Handango Inc. has promoted Alex Bloom to take over as president/CEO of the mobile content seller after the departure of Bill Stone to run Qualcomm's Flo TV.

Mr. Bloom was previously vice president of content and international at the Las Colinas TX, company. He assumes his new responsibilities at the 10-year-old company on Feb. 1.

"I think the primary mandate will be to profitably grow the top-line revenues," Mr. Bloom said. "It's a heavy focus on channel partners.

"We want to partner up with channel partners, OEMs, carriers and retailers to help build platforms and smartphone distribution solutions," he said.

Another key task at hand is raising the brand profile of Handango at it builds its catalog to include more business-to-business applications in addition to business-to-consumer.

And then there is execution on the fundamental strategy and platforms.

"2008 was about building platforms," Mr. Bloom said. "As consumers shift from buying from the Web to their mobile device, we want to make sure we have the best solutions this year."

Departing CEO Mr. Stone will keep his seat on the Handango board of directors even after he becomes senior vice president at Qualcomm and president of its Flo TV mobile television unit.

Handango claims to have one of the largest catalogs of smartphone applications.

The company added more than 370 content partners to its list of 23,000. Its catalog has more than 140,000 applications across the entertainment, productivity, games, utilities, travel, health and fitness, and business and professional categories.

These applications, priced at an average $20 for each, can be downloaded on 1,000 mobile devices.

"The app market continues to grow," Mr. Bloom said. "Apps tend to be downstream for smartphones."

Indeed, the shift from Web to mobile devices also brings with it a change in the types of applications downloaded -- from productivity tools to more entertainment content such as games and ringtones -- as the consumer changes.

"We're moving from early adapter to early majority," Mr. Bloom said. "Web to mobile changes what they want."

Handango's distribution channel includes its InHand on-device portal, mobile Web and its affiliate and channel partners.

The list of partners covers AT&T, Microsoft, Verizon Wireless, AOL, Samsung, Best Buy, Research In Motion, T-Mobile, Sony Ericsson and Nokia.

Mr. Bloom's strategy makes room for partnerships with distributors as well as developing private-label stores for clients based on its InHand platform.

In that sense, Handango is hedging its bets on downloads from two venues: directly from the mobile Web or from thin clients such as InHand.

"Don't know which one will win -- thin client or mobile? -- so we have to do both," Mr. Bloom said.