iPhone, the revolutionary mobile phone from Apple (News - Alert), will be sold in ten more countries around the world through Mobile phone group Vodafone.

 

Both the companies reportedly signed an agreement that enables Vodafone to expand  iPhone (News - Alert) distribution.

 

Apple designs and manufactures consumer electronics. In January 2007, it launched iPhone, an Internet-enabled multimedia mobile phone. This touch-screen device combines Apple's popular iPod music player, a video player and Web browser. It uses the GSM standard and supports the EDGE data technology.

 

Until now, the has been using limited partners in Europe and the United States to distribute iPhone. O2, owned by Telefonica in Spain, has sold the device in Britain and Ireland, France Telecom (News - Alert) in France and Deutsche Telekom in Germany and Austria.

 

Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone company by revenue, has been competing with operators and retailers to secure the right to sell the iPhone.

 

Customers using the phone have also driven up data revenues by surfing the Internet and sending emails, a key attraction to operators as the cost of making calls decreases.

 

"Later this year, Vodafone (News - Alert) customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network," Britain-based Vodafone said in a statement.

 

The company recently previewed its iPhone 2.0 software planned to be released this June, and announced the immediate availability of a beta release of the software to selected developers and enterprise customers.

 

The iPhone 2.0 beta release includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as new enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco (News - Alert) IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.