Orange brings together key players from the mobile world at latest ‘Code Camp’ event

• Around 450 attendees expected at Code Camp in Opio, South of France from 17 – 19 October, 2005

• Delegates will include mobile application developers, games publishers, content providers, device manufacturers and operating system providers

• Camp lasts for 72 hours, 24 hour food on offer, opening Pow-Wow and over 70 sessions

• Programme includes new technical and commercial elements

• Support from industry partners including Symbian, Sony Ericsson and UIQ Technology (gold sponsors), Texas Instruments, Microsoft, Palm and Gemplus (silver sponsors)

London, 19 August 2005 - Orange today announces that it expects over 450 delegates to attend its third award-winning Code Camp event. Code Camp will bring together mobile application developers, games publishers, content providers, device manufacturers and operating systems companies from all over the world, for 72 hours of workshops, seminars, networking and testing.

As with the previous award-winning events in Europe and the US, Code Camp Opio has been put together in order to stimulate the creation of new and exciting applications for a variety of different mobile phone operating systems. Those applications selected will then appear in the Orange internal product catalogue for a possible distribution to over 56 million customers in 16 countries. Products that have been successful to date include travel, personal productivity, vehicle tracking, salesforce automation and location-based applications. 

The event will take place in the South of France at the Club Med resort in Opio and will run from the 17 – 19 October. It will be comprised of over seventy sessions including technical tutorials,workshops, commercial seminars and open discussions. Delegates will be able to test their products in the developer centre, use the technical expertise on-site or simply talk to Orange about bringing their applications to market.

Code Camp Opio will have increased emphasis on the commercial side of developing applications for Orange and delegates will hear more about the mobile application and content requirements in the specific markets in which Orange operates. They will also gain a greater understanding of Orange customers in terms of who they are and what they want as well as requirements for personalisation including ringtones, music, video, games and other multi-media content.

Attendees will gain valuable insight into the strategies of Orange and France Telecom and will be given the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the various technology standards deployed by Orange such as GSM, GPRS, 3G, EDGE and Wi-Fi. 

Gold sponsorship support of the event will be given by industry partners Symbian, Sony Ericsson and UIQ Technology. 

Symbian creates the world’s leading operating system for smartphones, Symbian OS™. The open standards of Symbian OS allow mobile developers to create advanced and innovative applications for over 39 million Symbian OS phones already in the hands of mobile phone buyers worldwide.

Symbian
"Symbian is pleased once again to sponsor Orange Code Camp,” said Marit Døving, Executive Vice President, Marketing, Symbian. “Like Orange, Symbian recognises the value of the growing smartphone developer ecosystem in providing exciting mobile experiences as Symbian OS phones enter the mass market.  Symbian collaborates extensively with Orange to deliver the information, tools and full support to our developer partners to create innovative and commercially successful applications. We’re looking forward to what will no doubt be another excellent three days in Opio." 

Sony Ericsson
Ulf Wretling, Director & Head of Content Development at Sony Ericsson, adds:
“Orange Code Camp provides us with an excellent opportunity to promote and forge stronger relationships with key development companies. By combining attractive product features with useful, fun and innovative content and applications, Sony Ericsson can offer key operator customers like Orange an attractive value proposition and consumers a rich multimedia experience. This will ensure that a wide variety of applications and content is developed in time for product launches to address business and personal productivity, games and entertainment for Sony Ericsson’s Java™ and Symbian OS™ based mobile phones.”

UIQ Technology develops and licenses the world-class open software platform, UIQ, to leading mobile phone manufacturers, including Sony Ericsson. The UIQ platform offers more freedom for mobile developers to create compelling applications and services and is recognised as the leading platform for downloads per user.

UIQ Technology
"UIQ Technology is pleased to be able to support Orange and their developers alongside Sony Ericsson," says Carina Dietmann, Head of Marketing, UIQ Technology. "UIQ Technology strategy is to align with partners such as Sony Ericsson and Orange to ensure that mobile developers have the best experience in developing mobile applications and services, and the best opportunity to deliver them into the hands of consumers. We are very excited to be involved in the Code Camp at what promises to be an informative, important and fun event."

Orange
Steve Glagow, Director of Partnerships and Operations for Orange Group comments:“Following the tremendous success of our Code Camp events in Europe and the US, we’re delighted to be hosting Code Camp Opio. We now have over 34,000 developers registered with the Orange Partner programme but what’s really important to us, is building and developing relationships face to face. Code Camp allows us to do that in a fun, informal but highly-charged environment."
“For the developer community, Code Camp represents a real chance to bring mobile applications and products to market through the tools, advice and support available to them from Orange. Registration opened just over a week ago and we’ve already received substantial interest – this event is set to be another sell-out.”

There will be a number of competitions running throughout the event, to keep the delegates amused. The Ultimate Orange Code Camp Video Contest gives budding comic film-makers the opportunity to make a three or four minute “comedy” film about their company or products. Shortlisted films will be shown during the event and the winners will be announced at the closing Pow-Wow.

For more information, call the Orange Media Centre on + 44 207 984 2000 or 
+ 44 7973 201 911. Alternatively, visit the Orange Partner site at .

Notes to Editors

Orange and wirefree and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trademarks of Orange PCS. The Orange group is one of the world’s largest mobile communications companies and a subsidiary of the France Telecom group, with operations in 16 countries across Europe and beyond. It provides a broad range of personal communications services, including Orange GSM1800 services and other digital cellular telephone services. Within the Orange Group, the Orange brand operates in the UK, France, Switzerland, Romania, Slovakia, Thailand, the Ivory Coast, the Dominican Republic, Cameroon, the Netherlands, Botswana, and Madagascar.  The Orange group also has controlled operations in Belgium (Mobistar). The Orange group has a joint controlling interest in Egypt (MobiNil) and minority interests in Portugal (Optimus) and in Austria (One).  As at the end of June 2005, Orange had 14.46 million active customers in the UK, and over 21.4 million registered customers in France. As at the end of June 2005, Orange controlled companies had over 56.1 million customers worldwide. Orange, along with TIM, Telefonica and T-Mobile, is a founding member of the FreeMove alliance.

Orange Partner is a global partner and developer program from one of the world’s leading mobile operators - Orange. The program provides mobile application and content developers with online training, a research database, tools, testing processes, application programming interfaces and peer-to-peer contact via the Orange Partner portal - . It also provides access to Orange global development centres and a whole range of other support services to members of the program. Orange Partner has been created to provide support to developers wishing to develop and propose solutions for possible distribution to over 56 million customers in 16 countries.

The next Code Camp event will take place in Opio, France between 17-19 October.