The technological barriers and business models that have led to the
current morass of proprietary handheld devices, closed-off carrier
networks, and specialized wireless applications must be eliminated if
the mobile Internet is to become as powerful and ubiquitous as it should
someday be, according to industry leaders. Content providers,
applications developers, and mobile carriers, along with standards
backers like Tim Berners-Lee -- the so-called father of the World
Wide Web -- stumped for greater openness in the platforms being used
to develop future wireless online systems at the ongoing Mobile Internet
World conference in Boston on Wednesday. While the lion's share today's
of mobile Web applications do not work across multiple devices, wireless
service plans, and software environments, the potential of the mobile
Internet will only be realized when providers across the industry shift
from proprietary systems to open standards, experts presenting at the
conference said. Representatives from carrier Sprint Nextel, phone maker
Nokia, applications vendor Opera, and even content producer MTV pledged
their commitments at the conference to embrace the call of industry
leaders like Berners-Lee to move away from the proprietary systems they
have previously fostered and to adopt more standards-based platforms.
Berners-Lee said that his invention of the World Wide Web would have
never had the same unilateral influence and adoption that it has enjoyed
if it had been created only to work on a certain type of device or
operating system.
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