As we enter a new decade, web-apps are shaping up to challenge traditional system dependent applications. Google is possibly at the forefront of this change with its highly anticipated Chrome OS. However, several other players are keen to leverage the benefits offered by web apps. Back in October, Opera joined the Wholesale Applications Community, while Mozilla announced its new Open Web App platform. Now, Opera has released a preview build of its Widget runtime for Android, which is based on the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) 1.0 specification.
WAC is an alliance of the world’s leading mobile operators and OEMs, such as Vodafone, Verizon, AT&T, Samsung, Huawei and others. Its fundamental aim is to promote the use of web technologies to enable developers to write an application which can execute on a web runtime upon multiple mobile device platforms. The benefit of using WAC specification is that the same widget will be able to run on multiple phones, irrespective of the underlying operating system. This makes things easier for both developers and publishers.
The Widgets runtime released by Opera allows you to download and run existing widgets from widgets.opera.com. Opera’s widgets are platform independent, and already work on all popular desktop platforms including Windows, UNIX and Mac. With WAC Runtime, they will now run even on your mobile phones.
WAC 1.0 devices and storefronts are scheduled to launch at the Mobile World Congress 2011.
