Facebook and MediaTek in webphone alliance
Social network giant follows Yahoo in supporting chipmaker's platform for bringing web apps to featurephones
Published: 8 November, 2011
READ MORE: Facebook | MediaTek | Applications | Semiconductor | Handset
Sub-$50 featurephones with embedded Facebook will soon come to market courtesy of a collaboration between the social network and Taiwanese mobile chipmaker MediaTek.
The latest deal is an extension of Facebook's expanding initiative to make its services usable and affordable for 'the next billion', as seen in various moves this year - the acquisition of featurephone app company Snaptu, and the launch of an application which does not require a data plan.
MediaTek, which is a top three cellphone baseband supplier thanks to its huge presence among low cost Chinese handset makers, is trying to move into higher value markets, and has several important software partnerships. These are all geared to creating reference platforms, in which web services are combined with, and optimized for, low cost chipsets. These can then be used by low cost featurephone makers to create models which appeal to web users, at low cost and time to market.
The Facebook deal will allow phonemakers to use MediaTek's chips to integrate social functions into handsets which cost less than $50 before subsidies. The combined numbers commanded by these two new allies are impressive - 350m users access Facebook via a mobile device, while MediaTek's chips powered 500m handsets in 2010.
Among MediaTek's existing strategic partners for mobile services are Yahoo and Microsoft. It embeds mobile internet services using its MAUI runtime environment (MRE), a middleware technology designed to help developers deploy services and content on what MediaTek calls 'smart featurephones'. Yahoo was the first web apps partner for MAUI, embedding Yahoo Mail, Messenger, Flickr, News, Weather, Finance, Cricket and Answers. The platform targets featurephones, Java and Android.
The new initiative will expand existing deals Facebook has with low cost cellphone suppliers, such as Micromax of India and Cherry Mobile of The Philippines, which could be potential customers for the readymade 'Facebook phone' platform from MediaTek (Cherry, along with Spice Group and Nexian, are already partners for MRE). That, in turn, expands on a concept first introduced by Hutchison's INQ unit - an affordable smartphone with its key application embedded, and with the user experience designed around making that app perform optimally and simply.
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