Mobile Entertainment

The mobile Internet is here. What still hasn’t arrived is the abundance of compelling content and Web applications that exist on the traditional Internet. Why? Because the diversity of choice in the device market is far greater than was ever anticipated – and the proprietary software licensing model has withheld transcoding software from the very people who should be building the new mobile Web – you, the content community.

It’s so different from the wired web. The guys who started Google, for example, just had to build a compelling application and put it on the Internet. They knew it would work – language issues apart – for pretty much any PC user.

The success of the traditional Internet can largely be attributed to its openness – browsers are relatively standardised and the tools to create databases and complex systems, such as Linux and SQL, are freely available as Open Source Software (OSS) through General Public Licenses (GPL). The Web community can therefore focus on what its does best – create fresh and compelling content, rather than worry about how to deliver it.

With the mobile Internet, the story couldn’t be more different. Developers have to build for hundreds of devices and dozens of operators. And as smartphones get smarter and newer platforms – Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone –enter the market, the gulf between high-end devices and mass-market handsets is only set to widen.

In this environment, it’s not possible for content providers to put a mobile Web app “out there” and see an immediate uptake. Instead, they need to access enabling technology – transcoding software that can overcome fragmentation issues, as well as scale to support applications as they become successful in the longer term.

To date, the proprietary licence models surrounding such transcoding software have deterred smaller developers and content providers. The whole market has been held back.

I believe the OSS models of the traditional Internet should be applied to mobile. OSS has the ability to provide an underlying platform for the management and delivery of mobile content, and offer a common and scalable basis for developing compelling products.

This is why Volantis Systems has set its software free. We’ve opened up the result of seven years’ of development to the industry, along with access to our device database, containing 653 attributes for more than 5,000 devices. The Volantis Mobility Server is open to the content community to download without charge. Developers can extend the capabilities or add new elements to its 1.2 million lines of code.

For the content community, we hope to provide an easy-to-use tool based on proven technology that both enables and encourages you to bring compelling content to the mobile Web, removing much of the headache associated with the channel and helping your creativity come alive.