If you listened closely on October 17 and again on November 27, 2007, you may have heard wireless industry suppliers breathe collective sighs of relief as Apple (News - Alert) and Verizon Wireless made two momentous announcements. That’s because wireless market suppliers made bets two years ago that enterprises would be able to install handsets and applications of their choice on networks throughout North America. Until those announcements, they could only hope that their bets would pay off. Now they had direct proof that the walled gardens were beginning to crumble.

 

While walled gardens aren’t an issue in other parts of the world, the North American wireless market represents almost one-half of enterprise communications, by some estimates. So these announcements have impacted the entire mobile unified communications industry in ways that are hard to overestimate.

 

The first announcement by Apple noted that it will be opening up the iPhone (News - Alert) to third-party applications through a software development kit (SDK) that will be available in February, 2008. Since the day the iPhone began shipping, my firm, FirstHand Technologies, has received requests for mobile unified communications capabilities for that device. First we wrapped ourselves in the thin sheet of “it’s a consumer device rather than one for business” excuse. But as business use of the iPhone picked up and CIOs had to work hard to keep iPhones off their networks, that sheet wore thinner.

 

Now that Apple is allowing suppliers to place applications on the device, I predict that within a month of the APIs becoming available, all applications—consumer and enterprise—(including our own) will begin to appear on the iPhone.

 

The second announcement was by Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless, which promised that customers will be able to use “any apps, any device” on its network starting next year. Up until now, subscribers have been restricted to using only those offerings sold through the carrier.

 

Verizon’s announcement is huge on many scales. For mobile unified communications suppliers, it means that the mobile side of mobile unified communications systems can work without interference on Verizon’s network. From an enterprise perspective, it means they will continue to have choices offered by Verizon plus many others from other industry participants.

 

Wireless carriers tend to be consumer focused, without much emphasis on features and applications for enterprises. Now the industry can fill the void and provide those features and applications for enterprises. And from the consumer perspective, the announcement signals a willingness to let outside consumer messaging and voice applications to work without interference on the network.

 

I’m sure there are other announcements I’ve missed and many similar announcements to come. But these two, even taken in a vacuum, show the trend of Tier 1 hardware and network providers moving toward openness. This bodes well for our industry and for our enterprise customers to be able to enjoy enterprise communications everywhere—and now on everything.