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In recent weeks we have seen several important announcements regarding the launch of mobile applications in Latin America:

• Telefonica introduced its platform for business applications, Aplicateca, and will market applications and digital content for mobile phones. It will initially launch in Spain but is intended for all its customers worldwide.
• America Movil recently announced that it will introduces Ovi Store by Nokia in Latin America. America Movil customers will be able to download and purchase apps, videos, ringtones or games from Ovi Store.
• TIM Brasil, in partnership with Qualcomm, announced the launch of a multi-platform mobile applications.

The question that remains is how this will play out. Setting aside differences in consumer habits and subscriber usage, what we see are mobile operators leading this initiative, an approach that may very well be setting them up for failure.

When Apple launched the iPhone in the United States, it not only introduced a groundbreaking device, it also redefined the relationship between operators and handset vendors. This device and its killer app, the Apple app sotre, changed the rules of the game (All I Really Need To Know About Mobile Applications I Learned from Apple). Mobile operators were no longer a bottleneck for new services.

In contrast to what happened in the United States, in Latin America this initiative is coming from mobile operators and their approach seems to be the same as for any other VAS they have introduced in the past.

Operators in Latin America have highly capable VAS teams, and some like America Movil, Movistar and Millicom are succesfully managing VAS teams across the entire region. Their approach works well for traditional services where network infrastructure and biling play integration are critical, but it might not be the best approach for mobile applications.

Last year's iPhone battle (Telefonica confirms it will distribute the iPhone: the battle in Latin America heats up) led to a half baked launch of the iPhone by Movistar. In their rush to meet America Movil's launch date, they left out services like visual voice mail (Movistar rushes to release the iPhone, leaves out services). This tells us that the data, messaging and content services are on the lower end of their priorities; the iPhone received the same treatment as any other device and Movistar so far has missed the opportunity to leverage the iPhone's capabilities to redefine their services strategy.

The success of the iPhone in the rest of the world shows that taking away some of the power from operators is a good thing. So far this is something that is still missing in Latin America.