Vodafone Kicks Off Competition for Mobile Widget Developers

Wireless carrier Vodafone announced recently the launch of a new competition for developers of mobile widgets, one that sees an impressive €1,000,000 in funds. The Vodafone Appstar competition will have two phases, the company added, the first one launched now and the second one slated for next year, and has been launched in eight countries in Europe: UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.

According to the carrier, developers from the entire world can come up with widgets for the recently launched Vodafone 360 mobiles. The widgets can be submitted to any of the eight countries, and three winners will then be selected by each local Vodafone company based on three criteria: User experience, Innovation and Value to the customer.

Moreover, developers that have submitted the three widgets will receive “prize money of €25,000, €15,000 and €10,000 for coming first, second and third respectively.” At the same time, the winner of the largest prize will see the widget included in a Pan-European competition that will end up in deciding which widget is the best of them all. The winner of this round will receive a prize of €75,000, while the second best developer will also receive a prize, the carrier added.

“Vodafone is committed to encouraging talent and innovation in this area and we hope that this prize fund will provide a fitting incentive to help bring this talent to the fore,” said Pieter Knook, director of Vodafone Internet Services. “Our job is to bring relevant and local choices in widgets that will make the mobile internet more personal for our customers.”

There are a few other things that should be noted here. The applications will have to be written on the latest Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) Software Developer Kit, and they can either offer access to the latest news on the handset or be submitted as location-aware travel tools. The best part in Vodafone's announcement, however, is that the competition will be repeated next year so that more developers can participate.