Rating: 3G networks making virtual Lab viable
It seems that remote testing specialist, DeviceAnywhere has spotted the opportunity that Latin America offers as one of the world’s largest cellular markets. Hence it has partnered with local specialist, Certified, to offer its Virtual Developer Lab (VDL) through Vivo.
The Brazilian mobile operator, Vivo, is the largest in Latin America with over 50 million customers so it represents a big opportunity to encourage software developers.
Pyramid Research is predicting smartphone sales in Latin America to grow from 7 million smartphones sold in 2009, to 48 million in 2014 – representing 30 per cent of total sales.
As Faraz Syed, CEO of DeviceAnywhere, readily admits, “With the growing number of smartphone users and improved access to 3G networks in Latin America, DeviceAnywhere is expanding its footprint to support this exiting new market with the launch of the Vivo Virtual Developer Lab.”
“We are extremely excited about the launch of the Vivo Virtual Developer Lab and the content and services it will cultivate amongst our global developer community,” commented Alexandre Madeira Fernandes, product and services director with Vivo.
Just like any other cellular provider, Vivo sees its own mobile app store as a key service to consumers. “We are committed to providing best in class testing and certification tools through our partnership with DeviceAnywhere to our developer community,” Fernandes revealed.
“The content and applications we offer to our customers through the Vivo downloads store is no exception to this.”
Certified is something of an obvious choice for DeviceAnywhere since it already specialises in software, testing and validation for small devices. It can boast experience with mobile applications under both CDMA and GSM/3G technologies within the Latin America region.
With DeviceAnywhere’s Direct-to-Device technology, developers can remotely interact with localised handsets as if they were in their hands.
Its interesting to see that the handsets most desired by potential Latin American app developers including the iPhone 3G, Blackberry 9000 and Nokia N95.
