It’s been a while since we’ve heard from the WAC, also known as the “Wholesale Applications Community.”
Put simply, it’s an alliance formed at last year’s Mobile World Congress that was originally made up of 24 mobile operators and device makers as a way for the rest of the mobile industry to go head-to-head with the growing power of Apple’s App Store. Recently, the WAC announced that it’s added 10 new members ahead of this year’s MWC to bring total membership to 68 companies and organizations.
The 10 new members include Adobe, Amdocs, Eyeline, HP, IBM, Minigate, Neustar, Panasonic, SAP and SanDisk. These latest additions help boost membership before the commercial launch of the WAC on Monday during a scheduled press conference at MWC in Barcelona. Going forward, the WAC aims to:
- 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.
“We continue to attract a healthy pipeline of members from across the mobile industry, as evidenced by companies such as HP, IBM and SAP joining the programme,” said Peters Suh, CEO, WAC. “In Barcelona, we will be revealing much more in terms of WAC’s momentum, with WAC-enabled application stores and fully functional WAC devices supporting the latest applications.”
