Bondi: in the mobile world it means safe surfing

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 02 July 2008 04:20

IT Industry - Strategy

The world's leading mobile network operators, including 3, AT&T, T-Mobile, Telenor, Telefónica, Telecom Italia and Vodafone have launched an initiative to encourage the development of mobile applications without compromising customer security.

The new initiative, to be known as Bondi, after Australia's most famous beach, will operate Under the umbrella of the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP). The name was chosen "because OMTP wants mobile customers to have the greatest surfing experience whilst making the experience as safe as possible."

Bondi aims to provide a consistent and secure web services interface that can be used by all web developers across multiple device platforms, providing the opportunity for web developers to address a mass market of consumers and to drive the use of data services on mobile devices by exposing key handset features to web developers to help them develop more function-rich, user friendly and relevant applications.

The new handset software will be "engineered in such a way as to prevent fraudulent and malicious activity through unauthorised access to functions or sensitive personal information." The group says that Bondi will "harmonise the various open and proprietary ongoing initiatives" and will "minimise the potential for technology fragmentation in this exciting area."

The OMTP is, according to its web site "an operator-sponsored forum that serves the needs of each and every link in the mobile phone value chain by gathering and driving mobile terminal requirements." There are currently eight full members - the Bondi backers and Orange - and 35 sponsors.

Hopefully Australians will be flattered by the OMTP's adoption of a great Australian icon, unlike the government of Fiji which has taken serious umbrage at Microsoft for naming its next operating system after the country.