Telefónica SA (NYSE: TEF) is poised to reveal a new and improved international application developer program in the coming months, which is intended to encourage more involvement from third parties in the development of applications and services.

The operator has not disclosed details about the new program, but the initiative will involve opening more application programming interfaces (APIs) to developers, according to James Parton, head of Telefónica Developer Communities. (See Telefónica Looks to Third Parties and Telefonica Delves Into Developers.)

Part of Telefónica's plan is to deploy more widely Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. 's service delivery platform (SDP), which the carrier uses in its Latin American operations.

Huawei's SDP will fit into Telefónica's new application development strategy because the platform provides the technology foundation upon which the services can be created and the access to key network APIs. (See Who Makes What: RESTful Service Delivery Platforms.)

In fact, Telefónica likes the service creation capabilities it has developed with Huawei's SDP in Latin America so much that it wants to replicate the model globally.

The Spanish carrier plans to deploy Huawei's SDP in Europe this year and the first launch is expected in the UK this month, according to the carrier, which revealed its SDP plans at the Management World 2010 conference in Nice, France, in May.

The move will be a quite a feather in the Chinese vendor's cap for its SDP capabilities, not only because the plan indicates a significant international deployment, but also because Telefónica is one of the more progressive operators when it comes to application development and service creation.

In Latin America, Telefónica uses Huawei's SDP across 13 markets. The software is run from two main nodes in Brazil and Mexico, and there are eight sub-nodes in local markets. Services based on Huawei's SDP are available in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia. (See Huawei's SDP Coup and Telefónica Uses Huawei SDP.)

The business model involves a revenue share with Huawei for an unspecified percentage of revenues up to a maximum amount. And the revenues come from services hosted on the Huawei platform, which come from multiple developers.

Some examples of the services offered include SMS promotions and wireless application protocol (WAP) banner ads in Mexico, and a mobile newspaper in Brazil, which was launched in July 2009.

An SDP ouster?
According to an industry source, Telefónica also uses Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC)'s service delivery platform. It is not clear whether Telefónica's plans for Huawei's SDP include replacing any installations of the Swedish vendor's platform.

Ericsson had not responded to Light Reading's questions as this article was published.

— Michelle Donegan, European Editor, Light Reading Mobile and Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading