A major group of mobile operators, including Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile and MMO2, has just formed a new organisation, called the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP). Its aim is to encourage the industry to provide mobiles with common programming interfaces so that software does not have to be rewritten.

This sort of effort has been tried many times in the past with varying degrees of success. The main difference with the OMTP is that it is pushing the industry to standardise on software that implements operator-controlled services.

Currently, operators often sell special services that require certain features to be present in mobiles, and the operators have to test these features for every phone supporting the new service. This is time-consuming and delays the start of new services, and may also increase the price of mobiles if the manufacturer has to make special modifications.

The OMTP will not create a standard, only draw up lists of requirements to influence suppliers. The requirements will be submitted to standards bodies such as the 3G Partnership Project (3GPP) and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) if new work is necessary.

Anyone can join the OMTP - for a price. There are various grades of membership costing from €5,000 (£3,300) up to €100,000 (£67,000) per year, and any company wanting to take part in the work must pay at least €30,000 (£20,000).

Perversely though, it has yet to be decided whether the results of the OMTP's work will be open and available to anyone who asks for it.

The OMTP should help mobile operators to provide a wide variety of services in a timely manner without having to test them on huge numbers of handset models. As a knock-on effect it might also reduce handset prices, because a phone made for one operator would have the same core functionality as one shipped to another, even though the services provided on it could be totally different. Corporates will benefit if they use bespoke services because they can be certain that any phone complying with OMTP requirements will work, reducing the need for in-house testing and making purchases that much easier.

Security will be an important consideration for the OMTP. In theory, an OMTP-compliant network could be used to send software to a handset without the owner's knowledge. This could create an opportunity for hackers, so the final system must be extremely secure. The 3GPP has considered this issue for many years and has mechanisms that authenticate communications between the mobile and the network, and securely run the software so it cannot be modified.

The mobile industry is famous for producing forums, consortiums, collaborations, and alliances, many of which disappear or merge with others. The ones that succeed are those where the issues are important enough for leading companies to participate. It is therefore likely that the OMTP will be successful and will be around for the long haul, since services are always evolving and new requirements always emerging.

The OMTP has the potential to be an organisation that operates quietly in the background and makes everyone's life easier.