Mobile Product Upgrade @ Bet365

An announcement came this week from online gambling operator bet365, that it has upgraded its mobile gambling platform and introduced HTML5 technology in order to improve the feel and function of the platform, and reduce the code needed to produce it. According to the bet365 Systems Team chief, Alan Reed, the changes occurred mostly due to customer satisfaction, which will be improved now that punters can watch live streams and place bets on the same screen. He also revealed that 50 percent of bet365's customers now access the company's services via a mobile device, adding that over the last six months, the company's development team has been working with HTML5 to deliver a near-identical experience across all mobile devices. The result is that audio and video streaming is now powered by HTML5, so there's no need for a flash plug-in, and users can access the streams via any device. The same works for bet365's Match Live service, he said. He also specified: “One of the problems with the streaming was we were never able to embed that in the same screen; the customer could only see one thing at one time. HTML5 has allowed us to embed the streams, so now we can give customers betting opportunities at the same time that we're presenting them with real-time data.” Also, he said that the HTML5 technology can now detect not only which device a customer is using, but also the screen size, the system capability, the geography and the type of connection, which allows the operator to better meet the needs of the punter. "Critically, HTML5 is enabling the company to move away from an application-based development model – where separate versions have to be built for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and so on – to the creation of a universal product that can be accessed through a browser," he said. Noting that the app route inevitably leads to fragmentation, and can also require the services of specialist developers who understand how to get richness out of the native operating systems, he opined: "This is a lot of effort given that bet365's apps only account for 15 percent of mobile activity, the other 85 percent being HTML.”