Tech Giants Make a Mobile Deal
Newly formed Open Mobile Alliance will try to guarantee that wireless services and products can work together.
Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service
Wednesday, June 12, 2002
Network operators, handset makers, and IT companies are lining up to back a new industry group that has been formed to drive the development of standards for mobile telecommunication services and guarantee interoperability between mobile products and services.
The Open Mobile Alliance brings together more than 200 companies and consolidates the activities of several industry bodies, such as the WAP Forum and the Wireless Village initiative, according to Jon Prial, vice president of business development at IBM and a member of the Open Mobile Alliance board of directors.
"The intent is to grow the market so all of the members can compete within that," Prial says.
Setting the Standards
Among the issues that will be tackled by the Open Mobile Alliance are the development of standards such as XHTML, Multimedia Message Service interoperability, and standards for location-based services, Prial says.
Future initiatives will focus on developing digital rights management and device management standards, he says.
Members of the new group are drawn from across the technology industry and include Motorola, Nokia, L.M. Ericsson, Siemens, Sun Microsystems, OpenWave Systems, Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, BEA Systems, Vodafone Group, NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and MasterCard International, Prial says.
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