Leading IT infrastructure and application server vendors such as Sun Microsystems, Oracle, BEA Systems, HP and IBM and have recently announced their support for the open mobile architecture initiative that will see the global adoption of mobile software and services.
Together these companies will create interoperable server solutions for service providers, corporations and mobile operators that comply with the guidelines provided by industry standardisation bodies.
"SA's adoption of mobile devices has been phenomenal. A global open mobile architecture initiative is sure to give local users access to the best mobile technologies developed by the industry's leading IT vendors," comments Peter Castle, senior systems engineer: Java at Sun Microsystems SA. "This initiative also marks the beginning of the next phase of mobile services, leading to the development of uniform mobile application programming interfaces (APIs)."
The companies have agreed to work together with operators and network infrastructure manufacturers to facilitate the creation of mobile services using Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application servers. New products and solutions will be based on open mobile architecture technologies such as Java, and 3GPP compliant technologies that include WAP2.0/XHTML, MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) and SyncML.
Creating applications for the mobile context poses various challenges to developers. But, widely used and best-in-class interfaces implementations can reduce development and deployment costs. Castle explains: "Developers will be able to address both Web and mobile users with the same underlying application design and maintain superior usability in both environment."
Comments Pertti Korhonen, senior vice president: mobile software at Nokia: "Server infrastructure application interfaces such as mobile APIs for J2EE have a key role in the creation of an interoperable services market.
"We are confident that that global open standards will boost competition and bring the best solutions for demanding mobile customers."
This announcement further compounds the mobile industry's commitment to the open mobile architecture initiative announced at Comdex in Las Vegas in the US (13 November 2001). Industry leaders, including AT&T Wireless, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, Siemens and Sony Ericsson, jointly announced their aim of creating a global and open mobile software and services market.
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