Verizon Wireless’ “Any Device, Any App” Arrives March 19
29 February 2008Sony chief Howard Stringer asked at the World Economic Forum in Davos whether Verizon Wireless would have said like it did last November that it would open up its network for third party developers and devices a year ago - before WiMAX, Google’s Android and other moves to open access gained industry attention. “No,” he replied to his own question.
On March 19, Verizon Wireless will release the first version, 1.0, of specifications that developers will use to build devices and applications to run over the Verizon Wireless newly renamed “Any Device, Any App” cellular network. It’ll present the specs at a two-day Open Development Device Conference in New York.
“Version 1.0 will provide the road map for wireless device visionaries and tinkerers, as well as existing device makers, to create consumer products not offered directly by the company, which can run on the nation’s most reliable network,” said Anthony Lewis, VP of Verizon Wireless’ Open Development initiative.
Verizon Wireless has not said how it would price the service or how third party developers of services would be paid.
When Verizon Wireless first announced the “Any Device, Any App” initiative, it justified the move in large part by saying that it was increasingly difficult for it to evaluate, test and especially provide post-sales support to its customers. It said that sales people in its retail stores spend up to 90% of their time providing customer support for the handsets it sold and the applications it offered. The third parties selling products and services will have to provide customer support, not Verizon Wireless.
Moving open access into the mainstream are a number of recent events and trends:
- Sprint and Clearwire in the States plus many other companies worldwide are beginning to build WiMAX networks that allow independently certified devices and applications to run. So far Verizon Wireless has said it will do the certifications for “Any Device, Any App,” not independent third parties.
- Google’s open source Android operating system is being shown on prototype devices and chip companies such as ARM are developing Android-specific components.
- At Google’s urging, the FCC mandated that some of the 700 Mhz spectrum it’s auctioning would be open access.
- Apple is about to release, perhaps a few weeks later than planned, a software development kit for iPhone that will encourage software and hardware developers to engineer devices and applications that Apple has not. There has been talk that Apple would use its very popular iTunes to distribute third party services.
- The LiMO Foundation has spearheaded a standardized version of Linux that’s customized for mobile devices.
The overriding question then is that if a really clever software developer is sitting there with a great idea for a mobile device, what platform will he decide to develop the first version for? Apple, Google’s Android, WiMAX, Verizon Wireless, Nokia-backed Symbian or LiMO’s Linux?
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