The new UIQ partner program sees the existing three programs - UIQ Partner, UIQ Alliance, and Platform Partner - merge under an improved UIQ Alliance, with existing UIQ Selected and Platform Partner members moving to the new program. This change has, at least in part, been driven by the fact that UIQ now has two licensees actively developing phones. "A key focus for us is getting the very best phones, with the very best user experience, shipped by our licensees," says Carina Lindberg, head of Partner Management. "To achieve this we realized we needed to make it as easy and straightforward as possible for companies to partner with UIQ. The efficiencies from running one common program will allow us to better support our partners."

As part of the program update UIQ is announcing nine new partners. At least two of these companies - SysOpen Digia and EMCC software - are already part of the UI Alliance program, but are included in the announcement as the cooperation now includes the companies acting as training partners also.

While most of the companies included in the program clearly offer core services or software that enables delivery of UIQ phones, Epocware stands out as somewhat different. "Creating a successful smartphone is not just about the features you see on the phone, third party software is very important," explains Carina. "Epocware is building a lot of good UIQ 3 applications and many are featured as try and buy applications on new UIQ 3 phones. It is important for us to be able to work with companies like Epocware to ensure their applications are ready for any new phone releases. I would expect more companies like Epocware to be invited into the UIQ Alliance program in the future."

An important aspect of the updated program is about making things easier for UIQ's licensees. Several of the new partners have been working separately with Motorola and Sony Ericsson. "We have worked closely with Sony Ericsson and Motorola to determine which companies will help shorten time to market, and decrease development costs for new phones," says Carina. "This is very much a business case driven program, we are not simply looking for a long list of logos just for show. So, for our licensees to realize benefits, UIQ Alliance is designed to help our partners in turn to shorten their time to market and optimize their development costs." To do this the new UIQ Alliance program provides a partner extranet, and additional technical support among other services to ensure partners get the information and support they need in a timely fashion.

While the number of developers in the UIQ Alliance program is inevitably limited, Carina points out that UIQ is also expanding its support for other developers. As an example Carina highlights the opportunity developers have been given to send UIQ their applications for testing on the Motorola Z8. "This has been very well received by our developer community," says Carina. "We have been able to help several developers ensure their applications use the APIs in the recommended way, so they only need one SIS file to target all UIQ 3 phones. In fact it has been so successful we plan to continue this service for future phone releases."

Carina is very upbeat about UIQ's prospects. "Since the launch of the Motorola Z8 we have seen a significant increase in traffic on our portal and many more SDKs have been downloaded," she says. "Things are certainly looking very good for UIQ at the moment."

UIQ will be participating in the Smartphone Show and in November will be hosting a UIQ Fast Track event in Budapest.