Ericsson, a day in advance of its Capital Market Day event in New York City, has launched an IP Multimedia Subsystem ecosystem as part of its Ericsson Mobility World developers program. The initiative is aimed to accelerate the creation of innovative new applications and services based on the IMS standard, while driving user demand for IMS enabled networks and creating further revenue opportunities for operators, a company statement said.

The company added that it already is driving the standardization of Java Specification Request 281, which calls for an IMS applications programming interface. Application developers will be able to take advantage of Ericsson's IMS based solutions, as well as the he Ericsson Service Development Studio (SDS), the development and end-to-end testing tool provided by Ericsson, which is based on Eclipse Technology.

Kurt Sillén, vice president of Ericsson Mobility World, said in the statement, "The eco-system for IMS applications will give operators access to a portfolio of IMS based applications and gives application developers a chance to work closely with Ericsson and gain exposure to Ericsson customers worldwide." The vendor has 19 IMS contracts and 40 IMS-related trial worldwide.

End-to-end support is fundamental in new IMS application development and Ericsson together with Sony Ericsson and Ericsson Mobile Platforms will ensure the availability of IMS clients and terminals in the market. As a part of Ericsson's IP multimedia solution, Ericsson also supports the BEA WebLogic SIP-server (WLSS) as an open JAVA-based programmable 3GPP-compliant SIP Server environment for 3rd party application providers to develop and provide IMS applications to the operator community.