Nokia, Orange and Deutsche Telekom partner for apps store

WorldWide Tech & SCience. Francisco De Jesús.



Nokia announced its “Ovi Store operator app store concept” in partnership with Orange France and Deutsche Telekom, which it said provides operators with “a familiar branded channel on Ovi Store, and global opportunities to differentiate and build revenues with their own content collections and consumer-convenient operator billing.”


 Intended to deliver operators worldwide “new ways to differentiate and compete,” the programme enables these partners to create their own apps and services with tools such as connectors, Ovi App Wizard, and a set of APIs – including cloud social and location interfaces.


 Operators can also use marketing, promotional and content spotlight opportunities inside Ovi Store to promote specific apps and content, along with easy one-click access to the operator app store from the Ovi Store's mobile home page.


In a statement, Nokia said that “with daily downloads topping 5 million per day, Ovi Store is a rapidly growing destination for apps, games and other content.” It also offers operator billing support with 112 operators in 37 markets. 


The company’s plans for Ovi Store moving forward are not totally clear, as the company said that it intends launching a Nokia branded global application store that leverages the Windows Market place infraestructure as part of its wide-ranging partnership with Microsoft.


Rainer Deutschmann, SVP of Mobile Products for Deutsche Telekom, noted: "customers are increasingly overwhelmed by the rapidly growing number of apps. Deutsche Telekom's shelf within Nokia's Ovi store represents an integral part in our approach to give customers easy access to relevant own and partner apps – including freemium and exclusive offers."

Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom Orange to Joint Venture.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom are to form a procurement joint venture that aims to eventually cut the cost of buying handsets and network equipment by EUR1.3 billion a year. The two European giants announced today that they have signed a non-binding agreement to create a 50/50 partnership to “combine their procurement activities of customer equipment, network equipment, service platforms and IT-Infrastructure.”

The alliance is further evidence of close cooperation between the two formerly fierce rivals, following the merger of their UK mobile networks last year. Deutsche Telekom owns the T-Mobile mobile brand, while France Telecom is the company behind Orange. The two firms said that the run-rate after three years of implementation in potential global savings is estimated at “above EUR400 million” for Deutsche Telekom and “below EUR900 million” for France Telecom. Savings from alignment in network equipment in the first three years of the JV will be balanced out.

The “jointly-owned and operated entity” will have operational units in Bonn (Germany) and Paris (France). The two units will be staffed by employees from the respective procurement departments of both companies that already deal with purchasing customer equipment, network technology, service platforms, IT-Infrastructure and procurement engineering.

The final agreement is expected to be signed in the coming weeks, but remains subject to the necessary board approvals and antitrust clearance. The agreement builds on an earlier announcement that the two firms will explore potential areas of cooperation in “radio access network sharing in Europe, Wi-Fi roaming, equipment harmonisation, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) services and a set of new growth business development areas.”