Microsoft, NTT DoCoMo, Motorola, Nokia and Vodafone are among nearly 200 tech firms that have agreed to work together to develop universal standards for mobile devices.

Handheld computers and mobile phones should all speak the same language, the firms that have signed on to the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) have agreed.

"The industry has identified the need for extensive cooperation to foster the worldwide growth of the mobile-services market by promoting open standards," said Alan Cox, chief of international technologies at Vodafone.

Standardisation, the alliance hopes, should speed up the introduction and take-up of multimedia on the move.

Failed to excite

But with Palm Computing - which sells about half of all handheld computers - missing from the alliance, its success hangs in the balance.

The alliance aims to replace the WAP Forum's "wireless application protocol" which has failed to excite mobile internet users.

"For some of us that have been involved in mobile standards in the past few years, we haven't done a very good job," said Motorola executive and Wap Forum chairman, Jerry Upton.

The alliance aims to develop an open standard for the software code used to create different wireless platforms.

It wants to ensure that different mobile technologies are compatible with each other - regardless of what software they use - by defining minimum specifications.

'So many forums'

"We see the formation of the Open Mobile Alliance as a great step forward... to bridge the gap between the internet and the wireless world," said Steen Thygesen of Microsoft.

Minimum standards should prevent the alliance from falling into the traps of the past where different developers have competed to have their operating system chosen ahead of any other.

"There have been so many forums - about 50 of them - having some involvement in our business on applications," said Vodafone's Mr Cox.

"We are very keen that these different groups need to be working together, not fighting each other."