Verizon "on the cusp" of opening VCast app store

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Verizon "on the cusp" of opening VCast app store

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 8 January, 2010

READ MORE: US | Verizon | App Store

AT&T definitely stole the CES thunder from Verizon Wireless, with its announcement of its multi-OS handset strategy and a range of new phone partners. It will also support a range of app stores, including Android Market and Ovi Store, alongside the iPhone App Store that has been its bread and butter at the high end for two years. However, it has not yet confirmed any plans for an own-branded store, in contrast to Verizon, which said yesterday that it was "on the cusp" of launching its revamped shopfront, promised in July.

According to Telephony, Verizon's director of business development, Todd Murphy, would not commit to a specific date to open the VCast Application Store, but said it would make its debut on the RIM BlackBerry, the heart of Verizon's smartphone strategy until its recent Android launches (and boasting its own store). The first models to run the VCast virtual shop will be the Storm 1 and 2, the Curve 1 and 2, and the Tour. Then the store will appear on Windows Mobile devices around the middle of the year, though no timeframe has been given for Android. This casts doubt on the assumption that Android would take the premium position in Verizon's own-brand web services and mass smartphone activities this year. Instead, it is avoiding too much dependence on the Google OS and staying close to its old allies RIM and WinMo, with LiMO likely to join the line-up later in 2010 too.

Although the store had originally been touted to open before the end of 2009, Murphy said the timing would depend on reaching the "inflection point" of sufficient quality apps to make a splash. He told the operator's developer event, held alongside the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, that the Verizon developer program currently numbers 3,500 members and "thousands of application concepts". Like other players, such as RIM itself, Verizon is boasting of "quality not quantity" in its shop, the only way to counter the competition from Apple's App Store, which now has a hard-to-match 100,000 apps.

Verizon Wireless was also looking forward to new applications for its future LTE network, which will start to roll out in its 700MHz spectrum this year. Like other 4G carriers, Verizon will aim to create new revenue streams to justify its investment, rather than just enhancing its existing offerings. One area of interest is the connected home, and the carrier teamed up with home control services firm 4Home at the CES show, to demonstrate an LTE-based system with functions from security and home monitoring to

media management and energy management.

With LTE, such systems can achieve coverage of the whole home, plus cameras outside the house, reaching areas not touched by existing wired broadband or even Wi-Fi connections. While Verizon partners with 4Home for its ControlPoint software, another specialist, Intamac Systems, has teamed up with consumer networking vendor D-Link to launch home monitoring and energy management/smart grid kits. They can be integrated with devices supporting the ZigBee or Z-Wave short range, low power wireless standards and use broadband lines.