With Microsoft’s OneApp, feature phones with limited memory and processing capabilities can run popular smart-phone applications like Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, and Mobile Wallet. OneApp has a small, 150-kbyte footprint, and each of its apps is only about 30 kbytes. That means installation is fast and easy, and phones run quickly and efficiently.

OneApp dynamically launches only the parts of the mobile app that the user wants to use, eliminating additional installation time as well as the need to store all of the mobile apps on the phone. Its cloud services help offload processing and storage from the phone to the Internet, improving overall performance. According to Microsoft, it efficiently uses data networks to reduce data charges, saving money for the consumer.

“With a GPRS-enabled cell phone, consumers can now be part of the app experience, which is taking the world by storm,” said Mark Levy, joint CEO of Blue Label Telecoms of South Africa, the technology’s launch partner. “While this opens up a whole new world of opportunity for any and all users, advertisers, and developers, we’re particularly excited by the technology’s capacity to transform nearly any cell phone into a highly sophisticated, cost-effective, and user-friendly transactional device.”

The development of feature-phone applications can be difficult due to the wide variety of handsets. OneApp allows independent software vendors (ISVs) to develop an application once and have it reach a wider audience and work on all feature phones that have OneApp installed, rather than developing and maintaining an app for 50 or 100 different kinds of phones.

According to Microsoft, more than half of the people in the world own mobile phones. But many of those phones lack smart-phone functionality, making it difficult to access popular mobile applications, particularly in emerging markets. OneApp was designed to bring more applications and services to these markets.

Microsoft says that OneApp will complement its Windows Mobile strategy. OneApp was designed from the ground up and with emerging markets in mind, the company says, to help users gain more power from feature phones that have limited memory, processing, and other capabilities. For users, it appears as a single application through which they can access all the mobile apps they want.

Blue Label Telecoms’ “mibli” service in South Africa will be the first to offer OneApp. Microsoft is beginning to look at working with others in emerging markets worldwide to make OneApp available to more customers, with the overall goal of creating new growth opportunities for the industry and meaningful, relevant solutions for local communities. Developers also will be able to create apps for the local needs of an area.

For example, Blue Label Telecoms’ Mobile Wallet is a popular feature on phones in South Africa. Rather than carrying cash, which can be dangerous, customers can use their phones to access or transfer their money, or to make payments. The mibli service will ship with more than a dozen new mobile apps, with additional apps focusing on areas like healthcare available in the future.

OneApp will be offered through partners worldwide. Software developers can write new apps for OneApp using industry standards such as JavaScript and XML. The OneApp software developer kit is expected to be available for developers by the end of 2009. Microsoft says that OneApp is an example of the company’s commitment to Unlimited Potential, its effort to enable social and economic opportunity for everyone.