During the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Vodafone announced that it will collaborate with Research In Motion (RIM) on the development of Vodafone consumer services for the BlackBerry platform. This move sees Vodafone add the BlackBerry platform to the set of preferred consumer operating platforms that it strategically supports. Other preferred platforms are Windows Mobile and Symbian S60, I guess.
Under the agreement, Vodafone and RIM will concentrate on “driving continued growth in business segments,” and specifically, focusing on growing broader adoption in the consumer segment. Vodafone applications and services will also be tightly integrated with the BlackBerry platform.
Yeah, the mobile operators refuse to change. It’s the (lucrative) control over user experience they prefer, rather than becoming dumb pipes…