Mobile industry gangs up on Apple and iPhone

LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have spearheaded the creation of the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), with two aims: the first is to create a single online market place for mobile phone apps, regardless of which OS they are running, and which network carrier they use; the second aim is to eventually make it possible for developers to write a single app, which will run on multiple OSes.

'For customers this means a broader choice of innovative applications and services available on a wider choice of devices than ever before,' said the WAC in a statement.

'For the developer, particularly small developers, the alliance will create an environment in which they can flourish and create applications in a straight-forward and effective manner. Today, the route to market for developers is challenging requiring them to approach multiple operators. The alliance will provide a single gateway for developers to access a vast potential customer base (over two billion with limited cost to the developer and this in turn will provide the maximum possible return on investment for them,' said the WAC.

'In addition, the alliance will utilise existing technical standards, rather than creating new ones to allow developers to access operators’ assets, for example network capabilities or API’s (Application Programming Interfaces) more easily. 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.'

IDC Analyst Jonathan Arber noted that '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.'

However, Google VP of engineering, Andy Rubin predicted that the WAC initiative was unlikley to succeed: 'There is always a dream that you could write a program once and have it run anywhere and history has proven that that dream has not been fully realised and I am sceptical that it ever will be,' he said.