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Vodafone claims it has received "very strong response" from developers, having opened up its 360 software platform and store last week. Although 360 has reportedly been beset by internal wrangling since it made its debut last fall, it is highly strategic to Vodafone, in creating a carrier branded mass market user experience, geared to social networking and multimedia.

The midrange consumer space is more accustomed than the high end to operator branded offerings, so is ripe to accept a carrier driven user experience, as the open OS smartphone shifts into the mass market. With 360, Vodafone hopes to sew up this growth segment before Android, Series 60 and the rest get too much of a look-in.

If it gets some critical mass in that user base, 360 will be well positioned to deliver its second strategic benefit - carrier control over the software platform. While 360 will run on any major OS, its most important underlying technologies will be those Vodafone favors - LiMO, the OS for the first 360 smartphones; and the developer tools from the Wholesale Application Community, an initiative supported by over a score of cellcos. Key to WAC is JIL (Joint Innovation Labs), an apps framework initially created by Vodafone, Verizon, China Mobile and Softbank, and now incorporated into the wider platform.

As part of its JIL involvement, Vodafone agreed to open its network APIs to the broad developer community last year, allowing them to build programs that leverage carrier advantages such as the location and presence capabilities of their 3G nets. If developers respond to the call, they will find that 360 is their main point of contact and branding at Vodafone, in effect being a front end for the whole WAC/JIL activity.

The first step came in Europe last week, when Vodafone announced that programmers can now publish apps to the Vodafone 360 Shop through the JIL.org web site. They can choose to select from one, some or all of the selected European markets for each app they publish. To make the store appealing against the Android, Symbian, Apple and Windows markets, it is promising its huge international user base, plus flexibility on pricing, rapid app approval, integration with carrier billing as well as credit card options, and simple porting across multiple devices and operating systems. Weakness in any or all of these four areas is a common criticism of the main vendor driven stores.

On pricing, developers can select from 20 options from €0.49 to €9.99 and set separate prices for each Vodafone market. A standard 70:30 revenue share is offered, similar to most other stores, and developers are paid monthly. Their apps will be reviewed within 10 business days and accepted products will then be available at once, Vodafone promises. Reports available on JIL.org will let developers see how many downloads each app has had on a daily or monthly basis, and they can also manage their accounts and remittances online. So far, 360 apps are supported by 50 different handset models, including the Vodafone 360 H1 and M1 LiMO phones from Samsung, and many Symbian/S60 phones from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung. Developers can choose to select from one, some or all device classes for each app they publish. "Because apps published through JIL.org are based on HTML, CSS and JavaScript, developers will be able to design apps that scale across a range of phone models," said the carrier.

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