MWC: Wholesale Application Community Launches First Products

The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), announced a year ago by mobile services operators to challenge app stores run by Google and Apple, has delivered its first web applications and a white-label app store that can be customised by individual operators.

Mobile operators including China Mobile, MTS, Orange, Smart, Telefónica, Telenor, Verizon and Vodafone are using the WAC platform, with handset makers Huawei, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and ZTE announcing they will support WAC, the organisation said at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on Monday.

White-label storefront

Ericsson has developed a white-label, WAC-enabled storefront based on IBM WebSphere Commerce software that can be customised by operators to launch their own storefronts, the group said.

“With the commercial launch of operator storefronts, handsets and applications, all based on WAC, we can say that WAC is now officially open for business,” said WAC chief executive Peters Suh, in a statement.

The storefront is offered to operators as a cloud-based service and gives users the ability to browse, buy, download, install and rate WAC widgets and native applications, according to WAC. Operator features include the ability to promote individual applications and automatically provide discounts based on customer preferences and buying behaviours.

The storefront is integrated with WAC’s wholesale catalogue of about 12,000 applications, WAC said.

WAC is in the process of developing an app specification that includes progressively higher-end features. The handsets and storefronts demonstrated on Monday are based on the initial WAC 1.0 specification first published in September 2010, with the availability of WAC 2.0 announced on Monday and WAC 3.0 planned for introduction later this year.

WAC 1.0 supports basic web apps, while WAC 2.0 adds features such as HTML5-based multimedia and WAC 3.0 will introduce more advanced features.

On Monday WAC demonstrated a prototype WAC 3.0 application developed with a US television network including ringtones, social networking, messaging and ticketing features. WAC 3.0 allows developers to connect to network APIs such as user authentication and in-application billing. That means a user could sign in and make purchases from within the application, WAC said.

Fragmentation

The mobile applications market is currently very fragmented, with Apple, Blackberry, Google, Nokia, Symbian and Microsoft all offering their own app stores. This requires developers to submit different versions of their applications to each individual store. Many developers are reportedly disatisfied with the commercial terms on offer, and Amazon has launched its own Android app store, designed to improve on Google’s quality control

WAC aims to tackle this through its common standard. WAC said this is intended to help to unite developer communities and provide them with a simple route to market.