12 operators want app environment based on BONDI and JIL
Well, we said in our show preview that it was going to be the show where apps, and operator app store strategies, took centre stage – and the GSMA and its operator members have delivered.
As we trailed yesterday following a short story in The Times, a group of operators has bonded together to announce that they will work towards a common applications development standard for mobile applications. The initiative is called the wholesale apps community.
The news is even more expansive than The Times had got wind of. In fact there are 12 operators involved, and that group includes the four operators who had previously plumped for JIL (Vodafone, Verizon, SoftBank and China Mobile). The GSMA said that the alliance, which it is calling Wholesale Applications Community, will use both BONDI and JIL initially, evolving both into a common standard in time.
The operators hope that the 3 billion subscribers they have under management will be an attractive proposition for app developers and content providers. Also, with the operators building on W3C standards they are hoping that they will not be seen as reinventing the apps space – rather providing some clarity in it.
This adds a further dimension to the already growing applications development environment. But it also fulfils something that Vodafone said to us at the time it launched Vodafone360 on JIL – that it did foresee JIL and BONDI coming together, and other operators adopting a common standard. Vodafone said that it felt that it had to move with what it had last year, and couldn’t wait for the standards bodies to catch up. So in a sense this announcement is a fulfilment of the expressed desire of operators to use their collective weight in the applications space.
As we said yesterday, the announcement should spice up Eric Schmidt’s visit. If the Google CEO was expecting to be crowned king of the mobile app space for operators, he can now think again.
As this announcement went across only at 8am CET, we include the full press release below for your information – it includes a list of all the operators involved.
15 February 2010, Barcelona: 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.
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 create an ecosystem for the development and distribution of mobile and internet applications irrespective 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 everybody – 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, harmonised point of entry to make it easy for developers to join.
“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, GSMA. “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 catalyse 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.