Fujitsu Becomes First Mobile Phone Manufacturer in Japan to Join Wholesale Applications Community

Fujitsu today announced that it has become the first mobile phone handset manufacturer in Japan to participate as a sponsor in the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), a non-profit alliance of many of the world's major corporations and organizations from the mobile phone industry that promotes the development and distribution of mobile phone applications.

WAC aims for the development of an open industry platform for the mobile phone applications market that users everywhere can benefit from, through the development of an open application development environment and by offering a diversity of applications that can be deployed across multiple devices.

Fujitsu plans to contribute to the activities of WAC through the wealth of technology it has acquired until now during the development of its own mobile phones and by providing feedback from customers. At the same time, Fujitsu will be able to deploy the technological innovations developed by WAC in its future product development, thereby helping to globally expand Fujitsu's mobile phone handset business.

Background

In recent times, as can be seen by the success of smartphone application stores, application distribution is becoming an increasingly important element of the mobile phone business.

Launched in February 2010 and incorporated in July 2010, WAC was established in order to develop common specifications for applications and common distribution routes, particularly for global telecommunications carriers with vast numbers of contract-based customers. This will enable a larger number of developers to participate in mobile phone application development for a wide range of mobile phone handsets, regardless of the operation system.

For Fujitsu, a mobile phone handset manufacturer, participating in WAC will enable the company to lead other manufacturers in Japan in developing products that incorporate global technological innovations, thereby resulting in the expansion of Fujitsu's handset business in the global marketplace.