MOSQUITO to document and define fragmentation for developers
The EC is co-funding a $700,000 project aimed at finding open source solutions to help developers address the issue of fragmentation in mobile devices and platforms.
The project is called MOSQUITO, which stands for Mobile software and services, Standardisation, Quality, Interoperability, Testing, Open source. At present, the project has seven participants drawn from across the industry, France Telecom, Funambol, inno, ETSI, IBBT and Telecommunication Metrology Center of MIIT.
The project has several goals, which are to:
·        Provide comprehensive documentation on fragmentation to help developers understand its issues and consequences
·        Define roadmap for reducing mobile internet application fragmentation
·        Support actions that improve the working environment to develop mobile internet services and demonstrate the way forward on convergence
·        Provide major contributions to the future internet
·        Lower barriers for service providers, in particular SMEs, to develop mobile internet services through standardised open (source) platforms and interfaces
Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO of Funambol, one of the participating companies, told Mobile Europe, “The problem in mobile is fragmentation, and the only way to get a solution to this problem is to use a community. MOSQUITO will look at the issue and document and find solutions to the issue. The angle the project is taking is open source and open standards to look at how we can define a framework to deal with the issue.”
The aim of the project, Copabianco stressed, is not to somehow eliminate fragmentation, and arrive at some overall approach to mobile applicaitons performance. Instead, the goal is to catalogue existing and evolving fragmentation, and come up with solutions for developers to help that address that.
“Fragmentation is innovation” said Capobianco, “and means we are seeing a lot more innovation than in some monolithic market. It can be a pretty good thing but not if it is out of control and cannot be managed. Then is is problematic.”
MOSQUITO’s own website says, “MOSQUITO aims to help define a sustainable level of fragmentation, which will not act as a barrier to the full development of the mobile phones applications market. Facilitating entrance to the market will attract developers, in particular SMEs, to develop mobile internet services through standardised open (source) platforms and interfaces.”