OXFORD, United Kingdom—In an effort to stem growing concerns about interoperability, Nokia has indicated that it might take on some of the responsibilities to ensure its Open Mobile Architecture (OMA) initiative moves forward. The OMA, which has most of the major mobile equipment developers onboard, is looking to avoid a repeat of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) fiasco by ensuring that applications and devices are compatible with whatever infrastructure is installed by cell-phone operators.
Nokia claimed that multimedia messaging services (MMS) and WAP on General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) networks have demonstrated good interoperability and usability for some time. However, it admitted that with many other applications, particularly location-based services, much work remains to be done, and it is unclear how the OMA will coordinate this work.
A Nokia executive confirmed that the OMA will attempt to keep the number of standards adopted to a minimum to aid the effort but will look to existing standards bodies, such as the 3GPP, Wireless Village and SyncML Forum, to assist with interoperability issues within a particular technology category.
Given the objectives of the OMA, which is seen by some analysts as an attempt to combat Microsoft’s increasing interest in the mobile market, it is expected that Nokia will need to take on the role of interoperability testing and qualification.
