Intense competition, excitement and intrigue? An audience of billions, entranced by the genius and performance of a few? An uplifting celebration of a global phenomenon, as teams from all continents and cultures compete for immense reward?

You might be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled upon a blog about the Football World Cup.

But no, I’m talking about the mobile industry at the start of the 21st century. A carnival of competition many times larger and ultimately more significant than even the planet’s biggest sporting event.

But let’s take a closer look at this analogy, and think about some of those involved…

No mobile industry would be possible without its infrastructure providers. And no World Cup would be complete without, well, let’s say, Germany. Solid in defense, all-round reliability, and strategic pervasiveness. Always a good long-term bet.

The handset manufacturers? Surely we find them in the Latin American teams: dominating the glamorous end of the sport, and the brands and household names that every fan knows. Always exhibiting impressive pace, with an ability to do amazing things in tight spaces, you would never bet against a Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, or Chile… as you wouldn’t against a Nokia, Samsung, LG or HTC. And Brazil, the epitome of skill and grace? Perhaps a certain company from Cupertino.

Network carriers are some certain European teams in the tournament. Laden with potential and high expectations, yet all too often stumbling on the pitch and squandering their advantages. We all know the Italys, the Portugals, and the Englands of our industry.

And finally, mobile developers. Full of talent, full of ideas, yet poorly managed, and with key players denied the respect they deserve. Ejected from worthy competition at the earliest stages? Well, that must be France!

But just wait a moment, you say. That doesn’t sound right. I can imagine a World Cup without France… but a mobile industry without developers? That can’t be.

And indeed, there is something seriously wrong with my analogy.

In the mobile industry, we can all be on the same side. We should all be trying to build a world-class ecosystem – an industry dream-team, if you like – not clinging to our tired parochial allegiances. Our mutual success comes most easily through harnessing the talents of the best of each type of player – and all working towards a common goal.

So let’s see. Maybe I’ll put infrastructure providers in goal, and network carriers in the defense. Both need to exhibit intelligence and flexibility, but must bring a reliability our dream team can’t live without. I’ll place handset manufacturers in the midfield: play-makers with sparks of brilliance, who are hoping the referees (that would be the standards bodies!) aren’t watching some of their tougher tackles.

And from this co-operative point of view – and in 2010′s mobile industry – let’s make mobile developers the team’s strikers.

Now that might seem like a controversial decision, and I’m sure that some of you that I’ve put in defense are wondering why I’ve denied you the chance to get your name on the score sheet.

But love it or loathe it, I believe this is the decade when mobile developers – by which I typically mean independent third party companies involved in client app and mobile web development – will finally get their chance to shine. And they deserve to, for the good of the industry as a whole. As we’ve discovered from the ascendancy of the web over the last 15 years, a well-motivated, well-informed ecosystem of devolved innovation and development can bring change and creativity beyond anyone’s expectations. Small companies who can think differently will create goal scoring chances that large incumbents never could have.

But no striker can win a match alone. And no developer would ever pretend to be able to thrill mobile users without the support of at least some part of the handset, carrier and infrastructure industries. Of course, it’s all about team work, but it’s also about ensuring the right skills are deployed on the right part of the pitch

For example, there is always a lot of industry interest and punditry when a network carrier decides it wants to evolve to become a consumer portal, games publisher or media brand, say. But history has shown us that such market adventures are rarely successful – and more importantly, they represent a distraction from the core business of defending the network and its quality. It’s attention-grabbing when a defender runs to the opposing team’s goal mouth, but they rarely score, and it leaves your team desperately exposed.

Conversely, a network carrier must assume responsibilities – however unglamorous – that free up mobile developers to go on and excel at what they do best. As a striker doesn’t want to spend his match rescuing balls from behind a sloppy defense, so a mobile developer does not want to have to invest time in, say, recreating commodity capabilities that could have been served far better by the carrier and exposed through standard APIs.

(Witness the evolution of geolocation over the last 3 years: a core service that network carriers were eminently placed to provide was treated lazily and protectively. “Life finds a way” – and of course other parties figured out how to bypass such obstructions without carrier involvement – but how much further would we now been had such data been more readily available in the first place?)

As it is for location, so it is for billing, mobility, presence, messaging and device management: just some of the many valuable capabilities that all network carriers excel at. Expose those capabilities! Let developers use them! Because if they don’t have to worry about reinvention, then that means they can spend more time on real invention. And that’s good for the overall health of the industry.

But I don’t mean this post to be an anti-carrier diatribe. All members of a football team have their responsibilities, and if I can stretch my analogy one last time, it’s to make a clarion call to developers themselves.

That message is this: in this new world of blistering network speeds, committed network carriers and exciting device capabilities, the pressure is now solely on you. As the strikers in the mobile industry dream-team, it’s your flair, innovation and passion that will make or break the future of this amazing medium. In 2010, you’re on the spot, and you have no more excuses.

Yes, of course, success is far from guaranteed. Some days you will play and under-perform, often you’ll get injured and sit out important games. You’ll overshoot, undershoot, hit the post, and hit the bar. You’ll be tackled from left and right, challenged at every turn, and after all that, probably substituted anyway. And the deal is that you can never say that your failure was due to the rest of the team.

But… you know that’s all part of the game. When it does go your way, you’ll be on top of the world. You’re the name on everyone’s lips, the hero to millions of fans and alone able to taste the elation of having made that single winning shot.

If you’re a mobile developer in 2010, join the game, get to work with your fellow players – from throughout the industry – and head on up the pitch. Forget ‘gold rush’ and think ‘goal rush’: the beautiful game of mobile awaits you.

James Pearce is the former CTO of dotMobi and Argogroup, and has evangelized, written and spoken about the mobile web and mobile development for over a decade. Find him online at http://tripleodeon.com/about