GoMo Mobile Search News

More mixed messages over the iPhone

Rating: It's useless in Germany but I'd like to sell it to the Dutch. Eh?

By Tony Dennis

The established cellular industry's ambiguous attitude to Apple's infamous iPhone has just been exemplified by remarks made by a Dutch mobile operator, KPN's Ad Scheepbouwer. He described the device as "pretty useless", then went on to say that he wasn't averse to selling it in the Netherlands where Apple has yet to select a unique partner.

Scheepbouwer was, of course, referring to the iPhone's impact in the German market where T-Mobile has apparently sold a mere 70, 000 units.
That compares to around 700,000 new subscribers which KPN's E-Plus German network signed up in the last quarter. It also compares to the 20,000 or so iPhones per day which Apple claims to be selling globally.

Vringo tries for new mobile rich media format

Rating: Will anyone bother with video ringtones, though?
by Tony Dennis

Calling yourself the sponsor of the 'World's Tiniest Film Festival' does at least generate a modicum of interest. Following up with a claim that you're making Personalisation 2.0 a reality is the clincher.
What are the guys at Vringo up to with their video ringtone sharing, then? After a little bit of investigation, it turned out that while I liked the idea, I'm not entirely convinced that video ringtones will take off as a fad. The whole thing is too fiddly.

Nuvifone

Rating: touch my GPS advertising device baby

I was going to put this on my birthday wish list -but considering that its not out until Q3 08 - I will have to wait for Christmas.

Garmin (which I think is what the Geek's would buy before the "chav" TomTom) has annouced the Nuvifone.

Ok, I hate the name but I do like the first look of the device. Its like a beefy brick but with strange appeal because of the touch screen.

Garmin has struck a deal with Google but what hit me is that the routes go to Garmin's routes and not Google Maps. This is vital. So users can save and click locations and then save to the device. On my in-car GPS you can a similar system but it works "online" with Google Maps and it can be costly if you are driving for a long time to keep the connectivity via Edge.

An unexpected reason to buy an iPhone

Rating: dunking Apples By Annie Turner

My Apple-fiend, geek friend Andy has just texted me to say that he dropped his iPhone down the loo last night (he was at a party, surprise, surprise) and although it was a bit temperamental for 12 hours, it's now working perfectly. Don't try this at home though.

First Google now AdMob sees iPhone traffic rage

Rating: it’s the browser (source)

AdMob has reported a giant leap for iPhone mobile browser impressions over Christmas. The jump was from 350K impression before the holiday season to 550 impressions after.

Google sees surge in iPhone Traffic

Link: NY Times
There is an interesting review in the New York times today. It says that at Christmas, traffic to Google from iPhones surpassed all incoming traffic from any other type of mobile device. But his rise only lasted a matter of days.

China Mobile cores the Apple out of iPhone talks

Rating: I don’t want to share my data revenue with you baby

According to the Guardian, China Mobile has ended talks with Apple for the iPhone.
China Mobiel stock is down as a result – read article here.

tvCompass marries WAP and TV remote

Rating: tie the digital media knot?

I've heard the word convergence being used in the high tech industry on multiple occasions, but never before had I thought that a merger between a WAP browser and a TV remote control was feasible. But tvCompass is offering such a device in the shape of a Digital Media Remote (DMR).
What tvCompass realised is that when you put an LCD screen inside a Wi-Fi enabled TV controller, you have to find some means of enabling the user to view internet content. Rather than re-invent the wheel, the company decided to use an existing standard – WAP.
So it struck up a deal with Winwap Technologies to incorporate a WAP browser inside its DMR. So WAP isn't dead after all.

CES: Megellan and Google to partner for local mobile search

Rating: this increases the price of mobile search

I have written in depth and at length about the cost of mobile search and how its paramount to its success. But my analysis must be hammering on deaf ears.

Google and Megellan have partnered for local mobile search services. Megellan has announced a new range of navigation device which integrates Google Local Search.

CES: MOTO Z10

Rating: The design rocks!

The new MOTO Z10 is a complete, pocket-sized, mobile film studio. This stylish kick slider makes it easy to capture high-quality video, edit clips, create transitions between scenes and add title slides and a soundtrack(1). Then, budding filmmakers can upload their creation to share with friends and family through any number of Web sites such as YouTube, Google, Yahoo! and ShoZu.

CES Global Sony Ericsson Walkman W760 launched –but what about the impact on local search?

Rating: passion, GPS and music

The first thing that sprung to my mind when I read about the new global Walkman the W760 was that built in GPS and Google Maps as well as music and step by step directions – sounded impressive. The send thing was – why would users log in to a WAP portal for mobile directions if the handset is offering them from the idle screen or the application menu instantly?

The perils of SIM swapping @ Xmas

Rating: Why hasn't Orange bought into remote diagnostics
by Tony Dennis

Elsewhere I've just recounted the sad tale of a British woman given a spanking new Sony Ericsson Walkman handset by her son for Xmas. And it didn't work properly.
I eventually managed to get to the bottom of the problem for the pair. The answer was simple. Her SIM card wasn't correctly provisioned for data.
I don't think this will prove to be an isolated incident because it resulted from a very common practice. That is, a recipient removing the SIM which came with the new pre-paid handset and inserting an old existing SIM instead.

MIDs and PMPs pose threat to smartphones

Rating: Well worth watching out for at CES, Las Vegas
by Tony Dennis

I normally take Intel's predictions with a large pinch of salt mainly because the company's blatant motivation in any announcement is just to sell more of its processors. But there just might be some substance in its claim for discovering a new device category – MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices).

What made me change my mind about MIDs was reading a new SDK release from browser vendor, Opera, which cited one of its best customers – Archos. This company offers its customers a Portable Media Player or PMP which looks very suspiciously like a MID to me.

O2's iPhone stats make gripping reading

Rating: EDGE device shows the way for mobile data
by Tony Dennis

Right at the start of the Festive Season, O2's incoming CEO for Europe – Matthew Key – decided it would be a jolly good idea to pass on some very interesting statistics to the FT. Considering the significant picture they painted of data usage by O2's customerbase, you'll forgive me for revisiting them here.

Key revealed that an impressive 60 per cent of the iPhone users O2 has acquired were sending and receiving more than 25 MB of data per month. By comparison less than1.8 per cent of O2's other contract customers did the same.

If you ever wanted evidence of the iPhone's ability to provide easy web surfing and easy access to email, well, here it is. 

The stating of the blindingly obvious, surely?

Rating: living on another planet

JupiterResearch has produced a new report (Mobile Internet: Leave the Browser at Home on the Desktop) that found few people are migrating "desktop" activities to mobile phones. E-mail is one of the most widely used apps that has migrated to mobiles, but frequent users are still hard to find, apparently.

Jupiter reckons this means that the way to improve take-up and usage would be through enabling access via a widget or applet instead of the browser. Not convinced this is the whole story. I cannot bear the idea of receiving and dealing with several hundred emails a day on a mobile device, it’s easy enough to miss the few gems in the slew of rubbish on a 28in screen Mac. Email has reached such epic proportions that it is in danger of becoming counter-productive. Simply transferring email onto mobile isn’t going to help.

Still, I do see the point. David Schatsky, president of JupiterResearch, comments, “Browser alternatives such as widgets or applets that allow content to be easily accessed from a home screen or with just a few clicks [actually a few clicks is not good enough, David]…so that accessing information in this manner will eventually become second nature."

I have only one comment. Has anyone at Jupiter heard of or used an iPhone or an HTC Touch? The value of applets and widgets has been understood already by a number of us on planet Earth

MEF Live Lunch with Alcatel-Lucent Andrew Brown

Rating: eye opener

By Bena Roberts

I am ashamed to say it that generally when I hear the term Alcatel-Lucent; the immediate perception of “boring” springs to mind. In my earlier days, I sat through many a network infrastructure meeting.

Now in my own business and new role, I felt that I could just avoid the company altogether. That is until Andrew Brown Alcatel-lucent’s mobile application guru sat down next to me for lunch in Hong Kong.

Mobility World Congress: Hossein Moiin Group VP Technical Strategy – T-Mobile International

Rating: Taking advantage of the opportunities in your next generation mobile networks to deliver innovative and profitable services.

By Bena Roberts

According to T-Mobile’s Hossein Moiin we are in a tussle and every mobile operator is fighting for the same customer. This is only going to get worse moving forward when we move to an IP world. Then services providers and brands will also be jumping on the same competitive landmine.

Nokia predicts 25% of entertainment by 2012 will be created within peer communities

Rating: tell me something I don’t know

By Bena Roberts

According to Nokia mobile-mash-ups are the way forward and (from the press release)
of the 9,000 consumers we surveyed:

Another twist in the German iPhone tale

Rating: ouch

By Annie Turner

Last week a court in Hamburg decided that customers should have the option of buying an unlocked version of the iPhone that could be used on any German network, without being tied to a contract. T-Mobile and Apple promptly priced the unlocked iPhone at EUR 999 to put customers off doing buying it: an iPhone locked to the T-Mobile network costs EUR 399.

Now the German MVNO Debitel says it will offer a EUR 600 (USD 891) rebate to customers who buy an iPhone from T-Mobile Deutschland, but agree to use Debitel’s service. In effect, Debitel plans to stump up the difference in price between an unlocked iPhone and an iPhone subsidised by the T-Mobile if you sign up for its services. Debitel said it would begin offering iPhone contracts starting at EUR40 per month for 200 minutes, which is cheaper than T-Mobile's entry-level package of EUR 49 for 100 minutes.

Another shuddering blow to T-Mobile’s supposed advantage from being Apple’s exclusive partner and driving a coach and horses through Apple’s business model, yet again.

The big five roll on, but Motorola drops down the ranking

Rating: life on a Razr’s edge

By Annie Turner

Again according to Gartner’s figures, the world’s five biggest mobile phone makers have increased their market shares and accounted for 81.6% of the global market.

Nokia's sales to end users totalled 110.2 million units to attain a market share of 38.%, the highest year-on-year market share increase. The well-oiled machine moves on.

Samsung's sales to end users reached 41.8 million units and saw the vendor gain the number two position due to better management of its channel inventory. Sales of its Ultra Edition II series grew in Western Europe, where Samsung reached 21% market share, its strongest performance ever in the region. Snazzy design, competitive pricing and getting the channel right has paid huge dividends.

What is it with Motorola though? It has a history of not having enough stock at crucial times and making a mess with the channel. It never seems to learn its lesson, despite the fact that such fundamental supply errors cost it dear: in the third quarter it lost its number two ranking, dropping 7.6% market share compared with the same quarter last year. Heads need to roll. Yes, we all loved the RAZR and RAZR2 has been well-received, but one swallow doesn’t make a drinking binge.

Sony Ericsson's positive performance continued in the third quarter as sales reached 25.4 million units. More than you can say about one of its parent companies, Ericcson, which is in big, big trouble.

LG sold 20.5 million units in the third quarter of 2007 and reached a market share of 7.1%. Apparently LG faced stronger competition in markets such as India, where the CDMA market has become tough as operators did deals with new entrants such as ZTE. LG is between a rock and a hard place, facing competition from whippersnappers at the bottom and the bigger guys above - without having a huge amount of clout in the market. Nevertheless it has so far proved itself to be a flexible, wily operator.

Mobile continues to grow all over the world – well almost

Rating: the industry that cried wolf

By Annie Turner

Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users in the third quarter of this year reached 289 million units, a 15% increase over the same period last year, according to Gartner.

• In the Asia/Pacific region overall, mobile phone sales rose to 101.8 million units, a 26% increase from the third quarter of 2006. India saw the largest growth, shipping 24.5 million units during the period. In Japan, sales to end users in the third quarter of 2007 were 13.1 million units, an increase of 21.8% from the third quarter of 2006.

Now that’s interesting. A whacking increase over last year is to be expected in emerging economies such as India where teledensities are low, but almost 22% growth in the world’s most developed market, Japan?!

• Sales of mobile phones in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa reached 49.6 million units in the third quarter, a 3.5% increase from the same period last year.

This is the sad bit. These are the economies that need telecoms the most – the industry should be ashamed reading these figures, particularly in Africa’s case.

• Sales of mobile handsets to end users in Latin America reached 32.2 million units, an increase of 8% from the same period last year.

Could do better.

• The North American handset market continued to exhibit strong growth with sales to end users reaching 45 million units in the third quarter of 2007, a 10.3% increase over the same period in 2006.

Ditto. According to The Economist's publication The World in 2008, Americans have more access to cash machines (ATMs) than mobile phones.

• Sales of mobile phones in Western Europe reached 47.2 million units, a 14.9% increase year-on-year. Even though only a small number of new models were launched in the third quarter, replacement sales remained strong.

Again, surprisingly high, for my money, in GSM’s home markets.

For the full year, Gartner expects the total number of handsets sold to amount to 1.134 billion or slightly more, driven by a quarter-on-quarter growth of at least 10% and, possibly, as high as 15% during the fourth quarter.

So what’s all the doom and gloom about, unless you’re Motorola of course (blog on the big M’s plight imminent, stay tuned)?

France squeezes the pips out of Apple’s business model

Rating: clash of cultures

By Annie Turner

France Telecom's CEO, Didier Lombard, said this morning that Orange expects to sell 100,000 iPhones between the official launch tomorrow evening and the end of the year. Not that huge a target, considering we’ve got Christmas in between. The question is, what will happen in the longer term?

Apple has already run into trouble in Germany where Vodafone is suing T-Mobile, accusing it of anti-competitive behaviour over its exclusive deal with Apple and in France, Apple is legally obliged to sell unlocked phones, which is entirely contrary to its model of exclusive distribution with a single favoured operator.

No price has been disclosed for the unlocked model in France, but at EUR 399, the iPhone-with-a-24 month-Orange contract is very expensive, in a market that subsidises most handsets so that most cost less than EUR 100, according to Ovum.

Then there are people like me who are waiting for the next generation that has the glitches ironed out and can handle 3G. In the meantime, I use my HTC Touch, albeit with gritted teeth, particularly as GoMo’s founder, Bena Roberts, has already got an iPhone and is delirious about the user interface. She would be. She’s used to a PC.

http://www.gomonews.com/pushing_the_barrier/2007/11/voda-germany-bl.html

Driving instructors for smartphones required

Rating: How do I get my handset's GPS going?

by Tony Dennis

I ran into Richard last night who proudly displayed his latest toy – a Nokia E90 Communicator. He's a long time user – having owned the original HSSCD version from Orange.
Now he's on O2 and can't get his GPS or push email working. But he was prepared to pay for lessons. The closest analogy I could come up with, was paying a driving instructor to teach you how to get the most out of a new sports car.

Texting with an iPhone is dangerous

Rating: high risk of RSI don't you know

by Tony Dennis

I've always maintained that texting with the iPhone is extremely tricky – especially if you have big hands like me. But I've never thought it could be dangerous. And that's now official.
Yes, texting with the iPhone could give you RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury). British Chiropractic Association spokesperson, Tim Hutchful, has declared that, "When you text or use the iPhone you use far smaller muscles in the hand, which can fatigue quicker."

Bringing Opera to the Indian masses

Rating: have a BREW with it

By Annie Turner

Opera Software, which claims to be the only company to put the web on any device, is to provide Opera Mini on Tata Teleservices’ new BREW-enabled handsets. The browser will be made available first on the Huawei C2900i, a low end BREW-enabled handset. Tata Teleservices says it is India's newest and fastest-growing telecom provider with a user base of more than 20 million.

Bubbletop by Orange in Alpha

Rating: RSS it, Orange style

I am a Bubbletop Alpha tester and can invite people to sign-up. If you are looking for a new RSS solution or want to check it out – its quite nifty.

I am still get used to the adding RSS feeds but deleting and customisation is quick and the style can be personalised quickly.

If you want to check it out – let me know!
More here: http://www.gomonews.com/pushing_the_barrier/2007/08/orange-pushes-p.html

AT&T pays per call with Ingenio

Rating: a-ha it wasn’t search it was advertising!

by Bena Roberts

So two weeks ago I got an anonymous tip from a very good source in the US mobile space. He said that ATT was about to acquire a mobile search company. Today its announced that AT&T agrees to acquire Pay Per Call company Ingenio.

Revol Wireless and Mobile Posse launch idle screen content and advertising solution

Rating: we heart the idle screen

Just like the further up you adverts are in the page makes AdSense money; anything in mobile on the idle screen rocks.

Revol Wireless and Mobile Posse are launching a commercial rollout of Mobile Posse’s ad solution. The service will be branded Revol Perks and will bring free ads and content to Revol mobile devices.
It says this is permission based – so opt-in. Once in; then the relevant software is downloaded to the phone.

JumpTap and BKI Media: What is Mobile Advertising?

What is Mobile Advertising? BKI Media explores how operators can exploit search to drive new revenue streams from media, content providers and brands in a way that consumers find userful in this the first of four papers sponsored by JumpTap.

Vodafone live! 4eva

Rating: ahhh!

by Bena Roberts

The amount of time that was spent to data and Vodafone live! and savings in the Vodafone analyst/press conference tells me that Vodafone is wising up to the tricks of the trade when it comes to branded mobile players and playing the “impoverished mobile operator”.

Mobile Asia congress – Yahoo! Go(es) Chinese, adds operators and focuses on consumers

Rating: go!

by Bena Roberts

Yahoo! is creating some noise in Asia at the Mobile Congress. Firstly, Yahoo! Go is now available in the Chinese language for Taiwan (which means that it’s probably going into HTC devices).

iPhone Germany – Web ‘n’ walk mobile search home page

Rating: sad, but true

by Bena Roberts

It’s sad, but true that I was desperate to check out the default search page on my new iPhone.

So clicking on the Safari icon on the idle screen you go straight to Web ‘n’ walk. On the demo in the shop the default was set to eBay; so I was eager to check out this page and see it was any different to search on a Microsoft device or the Sony Ericsson Walkman.

GoMo News iPhone shopping bag

Rating: it’s the packaging

by Bena Roberts

I think the appeal of the iPhone is all in the packaging. It’s like un wrapping a diamond – an experience. Everything is really thought out. Nokia should learn from this as there are even Apple car stickers in the box. Here is a picture of the bag. I love the fact that this has the 9th on it for the date. The small detail in that is great. It shows that a lot of thought went into it as today is also the 9th and I am going to save the bag. This might sound sad to the men out there and reading Tony’s blog on the boys’ toy. I assure you that there are some girl geeks out there.

iPhone is boys' toy. Official

Rating: M:metrics has done the profiling
by Tony Dennis

Although M:metrics' Paul Goode would probably be the last person to admit it, his company's research in advance of the impending iPhone release into Europe shows that the predominant purchasers of Apple's iPhone will be male and high earners.
The main problem with the company's iPhone's stats is that they provide the authors with a very bad case of schizophrenia. On the one hand they paint a very bad picture for the iPhone's appeal in Europe.
On the other, they show that Apple could make a very serious dent in the smartphone sector's current status quo.

World Telemedia: weirdos on your radar

Rating: relax, it won’t happen

By Annie Turner

Lior Baussi is a man on a mission. He thinks lots of us would like to talk to each other, but lack the bottle, so if we all had an RFI-type chip in our mobiles we could send people we like the look of anonymous SMS or MMS and see how they react. If it’s favourable, take it from there.

Will the OHA create a cohesive Linux mobile OS?

Rating: Too many players with no real expererience

By Tony Dennis

 

I've been doing a bit of analysis on who actually makes up the membership of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA)– backers of Google's Android initiative. And frankly it's not looking good. I'm tending to side with Symbian on this one and am increasingly convinced that the Linux community is too fragmented to make this whole project work.
Let's start with the good news – no fewer than seven major operators are backing this initiative. When that list includes China Mobile, KDDI and NTT DoCoMo, you have to sit up and take note.
Admittedly there's 13 software companies in the alliance, too. Or 15 if you count Google and eBay. Out of those, Wind River - for example – looks to have experience in creating what is wanted for the Android handset to work.

Vodafone and Nokia launch integrated services on mobile devices

Rating: mobile 2.0 is just one big mash-up

By Bena Roberts

Excuse me, while I take a breath.

At the start of the week it was Android and an Open Handset Alliance that will make a new OS for mobile spearheaded by Google. Then I read comments from companies such as Deutsche Telekom happy to support Google and the new alliance to make services more accessible and thrive globally.

Chat with Daniel James Orange World product manager

Rating: Yahorange!

by Bena Roberts

Over the past few months Orange has made some significant changes to its mobile portal services. OrangeWorld has changed and personalisation and recommendation is the major new focus.

In our analysis publications I have documented these changes since April 2007. But after speaking to Daniel James I realise that my device has not been displaying some of the innovation and newness of the services. Daniel agrees that search is vital for the portal and the redesigned Orange World is focusing on intuitive navigation to assist steady content flow and streamlined experience.

Orange and Sagem to accelerate product eco-design

Rating: Orange goes greener & GoGreenMo By Annie Turner

Orange and Sagem Communications have announced a strategic partnership to design products with a greatly reduced impact on the environment.

From Goog to gPhone to Android – Open Handset Alliance

Rating: so in reality a gphone is nowhere in sight

by Bena Roberts

So after all the hype, the reality is that has teamed up with 30 players in the mobile space to launch an Open Handset Alliance. gPhone software might be coming but my experience with open alliances is that things take time – a lot of time (look at Freemove).

But basically the new alliance is called Android

T and my shadow

Rating: Web and Stalk the iPhone
By Tony Alton

If you are an operator nowadays you are legging it around various Chinese sweat shops trying your hardest  to find the next shiny phone with bigger bells and louder whistles to sign exclusively.  T-Mobile's latest attempt to (yawn) take on the likes of the iPhone is the HTC Shadow.    It's got a big bright screen, shiny keys, a spinny wheel and runs on WIndows Mobile 6. It doesn't however have 3G connectivity, or a foldout tray on which you can put your cup of tea on or a plasma ray which you can use to zap people who annoy you.  Useless.