Mobile Software Incompatibility: a Hot Discussion Topic at Mobile World Congress

Buzz about what’s going on at the Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) in Barcelona, Spain, this week has been flooding the news wires as more and more companies are bringing up new communication discussions at the event.

On the topic of open communication, the discussion of mobile software and compatibility was addressed. Since an iPhone application will not work on a Nokia phone, and neither would work on Google’s (News - Alert) Android system or Microsoft’s new Windows Phone (News - Alert), more and more industry professionals are weighing the incompatibility issue. 

“These are all proprietary systems,” said Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer of the GSM Association, the London organizer of the Barcelona event. “We are creating islands of applications out there that can’t communicate with each other.”

Similar to the early days of computers, competition is stemming from the best of the best in terms of delivering the most user friendly and communication forward device. 

In the mobile world, the operating system market is fractured, and the mobile Web is not yet developed enough to handle many things people want to do on mobile devices. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone (News - Alert) and its App Store have turned the once-obscure field of mobile applications into a lucrative market, prompting other companies to mimic that model.