Vodafone 360 app shop comes to Android

Vodafone's 360 app store will be embedded on the two devices, giving users a choice of destinations for their apps (the other being Android Market) and developers two outlets for both native products and cross platform JIL apps .
The operator is confident its store can give partners a better result because of what it claims is the richer retailing experience offered by 360.
The store has a personalisation engine (powered by Xiam), for example, which provides recommendations based on user behaviour.
Vodafone says its analytics show that four times more customers buy on the basis of recommendation than on promotion.
The operator also believes the simplified operator billed buying process and the bringing together of music, graphics, ringtones, ebooks, video and other 'entertainment' products on the store will make it a stickier site for end-users.

Lee Epting, director of content at Vodafone's Internet Services, told ME this move is all about giving developers more reach.
"Until now, Android developers have only had Android Market through which to reach end users. We're giving them another option, but with a much better retail experience," she said.
Initially, the launch will cover Sony Ericsson X10 Mini and HTC Buzz only, and will be live from later in the summer.
It should be stressed that Vodafone announced in February that its 'People' app would be downloadable to Android phones. Clearly, this is a much more serious tilt at the Google platform.
The move reflects a general desire by Vodafone to move 360 in the direction of 'horizontals' rather than 'verticals'.
In English, this means an effort to put components of the service (which include an enhanced address book, an app shop, a music service and the 'My Web' portal) across multiple devices and platforms – rather than piling them all into one '360' phone (such as the much maligned Samsung H1 and M1).
Of course, Vodafone 360 has received a colossal kicking since launch last September, not least for screwing up the email and syncing functionality at launch.
Epting was candid enough to admit to errors. "We thought we were ready. We'd tested and tested... but launching a 24/7 internet services on top of a network is extremely complex and it needs to work seamlessly. We found that our test cases didn't cover enough...But we fixed that, and the response from users has been excellent."
The criticism hasn't abated. But Epting maintains that 360 is winning consumers over, claiming that ARPU for the service's users is three times higher than for regular Vodafone Live users, and that 88 per cent of 360 customers are new to data services.
However, she still wouldn't give an overall number for total 360 users.

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