One of the big topics at the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas this year was mobile applications, as Research In Motion unveiled BlackBerry App World and Microsoft talked about its forthcoming Windows Marketplace for Mobile.
The dam has truly broken with mobile applications; for years, most consumers seemed indifferent to third-party applications, but now they are viewed as an essential part of any smartphone, just like they are on a PC or Mac.
Most of the credit for that trend has been prompted by the success of Apple's App Store, as both Apple's friends and enemies in the mobile world will readily admit. But few competitors are attempting to pull off Apple's my-way-or-the-highway approach, preferring to integrate the wireless carriers in a nod to the entrenched power those companies have in the mobile world.
Some might argue that is because they do not have devices with the consumer cachet of the iPhone. However, ZDNet UK's sister site, CNET News.com, spoke to several companies on the sidelines at CTIA 2009 — held in Las Vegas from 31 March to 3 April — and it was clear they think there is a way to make sure they offer quality software to their customers without cutting the carrier almost completely out of the equation, as Apple has done with AT&T.
The burning question is whether the carriers and handset makers will permit software companies to do what they do best, or whether they will continue to try to put their stamp on mobile-application development in order to avoid their possible fates as 'dumb pipes' or widget makers.
"There's a big measure of trust there," said Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation, which was created by a foundation of carriers and handset makers to develop software that provides a common underpinning for developers to write mobile applications. "We have to trust that the companies that build the devices and the operators that package this know what they are doing."
The idea of mobile application stores is not new, but the faster networks and more sophisticated devices available these days have created a way for users to download applications directly to their device, bypassing the PC altogether. There are various ways that mobile companies are approaching this new reality.
Apple's approach has been covered exhaustively. But Apple has a unique advantage compared with its competitors: its applications have only to support two devices that are essentially identical (the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G), and for the most part Apple works only with a single wireless carrier per country. Therefore, it can have a central application store and guarantee that those applications will work on any iPhone, and at the same time not have to worry as much about ensuring its carrier partners have unique ways to sell the same phone.
Billing strategies
But while RIM, for example, is launching BlackBerry App World with the money flowing outside of the carrier's control through an exclusive relationship with PayPal, co-chief executive Jim Balsillie made it clear he would find a way to make sure the carriers have a chance to participate in the billing for those applications. "Different carriers have different billing strategies, so it's quite frankly a bunch of work," he told The Wall Street Journal on 1 April.
Microsoft is also steering a middle ground, with plans to let carriers offer their own 'store within a store' inside Windows Marketplace for Mobile...
