It is a nonprofit Non-governmental organization (NGO), not a formal government-sponsored standards organization as is the International Telecommunication Union (ITU): a forum for industry stakeholders to agree on common specifications for products and services.

Each of these forums had its bylaws, its decision-taking procedures, its release schedules, and in some instances there was some overlap in the specifications, causing duplication of work.

Members include traditional wireless industry players such as equipment and mobile systems manufacturers (Ericsson, ZTE, Nokia, Qualcomm, Rohde & Schwarz) and mobile operators (AT&T, NTT Docomo, Orange, T-Mobile, Verizon), and also software vendors (Gemalto, Mavenir and others).

[2] Related standards bodies include: 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Adherence to the standards is entirely voluntary; the OMA does not have a mandative role.. OMA members that own intellectual property rights (e.g. patents) on technologies that are essential to realizing a specification agree in advance to provide licenses to their technology on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing" terms to other members.