ReadWriteMobile

HTML5 Web apps are going to become a definitive section of the mobile ecosystem in 2012. The difference between the mobile Web and its native counterparts is that there is no one company seen as the de facto leader of the movement. Apple leads iOS, Google touts Android, Microsoft and Nokia push Windows Phone. The mobile Web? Lots of players, no clear leader.

One company is in the perfect position to take the reigns. What do you think about when you hear terms like "open," "cross-platform," and "standards?" Certainly not Apple. Facebook has the chops to lead the mobile Web but is closed system flies against the open Web community. When it comes to developers, resources, leadership and coding acumen, one company stands ahead of the mobile Web pack. If Mozilla wants it, the mobile Web is there for the taking.

Microsoft confirmed to ReadWriteWeb this morning that the formal competition law complaint it filed this morning with the European Commission is against both Motorola Mobility (MMI) and Google, its would-be parent company. The office of the EC's Competition office confirmed to ReadWriteWeb this morning it has received Microsoft's complaint and will review it in due course, but will not yet release a copy to the public due to court rules.

Today's move marks perhaps the final step in Microsoft's spectacular transformation from the de facto force of evil in all matters of intellectual property, to the champion of the oppressed and the standard bearer of the people. Wearing the black hat now is Google, which just two years ago considered a bold solution to the video patents problem: open sourcing the technology and dare others to sue.

I updated my Blackberry Playbook yesterday to the new OS, and I was struck with a confluence of ironies when it comes to the current crop of tablet computers: We have a company that made its name in messaging (RIM) that took a year to deliver a substandard email app to its tablet. We have a company that made its name in graphical interfaces (Apple) that doesn't support many graphical websites on its tablet. And we have a company that made its name in online ecommerce (Amazon) that delivers a substandard Web browsing experience on its tablet.

Wouldn't it be nice to have the best of all three rolled up into one? Yes it would. But we aren't going to see that anytime soon. I am not alone: our story yesterday about common tablet gripes can be found here.

The groundwork for a robust mobile Web app ecosystem was laid in 2011. The HTML5 spec evolved and major players began taking note that, hey, there might be some potential with the mobile Web ... if only it could be monetized. Mobile developers are certainly testing out HTML5 apps and where the developers go, the tools providers will follow.

For mobile developers, there are more tools to choose from than what IDE and framework to write code in. Developers also need to make money. In recent weeks we have seen several companies come out with payment models for HTML5 mobile Web apps looking to get an early slice of the pie that forecasters expect to grow exponentially in the next few years.

Better late than never, right? Research In Motion has released the next iteration of its BlackBerry PlayBook OS that (finally) brings some core functions to the tablet that were missing when the slate was released in April 2010. That includes a dedicated email client with a unified inbox, calendar and contact apps, improved document editing and an updated BlackBerry Bridge. It will also run select Android apps.

The question for RIM is whether or not these updates will actually give consumers and enterprises incentive to buy the tablet. Most people's minds were made up on the PlayBook last year and it is doubtful that a software update, no matter how badly it was needed, will entice new users. It has been 10 months since the original release and the reviews at launch were that the PlayBook was half-baked. Fully baked now, will consumers care?

The "backend-as-a-service" segment of the mobile development community is evolving. Several startups got into the game early and helped define the market, such as StackMob, Parse and Kinvey. Others have followed suit and attempt to give developers similar options while integrating other value added services. Israel-based Applicasa is one of those.

Applicasa released a program this week it calls "Start-App." The program is designed to give developers all the cloud functionality and content management system services for free until an app has 100,000 downloads. Applicasa claims to be the "one stop shop" for all mobile developer needs.

The mating dance of the contemporary mobile carrier in the United States is a fickle and awkward ritual. The carrier has certain ... needs ... that must be met and finding a suitable partner becomes challenging. One only needs to look towards Sprint, the mawkish third child in the U.S. operator ecosystem and its recent history of suitors. Twice Sprint has found itself engaged and headed to the altar, only twice to be burned.

For years, Sprint has been looking to expand its spectrum footprint in the U.S. Bandwidth scarcity has never really been a problem for Sprint because it has a smaller user base than AT&T and Verizon. But, if Sprint plans on growing to join Ma Bell and Big Red in the top tier, it will face the same challenges. To expand its footprint, Sprint has tied itself to one troubled company in Clearwire and then to another with LightSquared. Truly, Sprint is cursed when picking dance partners.

It pays to be mobile, if you want to reach the last-minute planners. According to Google 62% of restaurant related searches on Valentine's Day were from "high end mobile devices or tablets."

Something to think about for restaurants or other businesses that don't have mobile-friendly sites.

There should be a new bounty of dessert coming to Android lovers later this year. Android 5.0 "Jelly Bean" is rumored to be announced in the second quarter of 2012 and provide a better operating system for Android tablets. The report comes from Digitimes, a Taiwanese tech site that specializes on reporting rumors for the supply chain of the world's upcoming gadgets. Like any publication that specializes in rumors, Digitimes is wrong more often than it is right, but the timeline for Android 5.0 lines up with what Google has released in the past.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was officially announced in Q2 2011 at Google's I/O developer conference. Google I/O is scheduled this year for June 27-29 in San Francisco, right at the end of Q2. It is unlikely that Google will start shipping Jelly Bean at the same time, more likely waiting until the beginning of Q4 before the first flagship devices are announced.

If you think the smartphone you own today makes you more worldly, more cosmopolitan, then take a good look at this five-color geopolitical world map as perceived by BrowserRank.com. Using data compiled from StatCounter's latest projections of mobile operating system usage country-by-country (the firm detects browser usage, and then backtracks from there to decipher mobile OS), BrowserRank paints most of the world cyan. Cyan, it turns out, is for Symbian.