Telekom Austria Group Drives Innovative Development Platform for Mobile Applications
- The Telekom Austria Group is among the founding members of the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) comprising leading mobile providers;
- This large open application platform allows developers better access and more selection opportunities for customers;
- Hannes Ametsreiter appointed as WAC board member;
Vienna, July 27, 2010: The Telekom Austria Group (VSE: TKA, OTC US: TKAGY) today announced that it has joined the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) as a founding member and Hannes Ametsreiter, CEO Telekom Austria Group, has been appointed board member of the newly founded organization with a three year mandate. WAC is a worldwide alliance of leading telecommunications operators that will act as a global interface between the developers of innovative applications and the end-customers. WAC represents an open application platform, which supports global standards and provides an ideal foundation for the developers of mobile applications.
Hannes Ametsreiter, CEO Telekom Austria Group, said: “The Telekom Austria Group has committed itself to WAC to better meet customers’ individual information needs and offer a real value add to a wider selection of innovative applications and services. Apps providers also benefit from this open application platform as they are granted direct access to the end-customers of all participating mobile operators. Furthermore, the platform independence significantly increases the overall application outreach. This ranges from globally available services to niche programs with a very specific small-scale target group. Recently organized developer challenges have demonstrated that applications with a regional focus are the most in demand.”
Going forward, WAC will make a significant contribution to standardizing the currently highly fragmented mobile application market: Due to the great multitude of equipment suppliers and the great variety of operating systems currently available, the development of applications for a larger target group is very complicated, extremely time-consuming and cost-intensive. Against this backdrop, WAC is offering developers a standardized and therefore cost-effective platform, on which any possible kind of service for mobile and smart phones can be programmed. This platform also promotes closer cooperation among all suppliers of mobile end-devices.
In November 2010, the first specifications and software development kits will be published. This set of technical rules and standards will be based on HTML5 and lays the foundation for developers worldwide for the creation of new applications for mobile and smart phones. The software developer kit will be based on the W3C standard.
Notes to the Editors
The Wholesale Applications Community - a non-profit organization financed by commission fees from the marketed applications - was founded on July 1, 2010. In addition to the Telekom Austria Group, the founding members include AT&T (USA), China Mobile (China), NTT Docomo (Japan), Vodafone (UK), France Telecom (France), Deutsche Telekom (Germany), Telecom Italia (Italy) and Telefonica (Spain). According to WAC’s business model, mobile providers can offer customers both free of charge and fee-based applications. Billing is made via the mobile providers’ ordinary bill. A revenue-sharing model guarantees that the proceeds are divided among network providers, WAC and the developers through individual agreements. With this business model WAC ensures attractive and competitive application price structures and margins. Location enhanced services are planned for the future, which will allow the determination of the location of the customers prior to their explicit consent. According to WAC, the global market potential currently amounts to more than three billion customers.
Kontakt:
Elisabeth Mattes
Spokeswoman and Director Corporate Communications Telekom Austria Group
Tel: +43 664 66 39187
E-mail: elisabeth.mattes@telekomaustria.com
