Wireless carriers know they don?t have time to waste. Or else why would 24 carriers launch yesterday at Mobile World Congress an open platform to deliver applications to all mobile devices?

The move by the GSM Association, long overdue, gains the support of leading carriers such as Verizon Wireless, Sprint and AT&T in the United States and a clutch of key players in each major wireless market worldwide.

The Wholesale Applications Community will be, by far, the greatest threat to proprietary application stores such as the Apple App Store, Android Marketplace, BlackBerry AppWorld, Nokia?s Ovi and the Palm Catalog.

But the launch of this joint effort will do much to dispel one of the biggest bugbears of mobile: lack of standardization.

Indeed, the mobile industry will win more marketing and commerce dollars only when major carriers nationwide and overseas agree to standards across hardware, software and practices.

?The GSMA is fully supportive the Wholesale Applications Community, which will build a new, open ecosystem to spur the creation of applications that can be used regardless of device, operating system or operator,? said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSMA, in a statement from Barcelona, Spain, where Mobile World Congress will run through Feb. 18.

Among foreign carriers, the applications alliance includes América Móvil, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, mobilkom austria group, MTN Group, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Softbank Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, VimpelCom, Vodafone and Wind.

Combined, these carriers and their U.S. counterparts account for more than 3 billion mobile subscribers worldwide.

Leading mobile-device manufacturers such as LG Electronics, Sony Ericsson and Samsung have also thrown their weight behind the Wholesale Applications Community.

More details are available at http://www.wholesaleappcommunity.com.

Require developer buy-in
Given the rapid clip of growth in mobile data usage, carriers surprisingly haven?t yet got a serious dog in the applications game. Indeed, on-deck portals seem to be waning in popularity, eclipsed by snazzy applications from brands such as Apple or Android and direct Web visits on mobile browsers.

Apple?s App Store already has nearly 140,000 applications downloaded more than 3 billion times. The applications range from the fun-and-funky variety to those with determined utility.

However, the jury is still out whether applications will become the key interactive platform for mobile content or commerce, especially since use of the Internet on mobile devices is growing dramatically.

Also, there is skepticism that carriers with disparate and often competing intentions will be able to pull off applications-standards collaboration on such a grand scale.

Take Mark Newman, chief research officer at Informa Telecoms & Media, and a keen industry observer.

?I believe that the operators behind the initiative are hoping to capture the mass market for mobile Internet services,? Mr. Newman said in a statement from London. ?Apple and RIM are already dominating the high end of the smartphone market but this only accounts for about one in five mobile users in Europe or North America.

?If operators can bring out euro100 devices with a good mobile internet experience they may be able to sell data plans to more low-end users,? he said.

?However, I do question whether such a large group of mobile operators will be able to achieve the level of cooperation and integration required to make this initiative a success.

?Some of these operators ? for example, AT&T and Sprint ? are fierce competitors and have always tried to find ways of differentiating themselves in order to win market share.

?There is also the issue of whether developers will lend their support to the initiative. They are more interested in developing apps for Apple and Android and have historically distrusted operators because of the unfavourable revenues share deals that have been on the table.

?A number of the developers that we have spoken to would rather operators keep out of the applications development community entirely.?

So there you go: some developers would rather carriers not dip their hand in this cookie jar. But the move is inevitable, if the carriers are not to be cut out from what is arguably the fastest-growing component of mobile: marketing, content and commerce.