The arrival of the lightweight and old-school feature phone client OneApp foretells of a whole new way Microsoft will engage with the worldwide mobile industry, reports Kirk Laughlin.
First came news a few weeks ago that Nokia and Microsoft were breaking through years of turf protection by joining together to allow Microsoft Office apps to run on Nokia devices.Now comes another intriguing announcement out of Redmond, Wash – the software giant is to launch a simple little client for feature phones that triggers access to dozens of carrier-selected mobile apps, like Facebook, Twitter and Windows Live Messenger.
Blue Label Telecom, based on South Africa, will be the first carrier to use the system. Dozens more are expected to follow in the next 12 months, almost all, presumably, in emerging markets.
In analysing the development, there are a couple of pertinent facts to consider. The launch is not coming from Microsoft’s dominant mobile group – Windows Mobile – but instead from a lesser- known unit called “Unlimited Potential” which is charged with providing social, educational and technology benefits to less lucrative markets around the world.
There is a philanthropic tone to the mission of Unlimited Potential but, of course, we’re talking here about one of the most competitive, free-market enterprises ever to appear on the global landscape. To dismiss Unlimited Potential OppApp as a socially-conscious initiative would be to miss the point entirely.
The fact is Microsoft is looking to seed emerging markets with the OneApp platform, and then entice developers to be part of a true app-development ecosystem.
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A software development kit is planned for release at the end of 2009.
OneApp will read standard programming languages likeJavaScript and XML and the pitch for developers will go something like this: “You don’t have to worry about writing for dozens of discrete mobile operating systems, instead you can write just once – for us.”
Jeff Orr, a mobile industry analyst for ABI Research, is not convinced that a critical mass of developers will follow suit and support OneApp. Instead, he envisages a more open discussion developing between operators themselves and application developers.
In the United States, for example, each of the carriers is trying to attract more interest from the developer community through events and promotional campaigns. Still, Orr believes that carriers generally lack the awareness of how much end-users want to establish personalisation on their devices.
The other noteworthy fact about OneApp is that the concept is not new. Orr points out that Handmark has been busy offering a single client portal – called PocketExpress – to dozens of apps on smart phones in industrialised markets. Orr adds, “I would look at OneApp in more developed countries as what’s offered in carrier portals”.
The larger question is what does OppApp say about Microsoft’s Windows Mobile? Analyst house Canalys recently found that Windows Mobile’s share of the worldwide smart phone market has fallenl from about 14 per cent to under 9 per cent with Apple and Android responsible for most of the erosion.
It is highly likely that Microsoft recognises the battle for the mobile OS is going to be long and hard. A little mobile platform that populates emerging economies, where roughly 5 billion individuals live and work, is probably not a bad plan B.
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