WAC closer to commercialisation

On its first anniversary, the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), the alliance designed to build an open platform for delivering applications to all mobile phone users, finally announced its commercial launch. But is the operator-led app store initiative too late to the party?

While Apple and Android are already enjoying the fruits of their labour, alongside a plethora of other app stores, WAC has only just announced its commercial offering, already putting it some distance behind the pack, with not a compatible handset yet in sight. Huawei, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and ZTE have pledged their support, but it will still take time to being such a device to market.

This is where Ericsson comes in with its eStore – a WAC-enabled, white label application store, which is highly customisable, fully integrated with the WAC content catalogue and readily available to WAC member operators to brand and take to market in a very short time.

Nordic carrier Telenor has already jumped on board, where it will pilot launch in Serbia with Ericsson’s white label application store, fronted by an opera-based client to cater to multiple handset platforms. Other supporting carriers include China Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, MTS, Orange, Smart and Telefónica.

The first apps will be available on version 1.0 of the WAC specification from last year, but version 2.0 was unveiled this week with version 3.0 promised later in the year.