Apple dominate the mobile app market with its App Store seeing over two billion downloads in 2009 alone. With such popularity, it is not surprising to learn that the application market is worth well over a billion dollars, with this expected to rise by $6.2 billion by the end of the year. However, an alliance of phone operators have banded together to challenge Apple's monopoly and other companies dominating the market.

The coalition known as the Wholesale Applications Community, as it is known, aims to make it easier for developers to build and sell apps "irrespective of device or technology".

With Apple essentially controlling the application market, it would seem the likes of Vodafone and Sprint are desperate to claw back some control.

Other app stores owned by the likes of Blackberry, Google, Nokia, Symbian and Microsoft have all had limited success, but Apple is still the behemoth dominating the app landscape and as such, the smaller operators have felt that an alliance is the best way to survive.

However, these sort of consortiums rarely last long as companies attempt to serve their own self-interests instead of the groups. But the Wholesale Applications Community aims to change this...

They propose an "open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users" as opposed to developers creating different versions of apps and going through separate approval processes for each individual store... oh, and giving them the ability to get back into the market and destroying Apple's monopoly.

So, a brilliant strategy to level the playing field and make it easier for customers to get apps, or a desperate ploy to loosen Apple's stranglehold on the market?