@MWC: AT&T chief calls on Apple, others to develop open ecosystem: De la Vega toes fine line

BARCELONA, Spain – AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega used his Mobile World Congress keynote speech here to plead industry leaders for a common set of applications and application programming interfaces. De la Vega’s comments were notable in that AT&T is the exclusive U.S. carrier of the Apple Inc. iPhone, a device that runs applications incompatible with the rest of AT&T’s cellphone portfolio.
De la Vega never singled out Apple in his comments, nor did he overtly acknowledge the seeming contradiction – calling for a more open application ecosystem while trumpeting the success of Apple’s largely closed approach to the market. De la Vega said his concerns were provoked by AT&T customers who want a simplified market for devices, applications and services.
“We have islands of applications” that don’t interoperate, de la Vega said. “There’s a huge risk to our industry if we don’t get this straightened out.”
Added de la Vega: “Obviously the iPhone has been successful, but I think it would be even more so if there was commonality among applications.”
An Apple representative was not immediately available for comment. The company does not have a presence at Mobile World Congress, seemingly its modus operandi when it comes to trade shows.
De la Vega’s comments reflect a possible disconnect on an open-platform philosophy between AT&T and iPhone maker Apple, a company that has made headway in the wireless market despite a marketing strategy that virtually ignores the manufacturer’s carrier partners. AT&T is on the record as having a great relationship with Apple; indeed the two companies have both benefited from the massive success of the iPhone. AT&T signed up a whopping 1.9 million new iPhoners during the fourth quarter of last year.
“We have to find a way for applications to work across devices, platforms and operating systems,” de la Vega said. “I think we should use standard APIs (application programming interfaces) . that would allow developers to access platforms worldwide.”
De la Vega said handset manufacturers should use the BONDI application standard, proposed by the Open Mobile Terminal Platform trade group. According to the group, BONDI will “drive the standardization of a small set of key interfaces from Web services to mobile devices and also to put in place a well understood and user controlled security policy with which to protect the user.”
De la Vega made his comments at the beginning of a panel discussion with Nokia