Just to make a clarification – OneAPI was built by technologists in the working groups of the GSMA Access group and the OMA. The requirements for the APIs (i.e. which to concentrate on) came from content publishers and developers on the OneAPI forum and developer barcamps. These helped steer us towards RESTful/JSON APIs that did not require a great deal of knowledge about Telco systems. Based on developer feedback and the pilot in Canada we are teasing out any technical problems and feeding them back into the specification. So it is not a marketing-driven API, however we do ask any implementers to market the fact that they are using it!

Many thanks for your interest and please let us know any feedback.

Best,
Kevin Smith (OneAPI project leader, Vodafone)

The risks to OneAPI and development of a “two sided market” include the logic of a limited product development capacity (the urgent vs the important : lots of competing projects with higher short-term returns); the lack of MNO returns from applications business to date; and the necessary change in approach from competition with other MNOs to cooperation

This last point might though play in the MNOs favour : the impulse to differentiate from competitors also drives the handset OEMs, OS vendors and over the top competitors. There will be no single winner in the mobile OS ‘war’ (so he says, confidently …), nor will a single OEM or internet consumer brand sweep all before it. So _if_ MNOs can drive a single layer of standardisation, they will ultimately be in a much stronger place than they seem to be right now.

Thanks for the debate provoking comments.

I agree re OneAPI .. this should be the Operators killer differentiator making their infrastructure available for developers to use – low cost, fast and easy to work with. Operators need to grasp the opportunity and move at internet speeds. Remember … most people don’t have fancy smartphones yet so operators have a real opportunity eg using their billing relationship , location data, profiling etc.

2010 will be an interesting year.

Philip

- Apple
- Microsoft
- OneAPI (Incumbents).
- Google (1/2 due to inexperience).

Here’s the funny bit: Logically, I think OneAPI should be the clear favourite. Massive resources + extremely large customer base + must win situation.

…but practically, I don’t think they have much of a chance. Too much politics plus software driven by marketing people who only understand the technology they can hold – which can never be used to predict the future.

If the battle comes down to Apple, Google and MSFT, then we will likely see multiple winners because the solution is an OS. …but I think the big losers will be the Opcos.

10 years ago, who would have thought Apple would be such a threat to the entire telecommunications industry? …Steve Jobs apparently.