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POWERING THE MALAYSIAN MOBILE CONTENT LANDSCAPE: MAXIS LAUNCHES THE MAXIS 1STORE
First Malaysian app store offering over 1200 applications & a sustainable ecosystem for Malaysian developers
Maxis Berhad (‘Maxis’), Malaysia’s leading integrated communications provider, today officially launched the Maxis 1Store, Malaysia’s first application store offering over 1200 applications to customers. The Maxis 1Store will allow the regional leader in multimedia content to invest in content development for its customers and to further develop the Malaysian content landscape.
The Maxis 1Store has a dual function, meeting the needs of both customers and Malaysian content developers. It allows customers to explore, discover and purchase content and applications that are downloadable to their mobile devices. Concurrently, it provides professional and amateur Malaysian content developers with an easy-to-use platform and tools for application development for local and global markets.
T. Kugan, Maxis’ Vice-President and Head of Product, Device and Innovation said, “The Maxis 1Store is a vital catalyst to a sustainable and thriving ecosystem for mobile content and applications in Malaysia. Our vision is simple – to enable the creation of creative, rich and portable content which will enrich our customers’ lives. Maxis currently leads in the mobile content sphere with a non-voice revenue percentage of 36.6% of mobile revenue and 6.7 million mobile internet customers, about 50% of our entire customer base. We intend to continue setting new standards in mobile content, while simultaneously enabling seamless delivery to our customers through innovative device offerings and a modernised network.”
The Maxis 1Store presents a user-friendly interface for customers seeking fun and useful new content and applications for their phones. Content is available for over 100 different types of mobile devices and span free applications, games, general entertainment, tools and utilities, productivity, finance, travel and leisure, business, lifestyle, education, social networking, healthcare, sports, navigation, news, personal information management and weather. This wide array of offerings leave customers spoilt for choice.
For developers, the Maxis 1Store offers a platform that empowers them to develop, submit, test and publish their applications. Via the store, they are able to tap into Maxis’ extensive customer base which actively uses mobile content and applications, as evidenced by the following figures (as of end June 2010):
• 50 million hits on the Maxis mobile portal per month.
• Over 3.8 million 3G customers, 4.5 million caller ringtone users, 3.0 million Friend-finder users and 2.3 million MMS users.
• 134 milion SMSes sent per day on the Maxis base.
Developers may easily access the Maxis 1Store at https://developer.1store.com.my and benefit from free registration, subscription, application testing (for a limited time) and access to other developers via an online forum.
In addition, Maxis recently introduced software development kits (SDK) which will further assist developers, enabling them to tap into the capabilities of the Maxis network to offer applications with location-based services.
They are also able to leverage on the existing Maxis billing system and offer their customers the flexibility of sharing available content and applications on favourite social networking sites. (For more information on Maxis’ SDK, please refer to Appendix 1.) Maxis will continue to provide additional opportunities to developers, building on recent partnerships with global leaders such as Western Union, Paypal and Out There Media in the mobile payments and advertising spaces.
Kugan added, “Maxis has always been a dominant player in the development of the local content industry. In 2003, we introduced the Maxis Developer Program (MDP) and in 2007, we initiated the Mobile Content Challenge (MCC) in partnership with the Ministry of Information Communication and Culture and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. Maxis continues to support content entrepreneurs in bringing their concepts and developed prototypes to the market through focused and customised programmes.
“We are pleased to be taking the content journey a step further today with the launch of the Maxis 1Store. This unique store provides an excellent platform for young developers to bring their creativity and innovation to the market. To encourage their participation, Maxis will be giving a special incentive of 100% revenue share for applications developed and submitted by local developers before 1 June 2011.”
Fast Facts about the Maxis 1Store
– First Malaysian-based application store
– Over 1200 applications
– Over 100 devices supported
– Over 1,000 downloads per week
– Over 1.5 million hits per month via the 1Store portal
For more information on the Maxis 1Store, please visit www.maxis.com.my
APPENDIX 1: MORE INFORMATION ON MAXIS’ SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT KITS (SDK)
Definitions:
SDK: Maxis’ Software Development Kit (SDK) comprises a set of tools for the development of applications for a particular platform. An SDK typically contains a compiler, linker, and debugger. It may also contain libraries and documentation for APIs.
API: An Application Programming Interface (API) comprising a set of modules that developers may use to create original applications. They are also known as classes or libraries. APIs enable developers to write applications without reinventing common pieces of code. For example, a networking API is something a developer’s application may leverage for network connections, without the developer having to understand the underlying code.
Maxis’ 1Store SDK consists of the following APIs:
1) Charging: A set of web-services that enable developers to charge consumers for content. In essence, developers will be able to utilise in-app billing functionality, leveraging the existing Maxis billing system.
2) Location: A set of web-services that will return the current location of the user in the form of longitude and latitude coordinates. The use of this API is conditional upon the acceptance of the user, each time the API is used.
3) Sharing: A set of web-services that enable the consumer to share application content or information (to be determined by the developer) to his/her Phone, Email, Facebook or Twitter contacts (this list will continue to grow as new services are integrated).
4) Advertisements: A set of web-services that enable the developer to pull banner adverts to be displayed in-application.
5) Identity: A set of web-services that will return a persistent unique identifier for the consumer, enabling the application to manage state, potentially across multiple user-interfaces.
Note: The use of APIs above are subject to Maxis’ approval and its terms and conditions.
