ORANGE OPENS DEVELOPER CENTRES IN BOSTON AND SAN FRANCISCO
Orange announces today that it has extended its Developer Centre network to the US with the opening of new centres in Boston and San Francisco. This follows the developer event – Code Camp – that took place in Florida in April and signifies a commitment from Orange to increase its exposure to developer excellence in the US.
Located within the existing R & D laboratories of the France Telecom Group, both centres offer well-equipped technical facilities designed to provide an efficient and comfortable atmosphere for application development in a dedicated laboratory. Developers are provided with tools and support as well as Orange handsets and SIMs for use during development and testing. ‘Last-mile’ testing gives developers the chance to try their application on the Orange 2G and in Boston, on the 3G network.
Developers will have the chance to meet Orange representatives at the centres to discuss their applications and the opportunity for official testing and selection for inclusion in the Orange Catalogue for a possible distribution of up to 54 million customers in 16 countries.
The centres in the US form part of a Developer Centre global network that already includes facilities in the UK (Maidenhead and Glasgow) and France (Velizy). The next Developer Centre opening will be in the Netherlands later this year.
As well as these physical sites, the Orange Partner programme also enables software application and content creators to develop and test applications remotely, have them certified by Orange, participate in free on-site and on-line training, receive white papers and use Application Programme Interfaces (APIs) with support from Orange.
Steve Glagow, Director of Orange Partner comments: “Having recruited many US-based developers at JavaOne and CTIA in San Francisco and more recently at our Code Camp event in Florida, we’re keen to maintain and indeed strengthen those relationships. The Developer Centres in Boston and San Francisco will enable us to do just that through the face to face contact, tutorials, support and advice that we’ll provide.
The long-term vision of the Orange Partner programme and the Developer Centre network is about the creation of innovative, exciting mobile application solutions and content. With the advent of 3G technology and the benefits of greater bandwidth, there’s huge potential to deliver richer, faster content to customers and our developer network will have a crucial part to play in making this happen.”
The integration of the Orange Developer Centres within France Telecom’s R & D laboratories will strengthen their relationship and increase the sharing of resources between the two entities of the FT Group.
Link – Full press release