Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Vodafone says it will concentrate on three core terminal platforms: Windows Mobil, Symbian/S60 and Linux to cut costs, and has announced a software development agreement with Microsoft for Windows Mobile.
Under the agreement Vodafone and Microsoft will co-operate to ensure that Vodafone applications and services are tightly integrated with Windows Mobile. Vodafone says this will result in improved mobile phone functionality and an enhanced mobile experience for customers. Because the agreement embraces the wider Microsoft developer community, Vodafone says it "anticipates an increase in the breadth of applications and content created for mobile phones."
The partnership will also enable Vodafone to access Microsoft's considerable expertise to help speed up convergence between mobile devices and computers, and is expected to reduce time to market for new products and encourage customers to new services. According to Vodafone.
The first device to use the software produced under the agreement is planned to be with Samsung and is expected to launch in the first half of 2007. "Samsung has been proactively cooperating with Vodafone and Microsoft to enrich customers' mobile experience," said Chulhwan Lee, senior vice president of Samsung's Mobile R&D Team. "Through this cooperation, we hope to provide customers with strong PC connectivity and rich multimedia features that are easy to use, and cost-competitive."
Vodafone says the deal forms part of a wider strategy to cut costs by focussing on a limited number of platforms. "Over the next five years, Vodafone expects to focus on supporting three standard terminal platforms across its portfolio of mobile phones: Microsoft Windows Mobile, Symbian/S60 and Linux. By focusing on these three core terminal platforms, Vodafone expects to be able to reap the benefits of a range of efficiencies such as reduced handset development costs, as well as the quicker and more cost effective roll out of new services," said Jens Schulte-Bockum, Vodafone's Global Director of Terminals.
"This initiative aims to ensure that we do not have to create a different set of software to provide services on a wide range of platforms, so that our customers benefit from enhanced yet simple-to-use services and lower costs."
David Bass
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