A merger plan has recently be unveiled by two telecom operator backed mobile software groups in order to increase the competition from rivals Google and also Apple for applications.

The recent article over at reuters.com by Tarmo Virki gives further information on the merger. Uniting the two consortia of smaller although more established JIL and wider application alliance WAC will allow independent software developers the ability to reach a huge share of members 3 billion clients with only one version of software.

For most development houses the cost would be too great, in order to create dozens of different versions of software to reach each of the stores individually. The Apple App Store was launched back in June 2008 and has created a popular market for mobile applications including small programmes which according to research firm Chetan Sharma was worth $4.1 billion last year.

WAC which if you didn’t know has AT&T, China Mobile, Telefonica and also Vodafone as founding members expects or intends to aim for the first stores using WAC software to open before February 2011. Daniel Gurrola Vice president for strategy from France Telecom’s mobile Orange arm said that WAC by share scale will have dominance in the market.