World's leading telcos unite to take on Apple

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Schrijf een programma één keer, en compile voor alle individuele
operating systemen.
Dat ziet Andy Rubin (Google vice-president of engineering) niet
een-twee-drie gebeuren.

Niet als het aan de individuele bedrijven ligt, daar weet Andy alles
van, immers óók Google is met een eigen O/S gekomen (Android).
'Lock-in the customer' noemen ze dat ;)

En 'gek genoeg' is dus ook dit bericht weer relevant voor de 'Crackdown
on Piracy'

Groet / Cees

PS. Het gebruik van programmeer 'dialecten' als Lazarus/FreePascal, die
voor meerdere platforms compileren, helpt natuurlijk.

World's leading telcos unite to take on Apple
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/worlds-leading-telcos-unite-to-take-on-apple-20100216-o4t1.html

ASHER MOSES IN BARCELONA
February 16, 2010

Enough is enough ... telcos unite to take control of mobile apps market
from Apple. /Photo: AFP/
Twenty-four of the world's leading telecommunications operators have
banded together to form a united front to take on Apple's dominance of
the mobile apps market.
Known as the "Wholesale Applications Community" (WAC), the group - which
includes AT&T, China Mobile, Orange, Vodafone and Singtel - aims to
allow developers to deliver applications to all mobile phone users,
"irrespective of device or technology".
The move is seen as a way for the big telcos to regain control of the
mobile apps market, which is dominated by Apple's iPhone and iTunes App
Store.

*Apps galore*
There are more than 140,000 different apps on Apple's app store and
billions have been downloaded by iPhone users so far, but telcos do not
earn any of the revenue aside from their users' mobile data usage.
It will also allow app developers to write apps for a single platform
and be able to reach a much broader range of devices. Samsung, LG and
Sony Ericsson, as well as the mobile industry body, GSMA, have already
pledged their support for the initiative.
"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," London-based GSMA chief executive Rob
Conway said.
There are now dozens of phone app stores for various phone platforms
including Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Google Android, Samsung Bada and
the Nokia Ovi store.
Analysts say such a wide variety of platforms might be unsustainable as
developers will be reluctant to write so many different versions of
their apps.
The Wholesale Application Community will allow developers to market
their apps to more than 3 billion customers around the world.
*
Google is sceptical*
But Google vice-president of engineering, Andy Rubin, who is behind
Google's Android platform, does not believe the telcos will pull it off.
"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 told The
Guardian.
Ovum analyst Tony Cripps said: "To succeed, the WAC operators will have
to overcome the sometimes considerable prejudice that developers have
towards operator-driven developer communities - for reasons of perceived
equitableness, visibility, (in)competence in software matters and
various other factors."
Mark Newman, chief research officer at Informa Telecoms & Media, said he
believed the operators were hoping to capture the mass market for mobile
internet services, rather than the high-end, but questioned whether such
a large group of mobile operators - some of which are competitors -
could co-operate.
*
Intel and Nokia join forces*
In a separate announcement, Intel and Nokia, realising that such a broad
array of mobile platforms is unsustainable, today announced a new
Linux-based platform, MeeGo, that it says will soon power a wide range
of devices including smartphones, tablets, netbooks and even connected TVs.
Applications written for the platform will work on all MeeGo devices
regardless of manufacturer and users will be able to keep all of their
apps when switching between or buying new devices.
Telcos will also get a piece of the action as they will be able to build
their own application stores on top of MeeGo and sell apps to consumers.
"We joined forces with Nokia to reduce the number of platforms," said
Doug Fisher, vice-president and general manager of Intel's system
software division, in an interview.
"It's not sustainable [having so many platforms]. This is a much better
approach. MeeGo's going to be for a broad set of devices; even ones we
haven't thought of yet."
But Nokia and Intel could not yet give more details about specific Meego
devices that will hit the market.
The list of telcos signed up to the Wholesale Application Community
initiative so far is: 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.
Telstra's executive director of wireless, Mike Wright, said in an
interview he supported anything that increases the application ecosystem
but said he could not say if Telstra would get on board the initiative
until he reviewed it closely.
*Asher Moses travelled to Barcelona as a guest of Samsung.*

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********