Vodafone are expected to announce Vodafone 360 on Thursday this week.
I'm watching this announcement with great interest - as Vodafone has been quiet in the rush of operators to launch "App Stores" - yet with Vodafone's size and scale they have the potential to influence large numbers of consumers globally.
Vodafone have been undergoing a bit of an internal refocus recently - significantly their CEO Vittorio Colao moved from massive Vodafone site at Newbury to Paddington while an office move for the CEO of a multi national isn't all that significant, the message to Vodafone staff that the focus is moving to the team in Paddington, significantly the Vodafone Internet Services head Pieter Knook who is at the forefront of driving Vodafone's push to generate new revenue from internet services.
Vittorio presented the following slide at a recent investor's conference
Which sets out the two sides of an operator - both an efficient raw data pipe to customers, and also a "smart pipe" which enables new distinctive Vodafone assets to new customers for Vodafone.
This in turn creates new Service opportunities - which benefit both Vodafone, and Vodafone's customers.
I'll be watching closely what Vodafone reveal on Thursday - what I'm expecting is
- A new Vodafone 360 branded handset jointly produced with Samsung
- Social media integration, powered by Zyb
- An Application Store that supports JIL and also LiMo Foundation platform binaries
What I'm most interested in is how Vodafone combine the reach they have with customers, with the services the offer to third parties - with their marketing skill and reach they have a huge opportunity to bring mobile applications and services to far greater numbers of consumers - which open more opportunities for developers.
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