OMA Boasts GrowthOMA Boasts Growth

SYDNEY and SAN DIEGO -- The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), an international specifications setting body, closes its third year with the widest scope of tested and interoperable Enablers in the industry. With a total of 37 Enabler Releases in its portfolio and a membership of nearly 400 companies spanning the mobile industry value chain, the OMA has established itself as the leading international standards body for mobile specifications.

During the last twelve months, OMA has released 13 new Candidate Enabler Releases, 22 revised Candidate Enabler Releases, and 5 new Approved Enabler Releases. For 2006, the OMA is working on a broad range of technologies and expects to release new specifications in the areas of Mobile Broadcast, Push to Talk over Cellular and Firmware Update Management Object.

"The OMA has become a recognized and established alliance," says Jari Alvinen, chairman of the board of the OMA. "Since our founding, we have delivered and maintained the highest quality of innovative specifications. In the turbulent and ever-changing mobile industry, proprietary implementations often represent the first deployments of services. Wider adoption of such services depends on interoperability between different manufacturers' products, enabled by jointly developed, well tested standards like those of the OMA."

2005 also saw significant progress in the OMA's Interoperability Program (IOP). The organisation hosted five IOP testing events (Test Fests) in different locations around the world, and will hold one more Test Fest in Dusseldorf, Germany next month. Each test fest now tests as many as 10 of the OMA's enablers, a significant growth in the scale and scope of testing performed at each event. This brings the total number of OMA tested products to nearly 600, demonstrating OMA's direct impact on the marketplace.

Liaison activity between the OMA and other standards bodies has continued to develop and further strengthen the organisation's foundation. In the last year, the total number of active Cooperation Agreements with external increased to 34. Further, the number of other referencing OMA specifications has grown, demonstrating the increasing influence of the OMA's work across the mobile industry landscape. The OMA has also updated its Intellectual Property Rights policy in order to enhance cooperation with non-members and external organisations.

Open Mobile Alliance (OMA)