American Express taps carrier No. 2 for digital commerce platform

Verizon Wireless (VZ) is now the second major carrier in line for integration with American Express Co.’s (AXP) burgeoning digital commerce platform Serve.
Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) snagged the first carrier deal with American Express two weeks ago. It will also be the flagship carrier for Google Inc.’s (GOOG) Google Wallet.
Various providers, financial institutions and credit card companies are playing the platform field in mobile commerce. Numerous platform iterations are at play and the race to win has a widening group of businesses investing millions to grab some of the action in what is now largely a theoretical market.
Despite cries to the contrary, the mobile commerce space is becoming more crowded and unclear.
American Express launched Serve almost five months ago and now has two direct carrier wins under its belt, but like others in this space, it’s making parallel moves at the same time. The company also joined Isis a couple weeks ago when the national mobile commerce joint venture between Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility (T) and T-Mobile USA Inc. (DTEGY) announced similar deals with with Visa Inc. (V), MasterCard Inc. (MA) and Discover Financial Services (DGS).