Telefonica and eBay have launched a global deal that’ll see eBay's mobile application loaded onto most mobile devices sold via O2 UK.

It's the first mobile pre-load deal agreed by eBay anywhere in the world and is also the first time Telefónica has made an app available to smartphone and feature phone customers.

The Wholesale Applications Community, which was created at last year’s Mobile World Congress, has announced the commercial launch of the organisation. There are now WAC-powered app stores as well as WAC-compliant handsets and web applications.

A number of major mobile operators and handset manufacturers are already working with the WAC platform.

The winners of the 16th Annual Global Mobile Awards were announced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress last night.

Apple’s iPhone 4 was awarded Best Mobile Device, HTC collected the Best Device Manufacturer Award and Angry Birds picked up the Best Mobile App Award.

GetJar, which describes itself as the world’s largest open app store, has raised $25 million in its latest round of funding.

The company plans to expand its offering to Android publishers while continuing to support other smartphone platforms. In the past year, GetJar has established partnerships with key players including Yahoo!, Sprint, AT&T, Openwave, Rovio, Zynga and Glu Mobile. It's also quadrupled the number of downloads per month and tripled its number of employees.

Daniel Joseph Barry of Napatech writes:

Avoiding the dreaded Scissor Effect has become the number 1 priority for mobile carriers. The scissor effect refers to the phenomenon of rising infrastructure costs and flat revenues; an unsustainable situation for any business. The scissor effect has already been witnessed in fixed line networks and now mobile carriers face the same challenge in relation to mobile data services. Is it possible for mobile carriers to grow revenue per user in line with bandwidth usage?