Telecom Italia is joining the applications market with its TIM Store, a marketplace that offers intuitive and straightforward access to content and favourite services.
The TIM Store supplies applications and services to customers for download free of charge or for payment that work on more than 800 models of cellphone. The TIM Store differs from other stores on the market because it is an “open” platform tailored to the customer rather than the technology on customers’ phones. The Store has been conceived to boost the Italian market for applications designed specifically to meet the needs of Italian consumers, and to foster the international growth of Italian-made digital products and services.
The TIM Store appeals not just to the owners of the latest smartphones; it also caters to people who still use 2G phones, to allow a much wider group of people to join the world of applications. The TIM Store offers the most comprehensive catalogue of applications on the market because it is compatible with all major operating systems, from Java to Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile and Blackberry. Meego and other operating system “apps” will soon be added to the TIM Store’s inventory. A thousand or so applications are already available at http://www.timstore.tim.it/. Apps are divided into the following categories: Social Network, Maps, Games, Info, Useful services, Sport and Health. Customers can purchase applications by using their mobile phone credit rather than a credit card.
Another groundbreaking feature of the TIM Store is that in partnership with the Telefonica Group, the TIM Store will be integrated with Movistar and O2’s application stores to establish a new pan-European “Common Application Marketplace”. Not only will this provide a broader range of offerings for Italian consumers, it will open up opportunities for the Italian developer community to develop applications for a European market of some 70 million customers with a mobile phone enabled to use the service.
Marco Patuano, Telecom Italia’s Manager of Domestic Market Operations, said: “We want the TIM Store to become a catalyst of new value-added, customer-centric services. This venture opens up new opportunities for the developer community to exploit the potential of applications through an original, open, cross-platform model rather than a technology-based one.”
Rome, 2 November 2010
