Operators, OEM and Vendors join WAC, WAC 1.0 specification announced
London, 18th October 2010 – The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), an alliance of telecommunications companies committed to building an open applications platform, today announced that 32 new organisations from across the mobile ecosystem, including operators, vendors and OEMs, have joined the initiative. WAC today also announced the availability of the WAC 1.0 specification following the completion of the WAC and JIL merger at the beginning of the month. WAC 1.0 is based upon JIL 1.2.2 and is available to download at www.wholesaleappcommunity.com.
Industry ecosystem leaders joining WAC at the board level are Accenture, Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, Qualcomm Incorporated and Samsung. These organisations join current board members in setting the strategic direction and evolution of WAC and will be able to launch WAC-enabled storefronts.
“WAC now has 48 members committed to building open platforms, simplifying the application development process for developers and providing their customers with greater choice,” said Peters Suh, CEO of WAC. “The influx of new members, combined with our continued delivery against key milestones, demonstrates that the WAC initiative is gaining significant momentum in the market.”
Michel Combes, Chairman WAC commented, “It is great to see so many companies adding their support to the WAC initiative. Quite simply, our goal is to speed up the development of applications so that operators, developers and customers can benefit.”
Operators joining WAC at Operator Member level are América Móvil, Bell Mobility, Bouygues Telecom, China Unicom, Hutchison 3 Group, KDDI, LG Uplus, MTS, Orascom Telecom, Rogers Communications and SFR. Companies joining WAC as Sponsor Members include Alcatel-Lucent, Fujitsu, and LG Electronics. WAC Operators and Sponsors will be able to launch WAC-enabled storefronts and benefit from their substantial commitment to the WAC organisation. New Associate Members include Aplix, ASPire, Borqs, Capgemini, Innoace, LiMo Foundation, Myriad Group, Oberthur Technologies, Obigo, Opera Software, Oracle Corporation and ZTE. The whole WAC membership have the opportunity to get involved in the working groups of the organisation and have access to WAC documents, specifications and code.
In addition, demonstrating continued momentum, WAC announced the completion of the purchase of the JIL assets on 1st October 2010. The completion of the acquisition is the final stage of the process to combine JIL with WAC, and enables WAC to provide the WAC 1.0 specification to the developer community.
“The availability of the WAC 1.0 specification sends out a strong message to the developer community that we are committed to working with them to create cross-platform applications that will benefit the entire mobile communications ecosystem” continued Suh.
About the Wholesale Applications Community
Launched in February 2010, the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) is an open global alliance formed from leading organisations within the telecoms sector. Uniting a fragmented applications marketplace, WAC will create an open industry platform that benefits the entire ecosystem, including applications developers, handset manufacturers, OS owners, network operators and end users.
The Wholesale Applications Community will:
· Accelerate and expand the market for applications – Simplify application development by giving developers the opportunity to write applications that can be deployed across multiple platforms and multiple operators, and address a potential global market of more than 3 billion users.
· Create more compelling applications – Enable developers to utilise both device and network capabilities to create the next generation of applications.
· Provide greater choice for users – Enable portability of applications across devices, operating systems and network operators.
Current WAC members are as follows:
Accenture, Alcatel-Lucent, Aplix, América Móvil, ASPire, AT&T, Bell Mobility, Borqs, Bougyues Telecom, Capgemini, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, France Telecom, Fujitsu, Huawei, Hutchison 3 Group, Innoace, Intel, KDDI, KT Corporation, LG Electronics, LG Uplus, LiMo Foundation, MTS, Myriad Group, NTT DOCOMO, Oberthur Technologies, Obigo, Opera Software, Orascom Telecom, Oracle Corporation, Qualcomm Incorporated, Rogers Communications, Samsung, SFR, SK Telecom, Smart Communications, SOFTBANK MOBILE, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telekom Austria Group, Telenor, Verizon, Vodafone, ZTE and the GSMA.
For more information, please go to www.wholesaleappcommunity.com
Press Contact:
Phil Rawcliffe
07889 320159
