O2 to debut Litmus developer community

British operator O2 announced plans to launch Litmus, an online developer community promising virtual access to over 40 handsets from the company's device portfolio, enabling developers to trial, monitor and even market new applications and content. During an appearance at last week's Mobile 2.0 conference in San Francisco, O2's head of product development James Parton told The Guardian that Litmus will also offer developers the tools to work collaboratively with selected customers in a live virtual laboratory, enabling community members to build on each other's ideas and capitalize complementary skills and relevant experience--in addition, Litmus will afford developers the opportunity to trial infrastructure elements like messaging or billing systems.

For more on Litmus:
- read this Guardian article