At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where we are currently exhibiting, 24 of the largest phone operators have today announced that they are joining forces to create an alliance, The Wholesale Applications Community, to regain control of the mobile apps space.

In the announcement they claim they are going to develop a single “open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users” – but this is what Java ME (Mobile Edition) is. And it’s been available on mobile devices since the dawn of mobile apps.

Certainly there were some minor implementation differences on devices, but the biggest hurdle to publishing was always the numerous levels of approval processes. Some telecoms companies had very complex publishing processes requiring a developer to submit an app to the global group for approval.  Once approved there would then by the additional approval and selection processes by the individual child-companies within the group.

For development companies, having a single platform to localise as part of the development and submission process would likely ease their ability to market in new countries and achieve a global success. And of-course simplifying the development platform is great for getting things out quickly, but having a standard development stack could stifle innovation across handsets.

This really doesn’t feel like industry standardising, if anything it feels like just another appstore. Reducing the complexity of the approval and submission’s policy may provide some benefits, but there will still be complexity due to the numerous app-stores available;

• Apple
• Google
• Blackberry
• Nokia
• Microsoft
• Symbian
• Palm
• And now this new one…

According to a Gartner report, Apple was responsible for approximately 99.4% of all mobile-app downloads. Apple truly dominates this market, but maybe the consortium doesn’t see that Apple’s dominance came from offering an innovative handset linked with free data usage, to encourage the end user to make good use of it.  Previous handsets designed for frequent data-use were accompanied with very expensive data-plans, so this was a game-changing move.

Ultimately this looks like a numbers-game. A way for the consortium to try to break Apple’s hold on the very lucrative market, potentially trying to get to the point where they are able to claim more apps than Apple’s platform – but when the apps are not designed to take advantage of any specific handset unique features, are they really going to have the same impact as app’s on the iPhone and other platforms?

P.S. Looking to localise your app? We’ve got a team for that!

Come along and speak to Ben, Steve or Angela at Mobile World Congress, stand 7G3.