I think this is pretty significant on several levels. Mostly, the issue I see is with Microsoft. How do they fit into this? Did they endorse this? Support it?

If a mobile platform takes off, then where does that leave Microsoft? I mean, a mobile platform could morph into a desktop platform, the way that iPhone->iPad and Android is morphing to the desktop as well. hmmm.

Interesting times indeed...

I think it is significant if they can make marketing of apps easier. I don't believe Telco operators altruistically are making things open to benefit the customer. They just want their cut. They'll probably want 40-50%.


There's one thing, though, that I have to think twice about:

In practice this means that developers will only have to create one version of their application and this can be used on multiple types of devices and operating systems (such as Symbian, Android, Windows etc) which is not the case today.

Nice dream, but that's just plain baloney. Not going to happen unless you dumb down applications significantly.

Mostly, the issue I see is with Microsoft. How do they fit into this? Did they endorse this? Support it?

I don't know that they have to. They've only recently had a store on Windows Mobile, and they don't lock any other stores out. Carriers have more control over the device than Microsoft does.

But what about Apple? Are they happy to open their device to other app stores?

If telecoms band together, I think they can bully even Microsoft and Apple.

If telecoms band together, I think they can bully even Microsoft and Apple.

Not going to happen.

I'm leery of this. The carriers benefit from all of the confusion.

I don't see how this could have any impact on iPhone, it's already not possible to install apps that don't come from their store?

Nice dream, but that's just plain baloney. Not going to happen unless you dumb down applications significantly.

Agreed. Apps need to be ported (or rewritten) for each OS. There is no way this consortium is going to come up with a way to abstract applications in such a way that they will run on multiple OSes without losing vast amounts of functionality.

It's interesting that a consortium of mobile companies could so deeply misunderstand the mobile applications market?

Agreed. Apps need to be ported (or rewritten) for each OS.

In the article, Adobe may have the answer. A development environment that allows you to create a version for multiple devices.

This still makes no challenge to Apple though. Apple only sell apps for apple phones, Apple phones can only get aps from the Apple store.

Mack.

In the article, Adobe may have the answer. A development environment that allows you to create a version for multiple devices.

So it's a Flash variant. Dumbing down does appear to be the strategy, then.

Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system runtime that lets developers combine HTML, Ajax, Adobe Flash®, and Flex technologies to deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the desktop.

This won't do everything that is in the App Store, or Android market, but I shouldn't discount it too much. A lot of the apps could be done this way.

No app I'm working on now would be appropriate for AIR, but I can conceive of others that would be. It would probably be on the continuum of "content rich" vs "functionality rich".

Here's another view of the same story....

Mobile operators unite on global apps platform [mobilebusinessbriefing.com]
GSMA Mobile Business Briefing
Monday 15 February 2010

The world’s largest mobile operators have joined forces to launch an open international applications platform, marking the largest unified move to date by the operator community into the mobile apps space.

The so-called ‘Wholesale Applications Community’ will combine 24 of the world’s largest mobile carriers, including America Movil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, mobilkom Austria, MTN Group, NTT Docomo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, VimpelCom and WIND. The four operators in the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) mobile apps initiative – Vodafone, China Mobile, SoftBank and Verizon Wireless – are also included.

Maybe... with html5. but then they will need to sell enough smartphones that support html5 in the first place.