China Mobile, Softbank and Vodafone to Establish Joint Innovation Lab for Mobile Internet Services Development

China Mobile, Softban and Vodafone have agreed to establish a joint innovation lab (JIL) to promote the development of new mobile technologies, applications and services. The three companies expect the initiative will help to accelerate the commercial deployment of mobile Internet services.

The JIL will be used as a platform to develop mobile services and drive innovation and synergy in the industry to the benefit of the three companies' combined global customer base. The JIL will launch projects based on emerging technologies and market demand.

The JIL will focus on the rapidly growing areas of mobile internet services, such as mobile widgets. Initially, the JIL plans to develop a platform for mobile widgets to encourage the development of innovative new services that can leverage mobile operators' unique capabilities.

This move is expected to enable different widgets and applications to run seamlessly on different handset platforms and operating systems across different mobile operators, while safeguarding customer security, data privacy and billing systems. The development of a widget platform is expected to benefit both developers and users. The JIL also welcomes the co-operation of vendors and developers in the creation of new applications and services.