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Verizon opens Application Innovation Center in San Francisco, we go eyes-on (video)

dante cesa
Contributing Editor
Updated ·4 min read

Verizon's made good on its promise to open an Application Innovation Center in San Francisco, and kindly invited us down to have a gander. It's much like its sister facility in Boston, except it eschews the LTE focus for one on mobile-app innovation. Developers both big and small will be able to take advantage of several labs, where they'll be privy to Verizon equipment and services "not available elsewhere," all while being a stone's throw from Big Red's in-house engineers and developers. On hand was Qualcomm, whose MDPs garnished the test lab, and Chomp, whose app-search tech powered an impressive nine pane multi-touch App Wall -- allowing one to find and explore apps, replete with informative videos and QR codes for each. Want to know more? Check the gallery, videos and PR after the break.

Myriam Joire contributed to this report.
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VERIZON OPENS APPLICATION INNOVATION CENTER IN SAN FRANCISCO

New Facility Supports Developers and Entrepreneurs Creating Mobile Apps for Consumers and Businesses

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. and SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 10, 2011 -- Verizon today marked the official opening of its Application Innovation Center (AIC) in San Francisco, located near Silicon Valley and close to a growing nexus of developers in the city. Developers large and small will be invited to use the Application Innovation Center to create, optimize and polish their ideas and turn them into viable applications for wireless customers. The collaborative approach is designed to facilitate connections between developers and a wide range of Verizon partners.

"The work of the Application Innovation Center is about encouraging and supporting developers who bring new ideas to the table and are creating exciting mobile applications for consumers and businesses," said Dan Mead, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless. "The Application Innovation Center is here to test, challenge and make better what our customers will do with their phones and other wireless devices."

The facility is comprised of collaborative lab environments, private lab space, demonstration and seminar area and office space for engineers and members of the company's developer relations team.

Verizon established the Application Innovation Center for developers to work on applications side-by-side with network experts from Verizon. Participants in the Application Innovation Center will have access to Verizon equipment and services not available elsewhere and will be able to interact with experts in application development, Web services development, network application programming interfaces (APIs), network performance and business development, all together in one place.

As part of the Application Innovation Center's opening day program, Steve Mollenkopf, executive vice president and group president at Qualcomm, and Ben Keighran, co-founder and chief executive officer of Chomp, spoke about their companies' roles and experience with the Verizon Application Innovation Center.

"Innovation is the lifeblood of Qualcomm, and the opening of Verizon's Application Innovation Center demonstrates our companies' unyielding commitment to expanding the mobile ecosystem through creative engineering and enduring collaborations," said Mollenkopf. "This Center will enable developers looking to access the most advanced mobile technologies to develop, optimize and deliver extraordinary experiences for mobile users."

"Integrating Verizon's custom catalog of applications into the Chomp app search engine wasn't a trivial task," said Keighran. "The Chomp search engine had to read information about hundreds of thousands of apps across multiple storefronts so that Verizon customers could find exactly what they wanted in seconds. Having developed our app search engine from scratch, we know that for app search to work it has to be executed flawlessly. Search is hard, but working with the Verizon team was incredibly easy. They moved quickly and were very flexible. Frankly, it was more like working with a nimble start-up than a large corporation. The fruit of all that labor is that Chomp is the perfect matchmaker for Verizon customers searching for the right app at the lowest price."

First announced at the Verizon Developer Community (VDC) Conference in 2009, the San Francisco facility is connected to the recently-opened Verizon LTE Innovation Center, located in Waltham, Mass., in order to optimize synergies between development activities at each location. The LTE Innovation Center in Massachusetts has spurred development for products, services and solutions ranging from home monitoring and control, healthcare, visual collaboration and gaming.

Construction of the Application Innovation Center, located on Spear Street, was completed earlier this summer.

For more information about the Center visit http://innovation.verizon.com. For more information about Verizon Wireless and its 4G LTE network, visit www.verizonwireless.com/lte.

About Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless operates the nation's fastest, most advanced 4G network and largest, most reliable 3G network. The company serves 106.3 million total wireless connections, including 89.7 million retail customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 83,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE, NASDAQ: VZ) and Vodafone (LSE, NASDAQ: VOD). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.