Vodafone, Orange and O2 to create own mobile OS?

New network-friendly OS coming soon?
New network-friendly OS coming soon?

The heads of the top European mobile networks look set to have a meeting in the near future to discuss the possibility of making their own mobile OS.

Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange, has called some operating systems 'Trojan horses' in getting their services into the hands of consumers, and has called a meeting in Paris to discuss the possibility of taking a stand in an interview with French publication Le Figaro:

"On 8 October I've invited bosses of Vodafone, Telefonica [O2 in the UK] and Deutsche Telekom [T-Mobile] to Paris.

"We want to talk together on the possible creation of an operating system, the "Trojan horse" used by Google and Apple to establish their own relationship with our customers."

Open world

"We advocate for the world to be as open as possible. Between the four of us, we serve nearly one billion customers and have real clout and ability to influence the industry.

"This could take various forms: a joint venture, a small factory in common applications, we'll see ... We do not want to be followers but take the reins in innovation."

We've no idea if this would be a whole new operating system or one based on Android or Symbian without any of the 'Trojan Horse' services - but we'll be interested to see what the meeting yields in Paris.

From Le Figaro via IntoMobile

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.