Open Mobile: Open yes, interoperable, maybe. (Stub Files).

If there's one tech industry sector that's determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past, it is the mobile phone market.

Vexed by multiple software development platforms, various vendors using proprietary service infrastructures, and declining revenues, mobile carriers and phone OEMs--particularly those in the US--have been seeking the "one true path" to unify wireless services and, hopefully, build revenue. In June, a number of vendors joined together to form an unlikely alliance designed to reach these goals. Dubbed the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), it promised to deliver workable recommendations--in the form of technical specifications--that would unify this fragmented market and help consumers benefit from next-generation technologies without fear of compatibility problems.

At Comdex in November, the OMA delivered. It announced the OMA Release Program, which will include seven so-called enablers, or "building blocks" for various aspects of next-gen wireless services. The announced enablers include mobile browsing, multimedia messaging service (MMS), digital rights management (DRN4), domain name service DNS) lookup, mobile content download, email push notification, and user/device profiles. Other enablers, including instant messaging and presence service (IMPS), are expected to be added later, and the OMA expects to shortly integrate standardization efforts from several other wireless forums, including the Mobile Games Inter-Operability Forum, the Location Interoperability Forum and the Mobile Wireless Internet Forum.

The goals of the OMA are straightforward and commendable. Companies that abide by the group's recommendations will not use competing technologies at the underlying architectural level of phones and services. Rather, they will use the enablers to create interoperable devices that are differentiated at the design level and in the number of functions that they support.

Users benefit because they will be assured that their new mobile devices can communicate and exchange data with devices from other manufacturers on other services, not simply those subscribing to the same network: Protocols and interfaces are not locked to proprietary technologies, applications can run on multiple networks, and architectures are independent of the operating system. For example, a user will not be tied to his home network if he wants to use a phone-based application: He can do so while roaming on another service. Theoretically, all this will broaden the market for and create revenue from new devices and services, which telecom companies and device OEMs sorely need.

As always, though, the devil is in the details. The OMA includes strange bedfellows, including Microsoft, Sun, Oracle and Nokia. In particular, Nokia and Microsoft have proven to be bitter rivals in the mobile market, particularly at the OS level. And, while the OMA seems to be leaning toward Java in several of its enablers, if history is any guide, Microsoft is unlikely to support Sun's platform as a standard in any of its devices. Indeed, the entire premise of the OMA--the separation of the OS from the application and service layers of a device--seems to run contrary to Redmond's proclivities.

How the OMA will deal with such seeming contradictions as it seeks to create a world-wide mobile device standard is anyone's guess. But unless and until vendors see more value in compatibility than in proprietary solutions, the current levels of service and device fragmentation will continue. And the mobile market will be condemned to repeat the sins of the past.