|
Electronics and electrotechnics Industry:
OPENING UP TO A NEW MOBILE FUTURE
Nokia welcomes the formation of the 200-member Open Mobile
Alliance, providing new impetus for the next industry growth
phase. The alliance made up of some of the industry's biggest
names is working to ensure interoperable services across countries,
networks and handsets through open standards and platforms.
Customers all over the world will benefit from ground-breaking
work to enable services such as MMS, Java™ and Internet
content download and e-mail access to be shared by everyone,
regardless of where they are and what operator, network or
mobile device they use.
A group of industry-leading companies is helping prepare
the way for growth in the uptake of next generation mobile
services through the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), a truly global
undertaking. This unprecedented endeavor will be the most
significant of its kind to develop and harmonize specifications
for mobile services for the benefit of the industry as a whole.
Today’s mobile services are too often based on a mix
of open standards and proprietary solutions and are often
exclusive to a particular technology platform or manufacturer’s
solution. There is a clear consensus in the industry that
the biggest obstacle for growth that we face is fragmentation
of the service platform for next generation mobile services.
Bringing down barriers
With this in mind, some of the biggest names in the business
are supporting OMA that aims to grow the entire market by
removing barriers to interoperability. The idea is to create
seamless and easy-to-use mobile services for subscribers and
a business market environment that encourages competition
through innovation and differentiation.
Right from the start, OMA received the backing of industry
leaders, including some of the world’s largest operators
– AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless, NTT DoCoMo, Telefonica
Moviles, Vodafone and MM02. Additional supporters, such as
equipment manufacturers, were NEC, Nokia, Siemens, Sony Ericsson,
Toshiba, Fujitsu, Matsushita, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola,
Sharp, Samsung and Symbian.
Since then, the number of companies taking part has grown
to over 200, including leading IT infrastructure and application
server vendors. All are working hard to create an ideal environment
in which numerous suppliers will be able to develop products
and solutions based on open global specifications and architecture
with open interfaces.
Open industry fosters growth
The OMA alliance is a collaborative effort which seeks to
ensure a global and open mobile services market. It will be
one of the key drivers for growth of next generation services.
Open platforms and interoperable mobile devices will allow
greater freedom for consumers who will be able to use branded
and personalized mobile services.
There will be an immense benefit for application developers
too – open standards and compatible devices will significantly
reduce the need to tailor their offering for various mobile
terminals and networks. As a result, new services are likely
to come to market much faster to satisfy customer demand.
The move towards openness is driven in part by the increasing
sophistication of mobile devices and by the deployment of
packet data and IP-based mobile networks.
Operators, vendors and content developers want the efficiencies
and predictability that only a more global marketplace can
provide. At the same time, operators must meet subscriber
demands for richer services that are more personalized and
available anywhere. To grow the mobile market, the companies
supporting OMA are working together towards stimulating the
fast and wide adoption of new and enhanced information, communication
and entertainment mobile services.
Picture messaging – the next wave
Key enabling technologies will be jointly decided by the companies
involved but inevitably will embrace multimedia messaging
(MMS), Java and XHTML.
The mobile industry sees huge potential in MMS, enabling
customers to attach digital pictures, audio clips, voice and
text to their messages, and is expected to enjoy phenomenal
success similar to that of the ubiquitous text messaging (SMS).
Java technology is attractive to the mobile industry because
it gives application developers and content providers access
to a large and growing universe of end-user devices. Operators
can use Java to develop their own applications. For customers,
the services include interactive games, business applications
and downloadable content.
Mobility as technology and lifestyle driver
Over the next few years, mobility will become the major technology
and lifestyle driver. A large part of personal and professional
communications will be in a wireless environment with a personal
mobile device as a medium. Nokia continues to anticipate far-reaching
growth opportunities for all the players in this industry
as the future unfolds.
Published
2003
|
.
Finnfacts is part of