Vodafone 360 opens up to apps developers

LONDON, UK:Vodafone, on Tuesday announced the next phase of its engagement with the international developer community following the launch of its €1m ‘Vodafone App Star’ prize fund to reward developers of the best app in Europe.

Registration is now open to the Vodafone 360 Developer Conference, to be held at Mobile World Congress on Monday 15th February 2010. All developers who register now will also receive a free 4-day pass to Mobile World Congress, said a press release.

Mobile and web developers can audition their app at the show, where the winners will be rewarded with prizes including €1000, a Vodafone 360 Samsung H1 and other exciting smartphones. They would also automatically be entered into the Vodafone App Star competition with a further chance to win up to €100,000.

The Vodafone 360 Developer Conference would host interactive discussions on developer topics with a range of industry experts, and provide useful tips on how to create and publish apps across Vodafone 360 devices. To highlight the cross-platform reach of its apps developer platform,  the company would also be the headline sponsor of the “App Planet” developer zone at Mobile World Congress.

In just three months since the launch of Vodafone 360, over 7,000 apps have been made available for download from the Vodafone 360 Apps Shop across eight European markets. By March 2010 Vodafone expects to have shipped more than two million devices incorporating 50 different handsets that are capable of accessing the Vodafone 360 Apps Shop. This will provide the developer community with greater access to more customers, the release said.

“The sheer volume of applications that have been submitted and approved to ship in our Vodafone 360 Apps Shop is testament to our continued commitment to open web standards,” said Lee Epting, director of Content Services at Vodafone Group.

“Whether it’s helping to reduce development time or increasing the breadth of handsets on our platform, we are trying to make it as easy and as lucrative as possible for developers to work with us and deliver the most relevant, local applications for customers across our markets,” he added.