By Nic Stirk

As most wireless industry participants are aware, the Wholesale Application Community (WAC) was formally launched in February 2010 (http://www.wholesaleappcommunity.com). This creation of the GSMA made its debut at the World Mobile Congress to a developer community eager to learn its intentions. In their own words, “WAC will promote the use of web technologies to enable developers to write a single application which can run across multiple mobile device platforms. WAC will also enable all applications to be deployed across the many retail application stores of its operators.”

The WAC’s stated goals are:
• Accelerate and expand the market for applications.
• Enable the creation of more compelling applications.
• Provide greater choice for businesses and consumers.

And might I add, not a moment too soon! While the GSMA’s OneAPI initiative is laudable, something more aggressive is needed. Concrete steps need to be taken in order to support application development across multiple platforms.

Apple, of course, has shown us how bright the future can be. In June 2010 the company announced that there are now over 225,000 applications available on its site, that there have been over 5 billion downloads, and that it has paid out over $1 billion to developers. All of this from one phone being carried (in most cases) by one carrier in each country.

Granted, the WAC has received some justifiable criticism for moving too slowly (http://bit.ly/aVLt2W), but clearly they are headed in the right direction. With an estimated 84 app stores in existence, their focus should be on interoperability, not on discovery. Developers need an easier way to make their products available to a wider audience. Hopefully the WAC can make this happen.

Mobile content is proliferating.  As mobile devices have become smarter and more Internet-enabled, there has been an explosion in the amount of mobile data being carried by mobile networks.

Much of this data is user generated: photos, videos, audio recordings, SMS messages. However, increasingly, there is an emerging market demand for premium content.  Until recently most ‘consumed’ premium content was ring-tones.  However, as phone features improve they act and behave more like personal entertainment centres. 

Therefore, there is growing demand for premium multimedia content: games, on-demand video clips, music and live streamed content.

Content owners, increasingly, are re-purposing content for mobile devices.  However, it’s often difficult for content owners or content aggregators to get their content to mobile devices and make money out of the process. 

That’s where SLA Mobile can help.  We have prepared a business briefing paper for mobile operators and content owners that discusses the issues associated with Mobile Content Distribution and our approach to it.  Get it now.