While there were a number of major industry announcements at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2008 in San Francisco this week, one group of announcements caught our attention – the launch of mobile application development platforms by the leading players identified by VentureBeat

Mobile applications seemed to be lost in the shadow of the attention that the mobile Web is getting. However, these applications could drive significant data usage in mobile phones by combining multiple capabilities such as location-based services, mobile payments and web browsing to create interesting possibilities beyond the mobile browser.

Mobile applications are at an inflection point for two reasons:

• Device capabilities — the new generation of smartphones are powerful enough to offer developers a base to create applications that are compelling to users.

• Distribution — distributing mobile applications to a mass market has historically been a problem. With the launch of open platforms and application stores, distribution will become much easier.

We are excited about the mobile uptake. However, lest we forget, the potential of mobile devices goes far beyond the browser.

- Girish Wadhwani

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Tags: ctia, location based services, mobile applications, mobile browser, mobile payments, web browsing

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 10:32 am and is filed under mobile ecosystem, mobile internet, mobile websites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.