BARCELONA, Spain, Feb 15, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Twenty-four leading telecommunications operators have formed the Wholesale Applications Community, an alliance to build an open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users.
America Movil, 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, Telefonica, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, VimpelCom, Vodafone and Wind are committed to create an ecosystem for the development and distribution of mobile and internet applications irrespective of device or technology.
Together, these operators have access to over three billion customers around the world. The GSMA and three of the world's largest device manufacturers -- LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony Ericsson -- also support this initiative...

Leading Operators Unite to Unleash Global Apps Potential - MarketWatch

 

Very interesting.

It had to happen overseas because in the U.S. there would have been a legal war.

But note how that could have quickly turned into an anti-trust issue much like what happened to Microsoft. Monopolizing the post-sale application market for the most popular phone in the world could very well been seen as anti-competative.

I am going to watch this closely

 

It will actually be interesting to see what they do because there is some serious horsepower behind it.

*This thread was not meant to be inflamatory.

 

Not sure how that has anything to do with Apple or the iPhone. Apple will never allow external content networks to provide applications to the iPhone.

The App Store model was designed specifically to ensure apps built to a low standard don't get on the phone and degrade the user experience. You can safely bet on that never changing.

 

One of the big appeals to the iPhone (and I own one, believe it or not) is all of the applications that are available for it. Should other alternatives become available that offer an equal amount of content, I could very easily see people migrating to different platforms. The smartphone market is finally starting to get some quality hardware.
If you read between the lines, Apple's App store is one of the driving forces behind this endeavor.

 

One thing is for sure, a single carrier takes forever to deliberate and roll out a new feature. They may agree that they have to offer something to compete with Apple's App Store but they will never be able to create anything compelling and unique.

No tee-pee is big enough for 24 chiefs.

 

I worked on a huge anti-trust case involving auto parts once.

A car company (that will remain nameless) tried to cancel warranties if anyone put in an aftermarket part.

The car company was crushed and had to shell out a hefty fine for uncompetative practices.

You can't exclude all competition and remain within the law.

That's what scares me about both the iPod and the iPhone.

Apple sees this. That's at least one of the reasons they removed DRM from the iTunes library.

 

good luck...

- chuck

 

The UI, browser and form factor (and the fact that it's an iPod) sells a heck of a lot more units than the applications available.

It's not like there's a shortage of apps for other platforms. Either way, I don't see how this has anything to do with the iPhone, App Store, or Apple.

 

Cars aren't consumer electronics, and don't come with anything like the agreement you are bound by when you activate an iPhone.

Apple removed DRM from iTMS because they never wanted it there to begin with. It was a condition of getting the labels to sign initially. When that condition went away, so did the DRM.

Apple has no such desire to throw away the keys to the iPhone, nor any of their other key IP that they go to significant lengths to protect. The reason you'll never see a clone Macintosh computer is the reason you'll never see the iPhone open to third party applications, and I'm sorry, but there's nothing remotely anti-trust related about that.

Personally, I dislike the app-store-only software distribution model, but I understand why Apple does it, and were I in their shoes, I'd do exactly the same thing.

That said, I still have bigger issues with the iPhone than how to get software on the thing-- like the utterly useless GSM air interface and even more useless AT&T network-- which is why I still use a Blackberry.