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With an intent to focus on developing mobile applications, S Mobility* (Spice) plans to set-up incubation centres across the country for application developers, reports IANS (via MSN India). According to Dilip Modi, Managing Director of S Mobility, the company plans to give financial support of about Rs 50,000 to the developers and will set up incubation centres for them across the country. It will launch a mobile applications developers forum on 19th November and plans to rope in 100,000 developers for it.
Apps for feature phones: Modi said that Spice wants to focus on developing mobile applications for feature phones that cost between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000, and also intends to launch a prototype of such a phone by the end of this month. Spice is working on MediaTek’s MRE ( Mediatek Runtime Environment) platform to develop applications for low cost feature phones running on MediaTek’s chipset. Spice targets 100,000 applications across mobile healthcare, mobile educations and various other utility services. He had also reiterated the plan at MediaTek’s recent press event where it had launched a version of the Facebook apps for feature phones.
Create an app eco-system: Spice feels that the move will help it create an Apple like ecosystem which promotes the development of apps by offering developers a platform to showcase their apps and monetize them.
Our Take
We feel that the incubation labs is a good move, however, it will be necessary to offer developers a sustainable monetization plan for growth, in addition to development and testing facilities. Also, consumer awareness is also critical.
Spice choosing MediaTek’s platform is totally understandable since MediaTek had previously picked up a 10% stake in Spice for $20 million and Spice is one of the first companies to incorporate the MediaTek platform for low cost Java based feature phones. This perhaps, would also be a step in Spice’s transformation to a ‘Mobile Internet’ company. MediaTek will definitely gain, however, we wonder if the app platform will be available to other handset makers using MediaTek’s chipsets.
Disclosure: Spice Digital is an advertiser with MediaNama.
Related:
– MediaTek Inks Deal To Bring Facebook To Feature Phones; Plans To Add Local Content & Services On MRE
– MediaTek Buys 10% In Spice Digital For $20 Million
