SurfKitchen powers T-Mobile’s web2go app store

Mobile Internet platform provider SurfKitchen announced today it is powering T-Mobile’s (NYSE:DT) wireless application store, web2go, on the Nokia (NYSE:NOK) 7510. This is the former on-device portal (ODP) company’s first US-based tier one customer, but chief technology officer Dave Evans said the company plans to scale it across more T-Mobile devices and more US operators.

SurfKitchen is providing the user interface for consumers to discover and purchase content, as well integrating with T-Mobile’s existing content provider. The companies initially made the store available to a select group of T-Mobile customers in December, but are now opening it up to all Nokia 7510 owners. While the scope of the project is small today, Evans said that T-Mobile will likely follow a similar trajectory of its two major partners Telstra and Orange.

France Telecom’s Orange has been a partner to SurfKitchen since 2007 when the vendor began powering Orange’s walled garden ODP for ringtones and wallpaper. Since that time the carrier has evolved its content strategy to be one of the most aggressive in competing with its own app store, the Orange App Shop. SurfKitchen provides the billing integration for Orange and worked closely to develop touchscreen support and ensure that the app store was given prominence over the handset maker’s own version.

Last May, SurfKitchen also extended its relationship with Australian operator Telstra to include an idle-screen experience in which users are presented with a catalog of services and search integration when their mobile phone powers up. Since SurfKitchen launched on Telstra in June, the operator has seen 60% of its customers using data compared to the feature-phone average of 20%, Evans said. Like T-Mobile, both Orange and Telstra started with a limited experience on just one device, but have evolved their ODPs to app stores that are an integral part of the consumer experience, he said.

“I think it’s an experience curve people go up,” Evans added. “They start in the short-term testing the water. All the operators have launched on one device and see how it goes then load up on more devices. With Orange and Telstra, we are just so much more advanced, we’ve worked with them for years, but I expect T-Mobile to go a similar path. And I expect it to go faster. T-Mobile will catch up very quickly, but is just takes time for people internally within operators to get a grip on what needs to be done to retail solutions.”

With its roots in ODPs, SurfKitchen’s experience in building walled garden app portals lent itself well to powering T-Mobile’s web2go app store, which is essentially an updated app-enabled version of T-Zones, Evans said. T-Mobile is supporting Android on its higher level handsets, but he said the SurfKitchen app-store experience is superior in that it provides integrated billing, built-in services and the ability to bundle apps. SurfKitchen would also like to work with other US carriers, all of which are chasing the app-store opportunity. He said that while AT&T relies on Qualcomm on the low-end for Brew apps and device manufacturers’ own app stores on its higher-end smartphones, it has a gap in the mid-range that SurfKitchen would like to fill.

SurfKitchen’s software runs on smartphones and feature phones, including Symbian Series 60, Microsoft, Java, Brew, RIM and Android phones. The company also counts Telefonica Moviles Espana, Maxis, Saudi Telecom and Cincinnati Bell in the US as customers.