Mobile alliance wants to turn back time

17-02-2010

by Ralph Averbuch

Open Mobile Alliance wants to push the genie back in the bottle.

This year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is notable not simply for a plethora of new mobiles running Android, but also for the announcement of a slew of new mobile operating systems. Samsung announced a new OS called Bada for smartphones, Microsoft talked up (though hasn't yet released) Windows Phone, Nokia said it was getting into bed with Intel to jointly develop a next-gen OS and, perhaps most intriguingly, 24 telecoms companies fired a warning shot across the bows of both Apple and Google in forming the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). This last bit of news is possibly the most interesting. Not because it aims to make software apps interoperable over different devices running different mobile OSs -- but because it highlights just how threatened they all feel by Apple's ability to extract on-going revenues from Apps Store customers. The networks are feeling cut out of the equation and they want back in on the action. If networks can make phone apps device-agnostic, they'll find it far easier to sell their customers onto a different package -- one with a different, higher-margin phone running some other operating system, for example. Customers will no longer feel tied to a phone by the fear of having to re-purchase their favourite apps. In terms of the consumer it's a fantastic move. Yet the cynical amongst us might suspect that this is ultimately posturing specifically designed to strengthen the hand of OMA members in cutting more favourable deal terms with handset manufacturers, as well as Apple and Google. Of course, talking the alliance talk is easy: it will be much more interesting to see the fruits of the OMA's labours. Only then will it become clear whether this threat is backed by real action. Two words come to mind... herding and cats.

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