The Others: Where Android, Symbian & LiMo are

The title of this post is not meant in any way derogatory but with all the hype about the iPhone it is sometimes easy to forget that we are talking about a niche product that will probably remain a niche product (albeit a powerful and cool one!). In the rest of the world (feature phones aside), a few consortia are fighting for the open-source market, which is - let's face it - a considerably larger piece than the small premium segment served by Apple.

So, where were we? There is the LiMo Foundation, which is onto establishing a mobile Linux standard. There is the Symbian Foundation and there is Android, a Linux-based OS from the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. One by one then:

LiMo Foundation

LiMo boasts a membership based comprised of the Who's Who in mobile. Powerhouses from around the world like Vodafone, Orange,

Verizon Wireless, NTT DoCoMo, Telefonica, SFR, TIM and SK Telecom, Samsung, NEC, LG, Panasonic, Huawei, Motorola, and ZTE (and quite a few more) are all in there. LiMo has released an SDK a while ago. Now though, they decided that enough is enough and that the world should know that their OS was actually making headway. In 2009, there will be new handsets based on LiMo's s

tandards released by Orange, Telefonica, Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom and Verizon Wireless. Now, that's a statement. Non-phone devices are in the works, they say...

There are already more than 20 LiMo phones out there (without very many people having realized it). They include such mundane devices like Motorola's U9, ROKR EM30, ROKR Z6 and ROKR E8 as well as the RAZR2. Panasonic and NEC pboth produced a whole raft of devices for NTT DoCoMo. See here for a list of available phones.

Symbian

Symbian of course is coming from a differen

t mould: having been (co-)owned by Nokia for, like, ever, there are already over 200m devices running on its OS. After going open-source, they are working on consolidating the sister formats S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) now into one. Membership-wise, they're not doing badly either: they target to having more than 100 members by year-end. Membership with them is only $1,500 p.a. It remains to be seen to what extent they will extend their handset footprint beyond Nokia though. Little has been heard so far...

Android

Both foundations felt compelled to state their cause, also in response to Eric Schmidt's continued mantra that 2009 will be very, very strong for Android. The Open Handset Alliance had gone off to a well-publicized start with the T-Mobile G1. They recently announced that it had sold 1m devices (regarding which some people pointed out that Apple shipped as many iPhones on the first weekend), and are now gearing up more devices for launch (Vodafone got its hands on the HTC Magic). Samsung, LG, HTC and Sony Ericsson have all announced Android devices this year, and the first Samsung (I7500) has just been officially confirmed.

Multiple Membership

Wait a minute? Samsung? Weren't they part of the LiMo foundation? Well, yes, and that is part of the problem: a lot of the big players have their fingers in all the pies (and why should they not?). This is favouring Apple since they are a single organization producing hardware and software. It could also be argued that it is favouring Android because Google throws so much marketing and PR behind it. However, maybe not. The big OEMs and the big carriers all work according to their own agenda. And this might very well be a very different one to Eric Schmidt's: to an OEM, production cost, stability and versatility without impacting standardization are key. To a carrier, a lot will (also) ride on the ability to customize the handset so as to give it a distinct branded feel. Less PR from someone like Google makes it easier to them to focus on their own brand.

So: rock-solid, clean code, transparent and clear SDKs, no hidden hooks will mean that a lot of the feature phones that create the vast majority of handset sales (even if sales of the "classic" J2ME ones had been declining in 2008 when compared to smartphones) will quite possibly see a larger and larger move towards the open platforms. It makes it cheaper to produce and, with Apple having given the world the app store idea, content should flow in sooner or later. They "only" need to keep the standards, well, standard!

The iPhone is of course looming large, and it is the one device that has shown the old school of the telco world how 21-st-century marketing can impact market perception and sales. They have also all realized that this might actually be a very good thing, hence the eager discussions many are purported to be having on getting their hands on the next generation. However, last time I looked, the streets were not full of Porsche Boxsters either. Quite a few Hyundais, Fiats, Peugeots, BMWs, Volvos, well, you get it...

Why an iPhone Deal with Verizon Wireless would be Cool

Today, interesting reports surfaced (or re-surfaced?) according to which Verizon Wireless and Apple are in discussions about bringing the iPhone to the former. However, because Verizon runs on a CDMA network and Apple has only ever supported GSM, commentators reckoned that this deal might be for Verizon's next-generation LTE network. And this is when one can start dreaming...

To recap: Verizon will be amongst the (if not The) first tier-1 network operators rolling out the next generation of wireless networks under the LTE standard (see here for more on this). Under LTE, unprecedented wireless bandwidth will be available, comparable (or exceeding) what households in Western and Far-Eastern countries have in their homes today. But then you would have it of course wherever you are (well, if the respective technology is installed).

Due to the immense speeds, a lot of people think that the first big change will be on the (computer) broadband side of things: no need for wireline access if the speeds are the same and you can actually wander around and through town and always be with your provider. Simplicity, ease of use, bliss of connected life.

When it comes to mobile handsets (previously known as phones), the iPhone is of course (and despite the heckling by its many critics) arguably the most successful multimedia device known to man (so far). To marry this with these speeds? Ah, what would await us (see here for earlier thoughts). The iPhone (if they can fix the battery life) would be perfectly suited to bring the new lush wireless life to the masses (albeit first to the more affluent ones): rich graphics, innovative inputs and the fairly unique form factor would show the opportunities off rather beautifully and could hence aid to avoid the post-3G hangover where people asked themselves why on earth they should get 3G phones: there was nothing much to do with them (other than being able to make "faster" phone calls...).

The most common uses would arguably be music and apps with the latter being even more successful than the former: it is estimated that iTunes took 6 years to record 6.8 bn downloads; the App Store did 1 bn in only 9 months (or 1.3bn p.a.), which would equal 7.8 bn in 6 years if no further growth would occur. Anyway, with 1.1 bn downloads p.a. not being too shabby either, let's take both, so what do we get?

On the music side, it would either mean quick and high-quality downloads or, more likely (?), streamed music. The same applies to the VOD and movie segments.

On the apps side, LTE would arguably push the envelope into two directions: (1) high-end, graphically rich games, and (2) ultra-connected social games that seamlessly bridge media platforms. Now: both types had their advent on the iPhone. Speak to any number of high-end games makers, and they will tell you that their life became much easier since the iPhone was there. Look at products like EA's Scrabble (with full Facebook integration), Playfish's games (coming from the other end, i.e. from Facebook to iPhone), etc and you have the foundations laid here, too. With LTE, all this becomes mass-marketable to a much higher extent. And this would be real fun!

Top 10 Phones in the US, December 2008: the Ascent of the Smartphone

There's new data out on the bestselling handsets, and this time it is not being derived from accessory sales (which may have its flaws as I pointed out here) but from a survey amongst service reps and store managers across the 4 big US mobile networks (Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile; these comprise 85% of the total subscriber base). Now, this would arguably reduce the recorded sales for the iPhone since this is also being sold via Apple's own retail stores as well as Walmart, Best Buy, etc. So again not an entirely accurate yardstick, huh?

It is noteworthy that only one handset is available on more than one carrier (and, yes, it ranks prominently amongst the top 1) and that Nokia, despite all waiting, has still not managed to break the top 10.

It is also noteworthy that most of the handsets would certainly be classified at smartphones (the Samsung Rant might be the exception). And this is certainly good news. The T-610 and RAZR may finally have left the building...

So here we go (number in brackets is the previous month's rank):

1. (1) Blackberry Curve

2. (2) iPhone

3. (3) Blackberry Storm

4. (6) LG Voyager

5. (4) LG Dare

6. (5) Blackberry Bold

7. (-) Samsung Rant

8. (9) Samsung Behold

9. (10) Samsung Instinct

10. (8) LG Env2

Source: Rankings are by Avian Research LL.C. (via the above link)

Vodafone ponders and prepares to bulk up

Did you know about Vodafone's Flipfont app? No, I didn't think so; it seems to have gone more or less unnoticed. Well, it allows you to - listen to this - customise your phone frontpage. Woah! How cool is that? The downside? Well, you need to pay £1.99 for the pleasure, per screen! I don't think so... And, apparently, (now) so does Vodafone. Amidst the iPhone/AppStore rage and the "revelation" that UI might actually matter to people, they seem to have realized that changing a font will not necessarily change the uptake of consumption to new levels. And because they cannot have the iPhone (although it has the Blackberry Storm, which is performing much better than the initial damning reviews would have suggested), they will launch their very own app store, or so they said (if you read Dutch, that is; how nice that we have a Dutch blogger amongst us who translated it for us).

This is not the only bit of news though: Vodafone also wants to tighten relationships with two other players in the market, and these are none other than giants China Mobile and Verizon Wireless. Now if you thought that Vodafone was large, take this in: together, these 3 carriers combine 821 million (!) subscribers (Vodafone 280m, China Mobile 457m and Verizon Wireless 84m [although I believe that VF counts a number of VZW subscribers proportionate to its shareholding in]).

Here's what Vodafone's CEO Vittorio Colao told the FT:

“If you think of three players, China Mobile is very strong in China; it’s a big country. Vodafone is very strong in Europe, Africa, India. Verizon is very strong in the US.

“If these three companies could work more closely... in the management of customers, procurement and service creation, we could be unbeatable, quite frankly.”

And right he is...

Mobile Music on the Rise: 40-45% of Digital Revenue for UMG

January is MIDEM time (even though, sadly, I cannot go this year), which means that music dominates the news. In an interview, the EVP of Universal's eLabs, Rio Caraeff on the revenues of Universal Music Group that:

"about 40 to 45% of our overall digital business is coming from mobile channels like Verizon and AT&T. [...] On much of our frontline pop or R&B or urban releases [...] we're seeing mobile comprising 20-45% of the [overall] revenue for those artists."

Wow! Universal's digital sales have been growing by 33% during the first 3 quarters of 2008, and they seem determined to fully converge "online", "mobile", etc into one:

"The consumer doesn't want a mobile-only experience - they want an all-digital multi-platform experience. They want to consume their music on their mobile handset [and] on PC and other online platforms. Partners like Verizon and AT&T wanted to have multi-platform online experiences as well. [...] Now at Universal, we don't have a mobile business. We don't have an online business. We just have one multi-platform digital business."

Amen to that! And how right he is. Universal also adapted pricing, so that a song costs the same no matter on which digital platform you buy it. And, apparently, mobile storefronts play a role, specifically Amazon's MP3 storefront, which is pre-loaded on the G1, the first Android phone. So it's app stores (or markets) all over this year, huh?

This shows that the majors learned from the pain of recent years and now get a grasp on the digital world. Good stuff that!

Most Precious Mobile Operator Brands

And the winner is... China Mobile. Hard to guess, huh? Some research shows that the Chinese carrier's brand is worth $30.79bn. Vodafone and Verizon took the other spots on the podium. The top 10 is below (courtesy of the good folks at telecoms.com). And for some (by now a little outdated) comparison for how they rank amongst other industries, see here.

The study applies a royalty based on forecast of sales, brand strength (from qualitative panel data) which priced in market share, growth, price positioning, market scope, preference, awareness, relevance, heritage and perception. They complement these slightly fluffy markers with data on turnover, subs, churn, market share, ARPU, profitability, etc and then took the average score of the two to determine the royalty rate applicable. Apply tax and (low) discount rate and off you go. Pretty simple, isn't it? And, yes, I still think Cingular was cooler than AT&T... ;-)

China Mobile	China Mobile	China	Asia	30,793
2	Vodafone	Vodafone	UK	Europe	22,131
3	Verizon	Verizon Communications	US	North America	20,382
4	AT&T	AT&T	US	North America	18,886
5	T-Mobile	Deutsche Telekom	Germany	Europe	16,802
6	Orange	France Telecom	France	Europe	15,489
7	NTT DoCoMo	NTT DoCoMo	Japan	Asia	14,871
8	KDDI	KDDI Corp.	Japan	Asia	14,454
9	Movistar	Telefonica	Spain	Europe	10,799
10	Sprint	Sprint Nextel	US	North America	9,661

Adobe Flash Opens Screens

Flash maker Adobe isn't tiring on bringing out news these days: this time it announced the "Open Screen Project", in which it is partnering with a plethora of mobile industry giants, namely ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Intel, LG, Marvell, Motorola, Nokia (see also here re Microsoft's Flash competitor Silverlight), NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson (see also their initiative to marry J2ME and Flash here), Toshiba and Verizon Wireless as well as major media players such as the BBC, MTV Networks and NBC Universal.

It said "the project is dedicated to driving rich Internet experiences across televisions, personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics. Adobe said it would open access to Flash technology, accelerating the deployment of content and rich Internet applications (RIAs)." This will include:

• Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
• Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
• Publishing the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
• Removing licensing fees – making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

Adobe says its Flash Player reaches over 98% of Internet-enabled PCs and more than 500m mobile devices today. It now expects more than 1bn handsets to ship with Flash technology by the end of 2009 (this means a year faster than previously forecasted). Flash technology is used to deliver vector graphics, text, interactivity and application logic, video and sound over the Internet. Currently, more than 75% of broadcasters who stream video on the Web use Flash technology (YouTube will be a big contributor to that number).

Following my many posts on mobile Flash (see e.g. here and here), this now looks like a real assault on the medium. Given that Flash reduces developer cost (less porting because of vector-based graphics) means it is a likely boost to the content industry: more and richer content at lower cost. Could this be it?

News Flash (Lite)

A while ago, I blogged about a cool new site French company Mobitween had launched, namely on user-generated games. Now, the good folks are a bridgehead in mobile Flash (they had their fingers in the code more or less from day 1). So, where is Flash Lite today?

Here's the install base numbers as recently released:

From just over 14% to 23% in a year (yes, I know, this is based on a flat 2 bn handsets out there)... In any event, that is rather respectable, don't you think?

Flash has the great advantage that its graphics are vector-based and therefore scalable. This means that most of the porting nightmare that contributes to 30-50% of the cost of mobile games, etc would fall away. Nice thought... It would make the whole commercial model of mobile games dramatically rosier. And it appears to be gaining traction: e.g. does Adobe make Flash Lite available on Verizon phones (and I've been told - confidentially - of one publisher having recorded more than 2m Flash game downloads on there already).

Flash is particularly good for casual games, which is, as everyone close(-ish) to mobile games knows, all the hype for the (small) mobile screen, and rightly so, as it is normally easier to adapt a casual game to the screen limitations (not even starting to talk about processing power) that are inherent to mobile phones. A natural fit, huh? Just look what Mobitween and their users have come up with! And I don't even get started on Atom/Shockwave (read an interview here) and all the others out there...

Is it then that we only need to wait until Flash Lite (finally) reaches the mass market? On the web, Flash hurt Sun's Java badly. Will the same happen on mobile? Or will Sun be smarter this time, and make sure that its currently dominant position will be reinforced by making it easier for developers to publish on their platform? The jury is out...

ESPN Mobile gets 4.9m hits in 24 hours (10% more than on PC site)

MoCoNews points us to an article reporting about some noteworthy stuff on the usage of the revamped ESPN Mobile (you will recall that the full-blown MVNO they had tanked horribly and the service was then re-launched as a mobile internet destination). They (well, not they but "an executive briefed on the data") said that for one 24-hour period, ESPN's wireless NFL section, with 4.9 million visits, topped the PC NFL section's 4.5 million visits. And that's impressive!

In the same article, M:Metrics was quoted to point out that it was convenience that did the trick, and this is of course where the data might be a bit distorted (it might not be but it's unclear): ESPN Mobile is available in two flavours. ESPN MVP is exclusively to Verizon high-end data subscribers who get it for free. So this basically supports the case that the mobile internet will become a fully-fledged "competitor" to the "old" internet once bandwidth and cost for bandwidth will be similar to the internet proper; and that is not a big miracle, is it? The normal ESPN Mobile is available to anyone but may be subject to data charges. It would be interesting to know the shares the two sites/apps have in the above data.

But I don't want to divert from the fact that 4.9m mobile hits inside 24 hours is great by any measure. Sport is a wonderful starting point for mobile internet usage anyway as it is so time-sensitive (it is not really the same thing to record a live game and then watch it hours later after the city is steeped in the team colours already) and people all over the world are so passionate about their favourite sports and teams. Great stuff, surely!

Verizon's group hug: now it also supports Android

Verizon's U-turn continues: the carrier now announced that they would support the Android OS promoted by the Google-led Open Handset Alliance. This comes only days after Verizon was met with a lot of raised eyebrows after it declared it would open up to handset manufacturers, service and application providers. Upon the launch of Android, Verizon was amongst a select few that were visibly reluctant to support the initiative, reportedly for fear of impinging on their customer base by not being able to control the user experience.

This move may well be an attempt to prevent Google from bidding in the 700 MHz spectrum, the auction for which goes ahead tonight: Google may not see the necessity to bid just as aggressively if it can basically fall back on an OS-agnostic carrier as it can then continue doing what it does best, namely sell ads. The proximity of the dates may indeed point into that direction.

Verizon Wireless had created the most profitable U.S. cellular business by tightly restricting the devices and applications allowed to run on its network. However, its management apparently now came to conclude that it was time for a radical shift: this will have been out of fear to be isolated in a niche when the rest of the market was overrun by new, more powerful devices as well as media empires old and new both of which would bring a richness of offerings mid-term that Verizon could not have supported within the constraints of its tightly-controlled environment.

It may also have thought that opening up would help them to keep growing while containing costs; probably a bit of everything. That last bit is of course one of the reasons that led many partners to throw their weight behind the various OS campaigns that recently appeared to have picked up pace: the LiMo Foundation, C-based Nokia-owned OS Symbian and the Sony Ericsson and Motorola-owned UIQ (in which Motorola had just acquired a 50% stake; see here) will also be driven by the OEM's attempt to contain cost. Unified OS make mass production much cheaper (and the famously robust Linux kernel also will allow stability whilst being flexible enough to allow enough flavours to keep every marketing and UI expert happy, too).

Everyone coming to their senses? Oh, brave new world.

Verizon opens up

US #2 carrier Verizon, the famed high priests of the walled garden said they would open their network to 3rd party devices, applications and services. Skeptics say this might just be a move ahead of the spectrum auction for the 700MHz range, in which Google had declared an interest, too. Commentators say it might be an attempt to discourage Google from throwing its head into the ring but they maintain that VZW will not be seen to reducing itself to a bit pipe.

However, the commitment to open its network may also mean that Google, in the wake of its Android OS promoted with the Open Handset Alliance (see here), may no longer feel that they have to spend billions of dollars to acquire the bandwidth necessary to pave the way to customers: with an open network environment, Android-based devices may very well also be running on Verizon's network so Google may no longer need to go to the expense to providing an alternative route.

Apart from the considerations mentioned above, Verizon is under pressure to encourage device makers also from the neighbouring areas such as tablet PCs, dedicated gaming devices, etc to build hardware that works on its on EV-DO network rather than only on the UMTS-powered networks of most of its competitors. With ongoing convergence of the various screens and their inherent agnostic approach to whichever technology is being used, it is important not to fall behind as Verizon's network might otherwise become an isolated island with only sub-par devices and less choice than with competitors.

So whichever good or bad intentions Verizon may have, it is opening the walled gardens a little bit more, and that surely is a good thing!

The G-System: Google's mobile OS aka Android arrives

So, no GPhone -- yet. Google, with quite a number of partners, today announced the already much-rumoured "Open Handset Alliance" under which a Linux-based OS, nicknamed Android has been launched (the SDK will allegedly be available in a week's time). Here's a video explaining the deep thoughts of the creators (be quick: YouTube has removed it already...).

The whole industry had been waiting for this, and Google seems to have come up with a black-white thing: it goes back to its roots in open source but overlays it with Java, which has caused the content community a lot of headaches (every mobile phone translates it slightly differently, so one needs a gazillion ports). However, Google has teamed up with no less than 34 partners for the launch alone, including such giants as China Mobile, KDDI, Sprint Nextel, TIM, T-Mobile, Motorola (who seem to be dancing on a lot of weddings recently: UIQ and Linux Mobile are also on their plates), Samsung, HTC, Intel and eBay.

So what does it all mean? According to the members of the alliance, it will be better, bigger, faster for everyone: open source means more applications, less bugs and less cost. According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, it is "a fresh approach to fostering innovation in the mobile industry will help shape a new computing environment that will change the way people access and share information in the future." Commentators note that there is apparently one caveat: you’ll have to use Google for navigation. Now: does that bother anyone? Give me Internet on my phone on broadband speed and I happily surf with whoever gives it to me, I'd say. To enact a platform, supported by a lot of sector muscle, that makes the developers' life easier should be good for everyone indeed as it will undoubtedly bring more usage. Traditionally, carriers feared for the consistency of the user experience. Apparently, Verizon and AT&T have already voiced such concerns also here although the explanation sounds defensive at best: they fear too much advertising. Would it be safe to say they rather fear loss of control?

Quite a few companies have tried to take on mobile as the next frontier and quite a few fared rather miserably on the complexities of the environment presented by the sector (Disney's MVNO attempts, Infospace and a few others spring to mind). With Google's might this might be about to change though. A fresh breeze and a unified development platform would, in any event, be a good thing.

Interesting though that, as in recent releases on OS-driven initiatives, Nokia is again absent. This is not promising any good in terms of unifying the landscape, it seems. However, both Linux Mobile (on which Android is apparently based) and Symbian (in which Nokia holds a huge stake and which it intends to make its platform of choice) are C++-based. And that would be easing development pains after all: much easier to deal with than the Java layers, which until now were statutory but might only be optional going forth.

UPDATE 7 Nov 2007: Nokia has said its participation in Android is "not ruled out at all". It would work with it if it would see sense. Now, a convincing statement sounds differently but it IS noteworthy that the Finnish giant felt the need to comment on it so quickly.

Motricity acquires Infospace mobile assets

Now, this is a big deal: Motricity puts $135m in cash onto the table of the under-pressure Infospace people to acquire the remains of the Infospace mobile business, including search, storefronts, portals and messaging. The deal was financed by existing investors Carl Icahn and VC Advanced Equities (see reporting from MoCoNews here and here).

The acquisition marks the end of an odyssey into mobile by Inforspace, in which it first acquired and then effectively destroyed some of the brightest stars on the mobile content sky, including game developers Atlas (bought for $6m, sold for $1.5m), Elkware (bought for some $26m and then closed) and IOMO (bought for $15m, then closed in August 2007) as well as ringtone giants Moviso. They lost people, money and ultimately the businesses (e.g. IOMO's founders have recently opened their new shop, Finblade). What a battlefield...

Motricity's, so far predominantly a platform and storefront provider, entrant into the increasingly competitive content publishing space comes at a time where more and more players try to extend their reach on the value chain: one sees platform providers expanding into master content provider relationships, one sees publishers (e.g. Player X) seizing the same position, and all are in a quest to concentrate enough revenue and margin in order to be able to run a profitable business in an environment where still the majority of players are losing money.

The challenge for Motricity will be to grow its business outside the US, and this is arguably where the risks are hiddedn. In the US, the company claims to have now grown their distribution footprint to 11 of "top 13" North American carriers (which leave another 10 that are apparently not top), which however seems OK since they add two of the biggies which they couldn't reach before, namely mighty Verizon and AT&T (I still prefer the name Cingular!). The gamble is arguably being mitigated by the presumed synergies through the search, portal and messaging business, and this is where I suspect the balance of risk lies in respect of the financial considerations: because it harnesses Motricity's existing business, the venture into the publishing side of things appears somewhat less risky. All in all, a deal that might just make sense; if the money is adequate? Who could say? What proportion of growth will come through which part of the business? Hmmm. There have been deals that, on the face of it, looked more reckless in the past (remember the seemingly atrocious $145m Jamdat paid for Blue Lava [incl. $8m non-breakup fee to Tetris, LLC])? It paid off for them as then EA bought them for a rather sweet $680m. I would not suggest that the same will happen to Motricity although, looking at the monies invested into them to date, it will just about have to be the exit its investors are looking to.

Mobile Mesh Networks: now we're talking...

Swedish firm TerraNet is trialling a mobile mesh network, we read. In a mesh network, each handset works like a little base station, too. It is a peer-to-peer technology without the need for a base station and, hence without a network operator or carrier. TerraNet's devices currently have 1km range, i.e. unless there is another device within a range of 1km, it will not work.

However, should this technology become robust and sufficiently scaled, the new Vodafones and Verizons would probably be Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks, i.e. the big network vendors. Incidentally, Ericsson is said to have invested $3m in TerraNet. At present, a maximum of 7 hops can be done, and this would be limiting the distance that can be covered. However, the company apparently also offers a network node via a USB dongle and this could then connect to a VoIP system to bridge long-distance and go into another mesh network closer to the recipient.

Would this technology be available on a larger scale (and perhaps ultimately without the constraints of so many hops), this would then result in lower cost for users because there would be one less mouth to be fed in the value chain, and it so happens that this is the hungriest mouth at present. Terranet is said to be recognizing that the telcos won't be delighted about this (multi-media evangelists like Nokia's Anssi Vanjoki will however be uber-excited as it will boost multimedia offerings and the opportunities over there). Oh, dreaming of the future...

At present, the offering is geared to scarcely populated areas (the company runs trials in Tanzania and Ecuador), and the above-described problems might not be an issue there. In the contrary, it could be that operators would embrace the technology to expand coverage. The company also targets urban areas where people make lots of local calls, which would then be virtually free.

In those more urban areas, there may be problems with having enough available frequencies, and the struggle with the regulators in the space might indeed slow the deployment down significantly. This would probably be made even harder due to the political concerns of many countries when it comes to weakening some of their economic powerhouses (because this is what carriers also are).

Other commentators are also concerned with battery life but also note that, if the phones are replacing landlines, they can be left plugged into a power source (which would be defeating the purpose of the notion of being mobile though, I guess). Surely this would be solvable though.

Very interesting indeed, I think!

Amp'd files for Chapter 11 - Revisiting MVNO's

One down... Amp'd files for Chapter 11, citing the need for more time to ramp up its systems for demand. I wonder: shouldn't $360m in VC monies be enough to build systems that can cater for 200,000 customers? Given that Verizon provides the network and Motorola the handsets, that would mean that they took $1,800 per customer on all the rest; a bit stiff. Verizon is the biggest creditor with some $33m in receivables. So their wonderful ARPU wasn't that great after all, huh?

It's a bit of a bleak outlook, and whilst the offloading of debt might work this time, it puts some serious question marks behind the model of MVNO Amp'd tried to implement, namely one that tries to build a full infrastructure other than the actual base stations. Now, the question is old: is this really necessary? It has failed often: they are not the first to stop. ESPN did it. Has anyone ever heard of Extreme Mobile again? To remind you: they had announced a Vodafone-powered MVNO in the UK... and the site still says "coming soon".

Might perhaps be the call for a network provider that possesses some smart backend infrastructure allowing printing of customised invoices, sending of customised messages and provision of customised content be the way out? It would arguably be dramatically cheaper to have a network that rides on the back of a) a brand, b) retail distribution through the likes of Carphone Warehouse, BestBuy, MediaMarkt, FNAC, El Corte Ingles (depending on where you live) and c) "soft" customisation (i.e. through packaging rather than retail channel, etc).

What would be in it for the Vodafones and Verizons of this world? Lower churn! It is hard to get to real numbers but lore has it that the cost of one Mannesmann D2 customer when Vodafone bought them was a whopping $7,800 and that with - allegedly - 30% or so churn p.a. Surely no customer can use their phones enough to make that money back, me thinks... If churn could be reduced by, say, half if customers would stick with the brand due to higher loyalty, then the supporting carriers would make a killing! Customers are way more loyal to the football club they support, their politicial party of choice, the National Trust, U2, their Almer Mater, their home town - you call it affinity marketing, a concept that has been a great success for years e.g. for credit cards. Wouldn't a combination of this make a lot of sense? The thing that killed the market so far is greed: everyone wanted to own the customer front to end - when all the customer really wanted was good service, etc and this fuzzy warm feeling.

Get onto it. I believe it would work. Anyone here to try?

Prince-ly Guitar on Verizon

One I've been waiting for for a long time: an opportunity to post something on one of my all-time heroes (strictly music-wise!) , the man who plays at least 167 instruments, the only one who can walk on 19'' stilettos, the artist with the infallible fashion sense, namely the incredible Prince. We read that Verizon and Prince entered into a collaboration which they claim is an industry-first "direct-to-mobile relationship". Prince will release new single "Guitar" exclusively via Verizon. This leads a promotional campaign up to the new album "Planet Earth" which will be released in July.

Verizon will promote artist, song and - incidentally - its V Cast service via print, TV, radio and cinema. This strikes me as rather traditional really... However, Verizon and the artist have tied up a rather need package featuring nearly every sexy must-have service around these days: V Cast customers can hold their handset up to the TV set to identify and download the song - IF their phone as Song ID, that is. They can also simply go to Verizon's website and download it there. Upon release, the video will also be available on "licensed sites" YouTube, MySpace, Revver and Veoh.

As Prince isn't signed to a label, this will be the main piece of promotion for the album, and that is certainly a rather revolutionary affair, at least one never tried by people who weren't signed because they couldn't find a label (as had happened to the Arctic Monkeys a while ago who, having started off on MySpace, have since grown to become an established acts signed to Domino). This together with a hole bouquet of recent activity of the artist (everything ranging from new website, concerts in Minneapolis [7/7/7] and London [21 Nights, selling 140,000 tickets in 20 minutes] to a new perfume and cosmetics range [not sure if I'll try that one]) suggests a serious assault on the classic set-up of the music industry and the labels' stranglehold onto it. This had been weakened by the arrival of digital media but never broken.

If it pans out? I sincerely hope so - less for revolutionary zeal, more for one of the greatest artists of recent decades. But in any event is this one of the more exciting music promotions of recent times. Well done!

Although, I don't want to hide the bad: the world there is again defined as being North of Mexico and between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean only... Or are we non-Americans not worthy of some Prince-ly mobile musical delights?

Verizon strikes back (or does it?): Prada phone vs. iPhone

It does remain interesting, doesn’t it? Days after AT&T was confirmed to have the iPhone for a minimum of 5 years exclusively, Verizon comes back to announce the launch of the ultimate fashion device (in a rather literal sense), namely the Prada phone (or LG KE 850). Verizon was keen to stress that this will not be the only music phone they will offer but this seems to being the current main contender of the iPhone: it has similarly sleek looks, both have a touch screen and even the LG UI is somewhat Apple-esque (See review here).

One of the interesting things is to see how a phone that – in Europe – runs on the trusted MIDP 2.0 platform (and will, for Verizon, presumably run on the no less trusted BREW platform) will perform against the first one utilising Apple’s OS X. If Apple manages to have their OS run as smoothly and matter-of-factly as it does on their computers, we will all be up for a ride: whilst phones may not be as buggy as some of Microsoft’s earlier (or indeed current?) operating systems, Apple’s OS X is one hell of an elegant OS and supposedly superior to anything I have seen on the currently available systems. However, OS X requires quite a bit more in computing power than these, and this poses (at least) two challenges, namely a) battery life and b) speed.

LG’s Prada phone on the other hand has shown in the UK that it is a proper everyday device that works well (and looks good). It also comes with 3G (other than the iPhone) although of course it lacks WiFi. LG has recently shown that it has a nifty hand for great look-and-feel: the Chocolate, the Shine and the Prada phone all show a fantastically slick approach to handset design. Since LG phones run on a “usual” OS, all applications and games, etc that run on “normal” phones, also work for them. And Apple? Nothing I heard of. Even the iPod games have already been cracked (see here).

If one would assume that the iPhone performs well, it would however be sad if that was only for one operator/carrier. Will Apple make the same mistake it made on its superior Mac OS in the mid-80s, i.e. kill its market prospects by being to exclusive? One would hope that they have learned but perhaps their more recent success with a similar approach for the iPod has overshadowed the no doubt painful learnings they must have taken from being erased by Micrsosoft and the inferior DOS on the computer OS front. Let’s see…

ESPN Mobile 2.0

So ESPN Mobile is being reborn, this time as EPSN MVP and exclusive to Verizon V-Cast. To remind you: ESPN Mobile 1.0 was an MVNO that was mothballed 9 months after launch with an undisclosed but presumably low number of subscribers. The new ESPN Mobile is an application available on a couple of Motorola and LG phones (including all the very fashionable ones) and is apparently a pimped up version of the original application that had come pre-installed on the former MVNO's phones. Apparently BREW and some more dev makes it faster and sexier than the original Java app did.

The new MVP application is available for free to VZW’s high-end data subscribers, which are those who subscribe to the V-Cast service and buy its $15-monthly VPak subscription.

Learnings anyone?