The largest mobile phone operators, including Sprint, issued a statement yesterday that they would promote cross-platform compatibility by offering a single open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users.
Why should you care? MONEY! Your money if you are in an industry that requires a mobile application that sells or promotes your business. Say for example you sell real estate and you want your customers to be able to search for houses while driving around. Unless your web development company writes a version of the application that works with the GPS systems for the Blackberry, Google Droid, iPhone and Nokia, some of your customers will not be able to use the website. So instead of paying for one application, you will quadruple your cost!
Adobe Air may be part of the answer. They are working on a mobile version of Adobe Air that would allow web developers to deliver mobile applications that work across multiple operating systems. Hardware manufacturers such as Samsung and Sony Ericsson are supporting the community effort as well. With more than 3 billion application downloaded from Apple stores in the last 18 months, they can't afford not to support initiative.
Libby Lucas llucas@ccpteam.com
www.webdesigncharlotte.org
