The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), an alliance of telecommunications companies committed to building an open applications platform, today announced its formation as a corporate entity and said it will join forces with the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL), accelerating the commercial launch of application stores that compete with the Android Market and Apple’s App Store.
WAC will publish its initial SDK for developers in November. WAC will allow operators to distribute applications through their respective application storefronts and charge users through their existing phone bill.
The “why” and now the “when” behind the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) is clear, but the big question that remains is: “How”, reports Unstrung.
Uniting the two groups — smaller, more-established JIL and wider application alliance WAC — will let software developers reach a large share of their telecom operator members’ 3 billion customers with just one version of software, observes Reuters.
The LiMo mobile Linux industry group, established in 2006, aimed to create an open-source platform for mobile phones. In 2008, Verizon joined the LiMo foundation when it was required to offer an “open” platform on the 700 MHz spectrum. Verizon, which opposed “open” requirements by the FCC, went with the least sophisticated system.
Now Vodafone has apparently dropped the two LiMo-based Samsung handsets that underpinned its 360 social aggregation platform and has scrapped plans for a third 360 handset. Google’s Android has come to dominate that space with MeeGo forming another significant open source platform.
Phone companies can’t control stand-alone Android or MeeGo stores. WAC may mirror Apple’s 70/30 split, but each WAC member is able to set its own pricing structure. The Wholesale Applications Community may bring control back to the carriers.
Michel Combes, Vodafone Chief Executive Europe has been elected Chairman of the Wholesale Applications Community, and Jean-Philippe Vanot, Deputy CEO, France Telecom has been named as Vice Chairman of WAC.
