LG, Research In Motion, Samsung and Sharp have become the first major handset vendors to back the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) initiative, the mobile software alliance comprising Vodafone, China Mobile, Japan’s SoftBank and Verizon Wireless. JIL said in a statement yesterday that the four vendors are to roll-out a wide range of handsets that will support JIL’s widget specification beginning early next year (1Q10). The handsets will enable developers to create applications that can be rolled out to customers across the JIL operators’ global footprint, which has a combined user base of more than 1 billion across Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. While JIL-compliant handsets have launched in some European countries and China, this is the first time that major handset manufacturers have committed to global adoption of the JIL widget standard across devices, the alliance said. 

The JIL project is seen as an attempt by the mobile operator community to develop their own software for mobile devices as an alternative to mobile software from the likes of Apple, Google and Nokia. It aims to create a single global platform for developers to encourage the creation of a wide range of mobile widgets on a variety of smartphones as well as mid- and low-cost handsets across several operating systems and distributed through the JIL operators’ applications stores. In an exclusive interview conducted last week, China Mobile’s chairman and CEO, Wang Jianzhou, hinted that further, select, mobile operators are poised to join the alliance. “Many other operators want to participate in the activities of JIL and the four CEO’s of our companies [Vodafone, China Mobile, SoftBank and Verizon Wireless] will have a meeting in Shanghai in one week… to discuss the issues of JIL,” he said. “We have a very good structure now and we will push the growth of JIL. We would like to accept other operators for participation.”