Developers have been hungry for opportunities in the mobile phone market, but those opportunities have been scarce because of the way the carriers do business. Now, Apple’s iPhone and Google may be set to break the mold and create those long sought opportunities, according to Olga Kharif at BusinessWeek on Monday.

The software business that has flourished on the PC and Mac side hasn’t developed in the mobile phone business for several reasons. Customers have been more focused on call quality that software features. Also, the splintering of operating systems amongst Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm and RIM’s Blackberry have made it tedious to deploy for each different platform.

"The ecosystem is not healthy," said Daren Tsui, CEO of mSpot, a software firm that has sought to get its music software on mobile phones. Despite some success, Mr. Tsui noted that, "You’ve got the developing community basically starving."

Apple’s decision to deploy an iPhone SDK for developers in February 2008 should change all that. Google is following the same approach.

The moves by Apple and Google come at at time when customers are starting to look beyond mere call quality. J.D. Power found recently that dropped calls or quality problems are down about a third from a year earlier. The result will likely be that customers, driven by the awareness of the promise of software on their phones, will generate a new, prosperous industry for developers.

In the next year or so, "customers will make their choice by software, not service," said Michael Mahoney, managing director at Falcon Point Capital. "Those [companies] that attract software developers will end up being the winners in the long run. The future growth and the premium pricing will go to the product [with better software]."

What looked like a very closed industry before the Apple and Google entries into the market is suddenly poised to open up quite a bit and make that dream come true for developers.