Twenty four of the world’s largest mobile operators along with LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and the GSMA have come together to create the Wholesale Applications Community!
An open, international applications platform. And the Guess who leads from the forefront! Android of course.The motley group will create an application store that could potentially reach 6 billion customers worldwide by using an open standard which would allow developers to publish applications across multiple device platforms and operators. The group is working closely with WC3 standard bodies to create one standard application development solution based upon JIL (Join Innovations Lab) spearheaded by Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, China Mobile and Softbank and OMTP’s BONDI framework.
A serious issue that is cropping up is that most of the companies involved are only partially allowing the congress body to access their technical (specifically hard ware) techs. So its not resulting in something which is very fruitful. On a wider aspect the idea seems to be broad and synergistic but what it is turning out is nothing short of a disappointment. A developer involved within the technical group commented that they were trying to built something (soft ware) which would be universal for most hand sets but they are getting all blocked up because there is gross ideological difference when it comes to the basic design and purpose for a set. The form factors the varied hard ware design is hindering the creation of a truly universal software platform!.
Android has ultimately come up with some ideas to unify but they are on again an open source concept ; allowing developers to create beta application and middle wares on a base ans environment that is universal but the application software itself after a level gets highly customized and again goes against the very mother concept. If this group can bring all these disparate platforms and distribution methods together under one umbrella, they could introduce applications to a enormous amount of mass market and smart phones and could potentially create an application store that could rival Apple’s application store in sheer volume. Though the issues of supporting such a wide range of networks, form factors, OS versions and more might be its limiting factor and such an effort might just loose it steam mid way.
Again as expected the companies associated came in with a response and claimed that they will merge manufacturing to create an application platform at least to suit the needs of certain section s of phones manufactured by the group. The manufacturing companies are yet to come to any formal decision regarding such synergistic efforts even on the hard ware components as they now realize that software components cannot be made universal without creating hardware components suitable for such platforms.
Android concept is perhaps the only ray of hope as according to some tech specialist as they think that it’s useless to aim for a universal application bank to resist apples individualistic efforts. Open source allows one to be independent, universal as well as highly customized but such luxury comes only with an effort of keeping in touch with the developer community and pay them for each app they design specifically to meet your needs.
