14 DAY TRIAL // Exactly two dozen providers of wireless services worldwide, including Verizon Wireless, AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Deutsche Telekom, China Mobile and Vodafone, have teamed up to create an “open international applications platform,” in what is a direct response to Apple’s iTunes App Store. The mobile-phone companies claim their alliance aims to build an open platform that delivers applications to all mobile-phone users.
According to an official report, the Wholesale Applications Community is the result of an alliance between 24 leading telecommunications operators worldwide. They hope to unite what they call “a fragmented marketplace” by creating an open industry platform that benefits everybody. This includes application developers, network operators, and, of course, end users.
“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,” Rob Conway, CEO and member of the board, GSMA, said. “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.”
The report in question also offers a full list of the operators behind the initiative. Those are: America Movil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, mobilkom Austria, MTN Group, NTT Docomo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica (NYSE: TEF), Telenor, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM), Sprint (NYSE: S), VimpelCom and WIND. Also included are Vodafone, China Mobile, SoftBank and Verizon Wireless, the four operators in the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) mobile apps initiative. Together, they will have access to over three billion customers around the world, according to the report.