Design for Development Stability

The Open Mobile Alliance aims to grow the market for the entire mobile industry by enabling subscribers to use interoperable mobile services across markets, operators, and mobile terminals. This is achieved by defining an open-standards-based framework to permit applications and services to be built, deployed, and managed efficiently and reliably in a multivendor environment.

The objectives of the Open Mobile Alliance are to:

• Enable consumer access to interoperable and easy-to-use mobile services across geographies, operators, and mobile terminals

• Define an open-standards-based framework to permit services to be built, deployed, and managed efficiently and reliably in a multivendor environment

• Establish one mobile industry standards forum, the Open Mobile Alliance, to function as the driving force responsible for creating service level interoperability

• Drive the implementation of open services and interface standards, through the user-centric approach to ensure the fast, wide adoption of mobile services. www.openmobilealliance.org

The responsibility for developing mobile communication user interfaces is spreading. The user interface previously belonged to the individual terminal manufacturer, with influence from the mobile operators. Today the main stakeholders in the industry form consortia to ensure compatibility of technologies over different terminals and networks. Interfaces are being opened up to third-party developers. Developers and mobile service providers need a stable environment in which to propose new features and services. They also want the environment to be as widely used as possible to make their business profitable.

Mobile phone user interface designers cannot simply ignore these changes in the business environment and continue to pioneer new interface approaches every time they encounter new ideas. Proprietary solutions lacking technical compatibility with the overall business value chain will be very difficult to sell. The leading companies have both the ability and the responsibility to influence the direction of user interface development, but the direction must be clear and foreseeable to the rest of the industry. The terminals and networks alone without rich and usable service offerings will not satisfy customers.