The heads of Vodafone, Telefonica, and Deutsche Telekom will meet with France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard in Paris on October 8th, according to an interview in French paper Le Figaro, where he revealed that that the four large carriers may decide to develop their own mobile operating system. Together, the four operators serve nearly one billion customers, giving them enormous clout throughout Europe.

Richard went on to say that the OS is the “Trojan horse used by Google and also Apple to establish their own relationship with our customers.” He also noted that it isn’t clear what form this project would take, from a joint venture to simply a common app market.

These are pretty strong words coming from a provider who benefits greatly from the hardware and software ecosystem developed at great cost by Apple and Google, an ecosystem that ensures customers are willing to flock to pricey, high-end smartphones in droves (along with their attractive data plans). Orange et al, however, have been fighting not to resign themselves to the role of “dumb pipe” since time immemorial, loading up their handsets with as much revenue-generating bloatware as possible.

Does the world need yet another smartphone platform? Maybe, if it can honestly bring some innovation instead of serving as its own Trojan horse into consumers’ wallets. But the truth is that until carriers can begin offering some real value-added content along with their bandwidth (as opposed to 100 two-minute Spongebob clips and overpriced navigation services), consumers have every reason to flock together under the tent pole of their platform of choice.

(via: intomobile and LeFigaro)