Still think Zed is just a mobile content firm that keeps its own-IP games behind a subscription membership wall? Think again.

The company is preparing to release its first iPhone game on the App Store, is touting a Flash Lite games catalogue to operators on a B2B basis, is signing its first brand licences, and has ambitions to take its games to the web and even console.

Let's start with that iPhone game, accelerometer-powered puzzler iBubble Boom. "We had some contacts with Apple in June, and decided to create one game to test the experience of developing for the iPhone," says Zed's managing director of games Juan Carlos Gonzalvez.

"We are going to release it in mid-November. The only problem with the iPhone is that because it's touchscreen, you need to develop special games for it. We can't just try to port our existing action games, like Neenya Ninja. We think the better experience for the user is to create new titles. It's more like a Wii in terms of user experience."

Developing for iPhone is a sign of how Zed has opened up beyond its traditional subscription base, where people paid a weekly fee for access to its games and content catalogue. Another way that's shown is in the company's move into Flash Lite.

Last month, Zed bought Flash Lite developer Mobitween, which was already providing its 100+ games to operators including Verizon Wireless and Orange. That will continue now under Zed's auspices.

"We think Adobe is going to really push Flash Lite to the handset makers from now on," says Gonzalvez.

"The handset firms used to pay licensing fees to Adobe, but now it's absolutely free. Adobe has realised that the important thing is the content. They need a lot of Flash content to be available for end users to be successful in this industry. So it's a good time for us to start with Flash."

In brief, Mobitween's catalogue application sits on a handset, and provides users with a slick interface to browse the company's games, and then play them direct from the app. "The user doesn't need to install anything else once they have installed the main application," says Gonzalvez.

Offered through mobile operators, the catalogue will support various pricing models, including monthly, weekly or daily subscriptions as well as per-game or pay-per-play models. This is part of Zed's wider shift in strategy.

"We used to have the subscription business model, but now we have decided to move to the B2B model," he says. "We are going to offer all of our games to the operators, to be sold in their portals. We're becoming more like a typical mobile games company like Glu, Gameloft or EA Mobile. Our catalogue is quite big and the quality of our games is high, so why not?"

Zed is now developing Java, Symbian, iPhone and Flash Lite games, so it certainly has a varied catalogue. The latter may offer Zed most differentiation when courting operators, as none of the large mobile publishers named above have gone into Flash Lite in a big way.

"Some operators think Flash is a great thing, and others think it's still too early to deploy," says Gonzalvez. "We are talking with many of them though. Qualcomm is supporting Flash natively in its BREW chipset, and we think Nokia and Sony Ericsson are thinking the same. So Flash is going to become more popular and easy to develop for day by day."

As part of its decision to offer games to operators, Zed is biting the bullet and signing some brands up, including one deal with movie studio Lionsgate, and another with basketball body the NBA. "We're not going to base our whole strategy on branded games, but we know we need some to be more attractive to the operators," he says.

In the big picture, Zed is continuing to move away from being a pure mobile content firm, and restyling itself as a "cross platform entertainment" company, as Gonzalvez puts it. "It's mainly internet, console and mobile phones," he explains. "We're not trying to create the same game for each platform, but more to create a global experience using these different platforms."

This may see Zed moving into Facebook games too, with users moving between the different platforms according to their lifestyle. "The user might discover a game on their mobile, and if they enjoy it, they may then increase the experience in the PC game," says Gonzalvez.

"But at the same time, they might be playing a mobile game and unlock some things in the PC version, or win some clothes in the Flash game for use in the others."