The Joint Innovation Lab is a joint venture between Vodafone, Verizon Wireless, China Mobile and SoftBank Mobile. It is backed up by handset makers LG Electronics, Research In Motion, Samsung Electronics and Sharp Corporation. The companies use the JIL as a platform to develop mobile services. JIL's first project is to develop a mobile widget ecosystem that will allow developers to benefits from access to the combined customer base of the four JIL mobile operators. For developers there is a with an SDK and guides for how to develop JIL widgets. The Wholesale Applications Community was formed by a group of 24mobile network operators and announced at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona with the remit to tackle device fragmentation through the introduction of ‘open standard’ web technologies. Over the following year, more and more companies expressed a commitment to the common cause and WAC now boasts over 60 members in its ranks, including handset manufacturers, software development companies and mobile network operators from all over the world. In September 2010, just six months after the initial announcement, the first WAC 1.0 mobile webrun time specification was released, signalling the organisation’s intent to support developers with an open web-based platform that could run applications across multiple devices and operating systems. With the support of its 40+ members, WAC appointed former Vodafone executive Peters Suh as CEO, with Michel Combes and Jean Philippe Vanot taking on the roles of Chairman and Deputy Chair. The news that the GSMA’s OneAPI would be the standard adopted by WAC’s network operator members for the exposure of network APIs was followed by a further nine new members joining the organisation, including new OEMs, swelling the membership to over 50 companies. By Mobile World Congress 2011, WAC formally confirmed its status as a ‘not for profit’ organisation and announced that its membership had now grown to more than 60 full members. At a packed press conference in Barcelona, WAC CEO Peters Suh was joined on stage by a number of executives from the organisation’s member companies, where he unveiled a number of WAC powered storefronts and demonstrated feature rich web-applications running on a range of WAC compliant handsets from members that include Huawei, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and ZTE. The Wholesale Applications Community continues to support developers wishing to reduce development costs and at the same time drive innovation and revenues. In Q4 2011, as part of its commitment to help developers and distributors maximise long term revenues, WAC has launched a closed ‘live’ BETA with selected content and carrier partners to demonstrate the capabilities of its in-application billing network API across a range of platforms.
