During this year’s edition of the GSMA Mobile World Congress trade show held in Barcelona, the big players in the smartphone market looked like they were struggling as much as they could to increase their revenues.

Companies such as RIM, Google, Nokia, Windows and Palm have each come up with new products, in a competition that Apple had fueled through the release of the iPhone. Since Apple’s first launched the iPhone, it seemed that every manufacturer tried to roll out smartphone models that were given the task to kill the iPhone’s huge popularity. However, to this date, it looks like only Palm Pre will actually have the chance to steal some of Apple share in the mobile device market.

However, there is one good news for all phone users, as it seems that a lot of companies agreed that they all should use a standardized charger for all their mobile phones. After long discussions, manufacturers and carriers, including AT&T, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony, Ericsson, T-Mobile and Vodafone promised that they would use a single type of charger by 2012. As it had been previously pointed out, the charger will have a USB-type jack.

Looking at the new generation of smartphone models, some analysts stated numerous times that a phone’s success is largely given by its platform’s popularity among software developers. It looks like Microsoft, Nokia and Google finally understood this, as all the three companies announced that they would launch online application databases, in the similar manner of Apple’s App Store.

However, Apple won’t wait for its competitors to get anywhere near it, as the Cupertino-based company is already working at the third generation of the iPhone, which will be released this summer. Moreover, Apple has revised its policy over releasing applications on the App Store, encouraging more developers to release software for the iPhone and the iPod Touch.