Vodafone is providing mobile connectivity to the Linux community.
Vodafone Group R&D released the linux drivers software for the Vodafone Mobile Connect (VMC) cards in May 2007 on Betavine under an open source lincense. Since that date the open source community, who use Linux laptops and Linux netbooks, have adopted the Betavine software with a passion... by the end of 2009 we had over 750,000 downloads of the software globally.
The creation of a community of users and enthusiasts around the open source software has meant that we have been able to test the software with a wide variety of devices (laptops and netbooks), a range of linux software distributions (e.g. ubuntu) and a large number of 3G dongles. This has proved a very efficient means of "crowdsourcing" the testing of this software. We have also received a number of significant software fixes from the Linux community.
Version 2.0 of the software was released in April 2008 with many enhancements and version 3.0 was released in January 2010. Version 3.0 includes many updates including integration with the standard linux email client (evolution), modem plug-in architecture, the look and feel and the introduction of messaging APIs, an application programming interface that will stimulate innovation around this open source software.
The application has been adopted by leading Linux OS distributions due to the fact that it has the broadest support for USB Datacards of any Linux Mobile Broadband application. The software and it's web presence has created a large community around the card and it's packaged derivatives. This open policy has allowed Vodafone to maximise it's adoption into the diverse Linux ecosystem. It also gives Vodafone a leading position in Mobile Broadband support for Linux.
