Mobile Innovation

Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DoCoMo announced today their intent to unite Symbian OS, S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform. Together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone they plan to establish the Symbian Foundation to extend the appeal of this unified software platform.

To enable the Foundation, Nokia today announced plans to acquire the remaining shares in Symbian and then contribute the Symbian and S60 software to the Foundation. The net cash outlay from Nokia to purchase the approximately 52% of Symbian shares it does not already own will be approximately EUR 264 million.

Sony Ericsson and Motorola also announced their intention to contribute technology from UIQ and DoCoMo has also indicated its willingness to contribute its MOAP(S) assets. From these contributions, the Foundation will provide a unified platform with common UI framework.

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Posted by Mobile Innovation at June 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Airline travel is set to get even more unpleasant, as hapless airline passengers face being hounded through airports by online advertisers as well as security, customs and perfume touting duty free sales staff.

The airline industry could save $600m a year by tracking passengers through airports and punting ads to their mobiles, along with their tickets and boarding passes, according to a report from airline industry tech supplier SITA.

The prediction comes in a report from SITA, distributed at its Air Transport IT Summit in Brussels last. It gains a little credibility by including research from Cambridge University, though SITA are the one's who would like to provide the technology.

The tracking idea could be done in conjunction with the network operators, in much the same way commercial tracking happens now. At present customers receive an SMS asking them if they're OK with the idea, and if they don’t say no then the third party (in this case the airport) gains access to instant information about the location of the phone, and hence that of the user. That generally gives rough information, though the density of cells within an airport should give locations within a hundred meters or so.

If working with the operators is too much effort, or more accuracy is desired, then airlines could use the technique Path Technologies is already deploying in shopping centres - airports being a cross between a shopping centre and an open prison these days anyway. Path Technologies track handsets, not their owners, but a link could be established during the check-in procedure.

Knowing where all the passengers are could save valuable time chasing them down when they should be boarding. Your correspondent's boss at Swiss Telecom had a policy of never going to the gate until his name had been called twice; the stares of the other passengers on boarding are cause to give up a lot of privacy.

Checking in could also be delegated to the mobile phone, in much the same way that many airlines operate online check-in. Using a phone would also allow an electronic boarding pass to be issued direct to the phone. This is already happening in Japan using FeliCa handsets and could be an application for NFC, though a lower-tech solution could just display a bar-code on an existing handset (as offered by Mobiqa).

But SITA reckons mobile phones won't just cut costs and reduce paper work, they could also increase revenue. In a trial punters hanging around Manchester Airport spent 45 per cent more if money-off vouchers were sent to their mobiles. Combined with the tracking technology the opportunities are endless.

Of course, SITA is hardly an uninterested party in this, investing more than $100m during 2008 into finding new reasons for the air industry to spend more money on technology.

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Posted by Mobile Innovation at June 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nokia has acquired Plazes, a location-based social networking service, as part of its continuing effort to work out what kind of business it wants to be in.

Plazes is a social-networking-service for anyone who wants to share where they are as well as what they're doing. Niklas Savander, Head of Nokia Services & Software said in a statement: "In addition to the key assets, through this acquisition Nokia will bring on a visionary team with an advanced understanding of social-activity services, as well as the technical ability to further develop this area."

The Finnish giant isn't saying how much it's paying for Plazes.

Posted by Mobile Innovation at June 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

WorldMax has launched Europe's first mobile WiMax deployment, covering the centre of Amsterdam so that coffee-shop dwellers can surf the web without puzzling over plugs and wires, once they've got their PC-card connected.

The deployment, which is being run by Alcatel-Lucent and part-financed by Intel, is operating in 80MHz of spectrum provided by Enertel, at around 3.5GHz. Apparently it offers speeds "comparable to broadband" for €20 a month. The network conforms to the 802.11e standard for mobile WiMax, so should be useable from a car, or a bicycle.

Right now the coverage is limited to within the Amsterdam ring road, but Chief Executive Jeanine van der Vlist is promising a country-wide network of 3000 base stations, and apparently has the money to make that happen.

3000 base stations might seem like a lot, especially in such a small country lacking in the kind of signal-blocking terrain that causes problems elsewhere. But KPN, the mobile operator, has almost 4000* base stations for their 2G GSM network in the country, and is operating at 900 and 1800MHz.

Logic would dictate that the much-higher frequency WorldMax is going to need a lot more than 3000 base stations if they're going to provide any kind of ubiquity of coverage - which will be necessary if they really want to compete with the mobile networks.

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Posted by Mobile Innovation at June 18, 2008 | Permalink

Google Inc. showed off its nearly completed mobile software system to about 3,000 computer programmers Wednesday, hoping to cultivate more services and advertising for people on the go.

Although brief, the demonstration at the Internet search leader's annual developer conference in San Francisco represented the most extensive public look so far at "Android" — an open-source platform being designed for "smart" phones and other mobile devices that surf the Web. Android was first announced nearly seven months ago.

The bells and whistles unveiled Wednesday included: a way to unlock phones by drawing a specific shape on the touchscreen instead of entering a password; bookmarks for favorite Web sites on the device's home page; a "compass" tool that automatically roams with the phone while a user looks at photographic images of a city map; a magnifying tool to zoom in on Web content; and a mobile version of the video game "Pac Man."

The demonstration relied on touchscreen technology similar to Apple Inc.'s iPhone, but Android can also be tailored to work with a tracking ball, said Andy Rubin, who is overseeing the project.

While acknowledging the work on Android is nearly done, Rubin deflected a question about how much longer consumers will have to wait for a phone powered by the new software. Sticking to the timetable Google has used throughout the project, Rubin said Android will hit the market some time during the final six months of this year.

Several handset makers, including Samsung Electronics Co., HTC and LG Electronics Inc., are among the 34 partners that Google has recruited to help launch Android.

Google also hopes programmers will create a wide variety of products that will run on Android. That's one of the reasons the Mountain View-based company chose to flaunt the free software at the developers' conference.

By making it easier and more appealing for people to access the Internet on their cell phones, Google believes it eventually will make more money from the ads it shows next to search results and other Web content. The company also is starting to show more video advertising on its YouTube subsidiary, which already is a staple on the iPhone and received a special button in Wednesday's demonstration of Android.

Google is expected to generate more than $20 billion in advertising revenue this year, but most of that money will come from ads viewed on personal computers.

With about 3 billion mobile phones already on the market, some analysts believe Google could pull in nearly $5 billion annually from the mobile market within five years.

Google is also trying to boost its profits by selling more software services over Internet connections to businesses, universities and government agencies.

The company also wants to make it easier for outside developers to create applications on the Web. Even if those applications aren't on Google's Web site, the company figures it is bound to get more search requests — and more advertising opportunities — if people are doing more things online.

In April, Google handled nearly 62 percent of the search requests in the United States, according to comScore Inc.

Google's success so far is the primary reason Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, spent several months trying to buy Yahoo Inc. before withdrawing its oral offer of $47.5 billion 3 1/2 weeks ago when the two sides couldn't agree on a price.

Microsoft currently is discussing a smaller deal with Yahoo but hasn't ruled out the possibility of renewing its takeover attempt.

To help developers introduce more online products, Google last month began offering free computing power and storage on a limited basis under a service called "App Engine."

Google opened App Engine to all comers Wednesday and disclosed plans to begin offering extra capacity, for a fee, later this year. The service will remain free for up to 500 megabytes of storage and enough computing capacity to support 5 million monthly views of a site's Web pages.

Each additional gigabyte will cost 15 cents to 18 cents per month. Google estimated a user would pay $40 to $50 per month for enough capacity to support up to 10 million page views per month.

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Posted by Mobile Innovation at March 28, 2008 | Permalink

According to the latest research on smartphone markets from ABI Research, Nokia has maintained its leadership position with a 56.4% share of the 70.9 million units shipped in 2006. Nokia sold 40 million smartphones in 2006, compared to 28.5 million in 2005. Motorola also had a strong 2006 and occupied the second position with 8.5% market share, driven by the success of its Linux-based devices in China, most notably the MING.

At the same time, Symbian's strong position in the smartphone operating system market is under continued and increasing threat.

According to mobile wireless research analyst Shailendra Pandey, "The key in differentiating smartphone products still lies in the physical design, and the look and feel of the user interface. The right combination of size, form factor, operating system, and bundled applications will determine the success of a smartphone." In addition to the usual features, consumers are now increasingly seeking smartphones that have touch screens, MP3 players, Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth, fast processors, and lots of memory as well as an expansion card slot.

Posted by Mobile Innovation at March 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Google is hoping to revolutionize the cell phone industry with its Android development platform. Early prototypes running the open-source software were on display at the 3GSM Congress in Barcelona.

Posted by Mobile Innovation at February 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)