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WirelessDevNet.com Press Release
Orange’s Partner Programme and Argogroup Launch Mobile Developer Testing Tools
Surrey, UK, 25 October 2004 – Orange and Argogroup, the leader in User Experience Optimisation for mobile data services, have launched the world’s first real-time online testing programme for mobile application developers. Available to its worldwide developer network immediately, Orange is using Monitor Master, Argogroup’s award-winning testing technology, to radically speed up software certification times and halt mounting costs to developers. These new services will cover the testing and verification of new J2ME, WAP, MMS, ring tones and wallpaper applications ensuring faster time to market of cutting edge mobile applications for Orange’s 52 million subscribers world-wide.
Manual testing to approve new applications for use on the Orange Portal is a slow process; for instance, new applications based upon Java’s J2ME can take up to six weeks to be approved or declined using manual methods. Further each submission can cost over £500, the financial overhead to developers seeking operators’ official recognition can be very prohibitive. According to a research note released by Gartner earlier this year*, testing mobile applications is becoming more complex because there is a lot to test. The mobile architectures need to be complex to support the large number of handsets that are on the market and this drives the need for even "portable" languages like Java or protocols like WAP to be tested on each device type. The new interactive, web-based solution will now allow registered developers to visit the Orange Group website, upload their software and select which Orange device(s) they would like their application tested against at no charge. As opposed to the six weeks manual response time, they will now receive the results immediately.
“Orange is one of the most innovative mobile operators we have worked with,” said Paul Nerger, VP Marketing and Business Development, Argogroup. “It understands the intricacies of the mobile content value chain and is aggressively launching powerful and affective tools to empower developers to build really useful and well-executed applications. No other mobile operator has taken such a bold step by making these kind of tools free to help the developer.”
Commenting on the new developer tools, Steve Glagow, Director of Orange Partner Programme, said, “Getting fun new applications up and running properly in less time is central to Orange’s drive to be the number one mobile data service network in the world. We want to more than double our revenues from mobile data services over the next three years and this initiative is an important building block. It will dramatically cut the cost and time for third parties developers who want us to sell their apps and services on our portal. That’s great for our customers who are just beginning to experience the delights of mobile data. And it will be critical for Orange as we move into a 3G world.”
Mobile application developers can register for free at http://developers.orange.com.
Notes to editor
Winner of this year’s GSMA Best Infrastructure/Network Solution Product and Frost & Sullivan’s Excellence in Technology Award 2004, Monitor Master is a user experience optimization platform. It mimics real users doing real things on mobile devices, identifying issues that affect user experience including usability, compliance, interoperability and performance. It is 300 times more efficient than manual testing and the one platform supports the assessment of all mobile technologies available such as SMS, EMS, MMS, WAP, J2ME, ring-tones, graphics, video, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), e-mail and Web.
* entitled “Allow for Mobile Application Development's Growing Pains” (January 2004)
About Argogroup
Argogroup specialises in optimizing user experience for mobile services, a discipline that focuses on the interaction between network, service and handset. The company’s two software products - Monitor Master and Device Master - help handset manufacturers and mobile operators test, monitor and develop products and services so that users spend more time and money on them.
Monitor Master is the world’s leading User Experience Optimization platform, in use in over 40 mobile operators and equipment manufacturers worldwide. Device Master automatically creates detailed handset profiles so that all device data is held in a central knowledge base.
Argogroup is backed by Apax Partners Funds and 3i. Its headquarters are near Guildford, UK, with offices in Seattle, Paris and Stockholm, Milan and Hong Kong. For more information, visit: http://www.argogroup.com/
Press Contact:
Gillie Tennant
Digit4 Ltd
Tel: +44 (0)870 766 1896
Mobile: +44 (0)7795 034068
gillie@digit4.co.uk
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