What might have been the biggest news to come out of the October 26-28 Sprint Open Developer Conference was the announcement of Sprint Mobile Wallet, the first mobile payment solution of its kind from a U.S. service provider.
Launching in just a couple of weeks, Sprint Mobile Wallet is designed as an easy and secure way for consumers to buy physical and digital products via their Sprint mobile device. Most importantly for developers, it makes it easier to monetize their products and applications.
How it works is that customers establish a universal PIN that enables them to make purchases using credit cards, Amazon Payments accounts, or other payment methods by phone. The tiresome need to enter credit card information with every purchase is eliminated, because the user just needs to select Sprint Mobile Wallet at the point of checkout, enter the PIN, and choose their preferred payment method.
Sprint is working with partner CardinalCommerce, with Sprint Mobile Wallet providing the user interface and CardinalCommerce working in the background to enable the transaction between customer and merchant.
Initial merchants on board with Sprint Mobile Wallet are SkyMall, Gameloft, and Namco, with more soon to sign on. The app will be available on several mobile devices, downloadable through Sprint Zone. Next year, it will be pre-loaded on many devices.
For developers, Sprint Mobile Wallet enables commercialization through a quick and simple integration to the service, instead of having to integrate directly with each payment company. Developers can also use Sprint Mobile Wallet within their apps as another way to monetize their apps outside the “walls” of an app store.
There was lots more Sprint news coming out of the three-day ODC, and we’ll tell you about that in the next post.
Read news stories about the Sprint Open Developer Conference:
Sprint Offers Mobile Wallet for One Stop Payments, RCR
Sprint’s McGinnis Talks Sprint ID and Redefining the Mobile App Experience, FierceWireless
Sprint to Kick Off Mobile Web App Initiative, Computerworld
Sprint is Doing it Right, Android Guys
