Mother of all mobile industry alliances
By Ben Klayman
CHICAGO, June 12 (Reuters) - Industry giants from around the high-technology world are forming a new alliance to simplify how wireless telephones can be used on any network, whether to play games, share photos or trade instant messages.
Faced with maturing growth for traditional voice calls and slow uptake of newer Internet-ready mobile phones, almost 200 companies will unveil on Wednesday plans to form a new global organisation to develop open standards for phones and other wireless devices to operate seamlessly together.
Members of the alliance include mobile phone leader Nokia of Finland, software giant Microsoft Corp., top computer chip maker Intel Corp., British wireless operator Vodafone Group Plc and media conglomerate Walt Disney Co.
"The most important value to consumers is that no matter what device I have, no matter what service I'm going to get, no matter what carrier I'm using, I can get access to the information. The consumer will see no issues of access to content," Jon Prial, IBM's vice president of content, told Reuters.
And it will also be good news for companies, he added, as happy consumers surfing the Internet on their wireless devices translates to higher usage rates and thus more sales. That would be welcome in an industry where sales have slumped over the past year.
Others in the Open Mobile Alliance include Motorola Inc., Sweden's Ericsson, Texas Instruments Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc. and Qualcomm Inc.
NO OVERNIGHT CHANGES
However, consumers should not expect things to change overnight, analysts said.
"The average person probably won't care for another two or three years when the things that this alliance develops start to show themselves on cell phones and mobile devices," said David Cooperstein, research director at technology research firm Forrester Research.
Nokia vice president Pertti Korhonen agreed: "This is not something which is going to happen as one big bang where we would deliver a solution for everything on this planet. It will come in steps."
Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Networks Architects, a Washington-based consultant, said it has taken the industry too long to get to this point.
"This is after the fact. This is everybody getting together and saying, 'We screwed up,'" he said. "The attempt here is to at least get things to interoperate. Yes, it's a big deal, but, no, lightning hasn't struck."
Others said better late than never.
"If this didn't happen, every time you picked up a device you would have access to some services and some data and not all, and everything would be accessed in a different way, with potentially different credentials, with different displays," Michael Wehrs, director of technology and standards for Microsoft's mobility group, told Reuters.
He said the new standard will not mandate how things are done, just what needs to be done to meet the base minimum capabilities. The key will be rolling out some services quickly under the new standard to show how it will work.
Nokia's Korhonen said the problem up to now has been industry fragmentation, as too many standards caused headaches for companies and consumers alike, slowing development of new content and applications. Numerous other groups will merge into the new organisation, although officials acknowledged there are numerous legal issues still to be ironed out.
The common standard also will solve such business issues as digital rights management and payment, officials said.
The introduction of new wireless technologies -- two-and-a-half generation, also called 2.5G, and 3G -- offered the industry an opportunity to offer new content and companies realised they needed a more simple approach or the slowdown would continue, officials said. A weak market certainly helped boost cooperation.
Ben Klayman, Chicago newsroom |
