Mobile phone giants take on Apple with app store

Some of the world's biggest phone companies have formed an alliance to challenge the likes of Apple and attempt to take control of the mobile apps market.
 
The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) has been set up by 24 of the largest phone operators, including Orange, Vodafone, Telefonica, which owns O2, and T-Mobile with the intention of making it easier for developers to build and sell apps - software that enables mobile phones to perform trivial or serious tasks - across different devices and networks. The aim is to create the "world's first open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users".
 
The consortium, which was unveiled by the industry trade body the GSM Association at the Mobile World Congress, also includes AT&T, Verizon Wireless and China Mobile and has the support of three major handset manufacturers: Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson.
 
The phone companies are concerned that their networks are becoming little more than blank canvasses onto which users download the technology they want to use - and, vitally, the revenues from these applications are going to software developers and the companies that operate the app stores that supply them.
 
Another fear is that as companies like Apple, Nokia and Google set up their own app stores focusing on apps that only work on their own platforms the market is becoming increasingly fragmented. That means consumers who switch to different devices frequently lose the apps that were created for their original phone and have to pay to replace them.
 
According to the companies behind WAC, developers "will only have to create one version of their application and this can be used on multiple types of devices and operating systems (such as Symbian, Android, Windows etc), which is not the case today".
 
The move represents another shot across the bows of Apple, which pioneered the apps store concept with its iPhone. After Steve Jobs announced plans for the Apple iPad he was criticised for sticking to the apps model, which advocates of the 'open internet' say stifles the development of new technology by exerting too much control over what the user can and can't do with the machine. ·