First announced at February's Mobile World Congress, the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) of leading mobile operators is set to put more substance behind their plans this week.
The WAC group, whose membership includes T-Mobile, Orange and Telefonica, is working on a single platform for downloadable apps intended to challenge the dominance of on-line stores run by the like of Apple and Google.
The group is set to announce a merger this week with another mobile operator-backed body, the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP), which is dedicated to encouraging mobile application development. OMTP supports the Bondi open apps standard. Many operators are members of both WAC and OMTP so a merger makes sense. The two initiatives also have similar goals.
WAC will also announced this week that it will be headquartered in London. Its membership includes the four operators behind the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL): Vodafone, Verizon Wireless, Softbank and China Mobile. JIL's mission is to create a single platform for developing mobile widgets. This week WAC will adopt the JIL platform, it is reported.
Operators hope that by forging a common approach they will act as a greater magnet for developers and derive greater revenue generation from apps. Developers prefer only coming up with one version of an app that works across multiple mobile networks rather than having to rework an app for multiple networks.
For more on this story:
Guardian
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