Today, Telecom Italia presented a world preview of the evolution of the TIM Store, now enriched by new content and functions thanks to Application Manager, at the opening of the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. This service allows customers to simply and intuitively access and use the applications on their mobile phone, smartphone, tablet, netbook or PC, and opens up the applications space to a much wider potential user base.
Rolled out on the TIM Store this coming April, the Application Manager represents a revolutionary update of the traditional Application Store concept, thanks to a few major new features:
- a personalized “showcase” that allows customers to quickly access all of their applications from their devices, based on their interests and taste, making it unnecessary to browse or search for applications among the many thousands available;
- “live” interaction, even from 2G terminals, including notifications for every update right on the terminal display (such as the app sending out new messages from social networks);
- an advanced backup function that makes it possible to port applications to a new phone.
Created in partnership with Telefonica Group, the App Manager fully integrates the TIM Store with Movistar and O2’s European applications stores to establish a new pan-European “Common Application Marketplace” that leverages business synergies between the two groups. Not only does this result in a broader range of offerings for Italian consumers, it opens up opportunities for the Italian developer community to distribute applications throughout a European market of some 70 million customers who own a mobile phone compatible with the service.
The App Manager, available on TIM Store, is compatible with all major systems: Symbian S60, Symbian 3, Android, Windows Mobile, and Java. It also complies with the strategy outlined by the Wholesale Application Community (WAC), an alliance of Europe’s main telephone carriers set up to create an open, global applications market platform.
The new service is built on Ericsson’s Mobile Service Delivery Platform (MSDP) for the store, and incorporates recommendation technology licensed by Xiam Technologies Ltd., a Qualcomm company, to offer TIM customers personalized content and services dynamically tailored to their individual interests.
The end-goal of the initiative is to boost the market for applications designed specifically to meet the needs of Italian consumers, while at the same time offering the developer community new opportunities to exploit the potential of their applications via an original, open, technology-agnostic model. Telecom Italia will be supplying developers with an SDK kit that makes it easier to build applications, and requires less specialist knowledge, time and resources. The App Manager guarantees that applications work on all compliant terminals, rather than the current system which forces developers to build many versions of their applications. This simplification process is designed to boost demand among Italian enterprises, including SMEs, which will now be able to exploit the growth opportunities that applications represent for their businesses.
Marco Patuano, Head of Telecom Italia’s Domestic Market Operations, says: “The new telecommunications market is evolving to bring customers personalized internet services. The App Manager marks a true revolution in how people use applications. Fully integrated into the TIM Store, it has been created to cater to customer needs regardless of what device they use. The App Manager is a landmark part of Telecom Italia’s desire to offer access to information and make the use of services increasingly straightforward, immediate and universally available.”
Barcelona, 14 February 2011
