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Mobile Entertainment & Commerce
...the analyst view
Edition Twenty Seven - 11th July 2007 | |
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Dear Industry Executive
Who is Apple going to choose for the iPhone across Europe?
There has been only one question on everyone in the mobile world’s lips this week: who’s it going to be who gets the iPhone in Europe? As US users get to grips with the device, most people assumed that Vodafone would probably get the gadget, thanks to its pan-European presence and sheer might. But as contentfutures goes to press, it looks like Vodafone has declined to be the distributor.
Telefonica looks set to get it in Spain, while its UK offspring O2 is front runner for the UK. A variety of operators across Europe are also in the frame, as Apple appears to be opting for using different operators in different countries to roll out the device.
Why so? Well, the rumour is that Apple’s terms were too constricting for Voda and they pulled out. Apple’s plan is to tightly control what applications are put out over the device and, as the Steve Jobs did to the music industry with iTunes, wants to ringfence the applications and content services rolled out on the iPhone. This appears to have stuck in Voda’s craw.
So is Apple going to revolutionise the mobile phone market? Well not exactly. It is only looking at a few million users in the massive US market. A similarly small proportion of people will probably go for the device in the UK and Europe. Within five years in may well be a more dominant device, but I can’t see that the established network operators and device makers are going to just let Apple roll over them.
As discussed a couple week’s ago in this very newsletter, the iPhone’s real impact is likely to be that handset makers, content, service and application developers all raise their game and the consumer wins — without having to shell out $500 on a handset.
So does it matter who gets it? Well it does to the MNOs. If Apple is to control much of what is done with the iPhone — and the revenues generated from it — then it is something of a Hobson’s choice for the network operators. There is the kudos of having the iPhone exclusively in each country market. On the other hand, it could prove disruptive to its ongoing plans for content services and advanced mobile apps. Is a two tier model going to spring up?
Yours
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Vyke to circumvent MNO VoIP blocking with software upgrade
Mobile VoIP company Vyke is poised to release an upgrade to its mobile VoIP software that will restore full mobile VoIP functionality to mobile handsets that have been intentionally blocked by mobile operators. Expected for release in Q4 of 2007, the forthcoming version of Vyke Mobile IP will provide users with a fully functional, stand alone mobile VoIP application that circumvents the mobile operator orchestrated removal of built-in handset VoIP capabilities, says the company.
Many mobile network operators are blocking the built in VoIP functionality in handsets - either technically or by making them prohibitively expensive to use — to try and prevent users from making free calls on mobiles using VoIP services such as Vyke and Skype.
Vyke has recently announced an agreement with The Cloud Networks Limited, the dominant European metropolitan area wireless network provider, giving Vyke users the ability to access mobile VoIP services across a network of 9,000-plus hotspots and 16 large area, metropolitan networks, including such areas as the City of London, Canary Wharf, Manchester and Amsterdam.
Kjetil Bhn, Chief Executive Officer for Vyke Communications, says that "The incumbent mobile network operators must be feeling very threatened by mobile VoIP. In the short amount of time that this immerging technology has been in the market, they have already responded by removing VoIP capabilities from mobile handsets that they sell and by introducing very restrictive contract terms prohibiting their customers from using their networks to access services such as VoIP and third party peer-to-peer messaging clients.
“Vyke has been dedicating itself to circumventing these obstructionist tactics by developing our own stand-alone mobile VoIP application as well as providing access to large scale wireless networks on behalf of our customer,” he continues. “Users need to remember that these defensive tactics are not to their benefit and that attempts to keep mobile VoIP out of the market amount to nothing less than an announcement that the mobile operators intend to continue overcharging consumers for as long as they can."
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Ad-funded free mobile service launch delayed due to technical issues
The planned launch of the first ad-funded free mobile phone service has been put back to at least October due to technical issues with the service.
Blyk, co-founded by ex Nokia president Pekka Ala-Pietila, was due to go live in the UK in June. However, problems with the technology that makes it work have put that back to at least October, says the company.
MVNO Blyk was to have offered free calls and text to users who were prepared to accept adverts from the company. It has already signed some big name advertisers to the service, including Coca Cola and Disney. It was also planning to offer more location relevant content through a deal with the Yellow Pages online arm Yell.com.
Meanwhile, UK based budget airline EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou is also though to be resurrecting his ambitions to launch a similar ad-funded free mobile service. Ioannou had been poised to set up such a service last year with Denmark’s TDC, but the Danish operator was bought out by private equity companies late last year, scuppering the deal.
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Adding UGC element boosts ringtones in Scandinavia, finds Tele2
Scandinavia’s leading mobile service provider PlusFourSix in association with operator Tele2 and NRJ radio, has found a novel way to boost plateauing ringtone sales: get users to create their own and run a competition to find the most popular.
The competition was open to anyone in Sweden over the age of 18 interested in composing their own ringtone. Entrants submit their creations via the web or MMS to the Tele2 Studio for judging. PlusFourSix delivered all messaging technology, mobile voting functionality and content publishing platform for content upload and download behind the competition.
“The interest amongst end consumers for creating real “own” content and being given the means by which to publish it in the public domain continues to grow,” says Janne Nordlund, Business Development Director, PlusFourSix. “We realised this early on and developed our ‘MobileStar’ product specifically to support publication and distribution of advanced end consumer-generated content. It enables companies to maximise the mobile channel and provide a deeper brand experience to enhance their brand in the eyes of consumers.”
The competition received an overwhelming number of entries during its six week duration, with the top 20 entries each week being promoted on the Tele2 Studio site, with several receiving airplay on NRJ. Competition entries were judged by a panel of 7 experts from PlusFourSix, Tele2 and NRJ before mobile voting was opened to the public. A total of 15 entries were voted through to the grand final for the sought-after first prize of a recording contract with Sweden’s biggest ringtone provider, the opportunity for the winning ringtone to be sold via a number of digital channels, a share of the sales revenues, plus a Sony Playstation 3 (worth approximately £450.00/€670.00) and alternative route to stardom.
The winning ringtone was ‘Bug Squash’ composed by Ninja Boy Nick.
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Fiat teams with Telecom Italia to offer location based services to Fiat drivers across Europe
Telecom Italia and Volt Delta International are working with Italian car maker Fiat to offer location based mobile services for Fiat clients in France, Germany, Spain and the UK.
Fiat car owners in these countries now have access to the new “Blue and Me” box online and on mobile. Clicking this box will initiate a call from Telecom Italia’s call centre, providing callers with location relevant information such as hotels, banks and car dealers closest to them and giving them driving instructions as to how to find them.
The service relies on the technology and the content of Maponair on the Move from Novasys. This application allows Operators to offer Concierge type services, which combine Points of Interest to the user's location. Furthermore, all information may be sent out to the user's Mobile Phone thanks to the convergence of Maponair on the Move between Internet and Mobile.
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Rolling out mobile TV in Europe just got easier
Operators across Europe can now deliver video and TV content to any media, including mobile and IPTV with the launch of inLive Quad Play, an end-to-end, real time interactive mass participation solution developed by inLive Interactive.
The platform offers interactive mass-player participation formats — including games, news, sports, music and auctions — tailor-made for broadcasters and telecom operators who show more and more interest in the convergence of mobile services and video broadcast.
“InLive Interactive understood that the future of broadcasters and telecom operators also lies in improved, more creative and powerful interactivity where everyone can share the same content and participate in real time on any media,” says Amit Or, inLive Interactive’s Managing Director.
With inLive automated interactive multi-channel, mobile operators will be able to create and distribute their own content independently. This new way for mobile operators will represent a cost effective investment as the set-up and monthly maintenance will be minimal.
“inLive provides mobile operators with an original interactive platform to create new revenue streams for services over GSM/CDMA/GPRS/Edge and 3G/HSDPA/MediaFlo/DVB-H networks, offering to their subscribers new TV experiences with mobile play-along participation and mobile TV interactive video with a personal feedback for every participant,“ says Michel Ayache, inLive Interactive’s Marketing Director.
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Tira Wireless raises $5m in series D funding to go beyond simple mobile entertainment
Tira Wireless, a provider of technology and services for the mobile market, has secured an additional US$5 million in funding to execute the third phase of its technology vision and extend its reach into new markets that go beyond mobile entertainment.
Earlier rounds of funding enabled Tira Wireless to complete development on the first two phases of its Tira Jump platform. The first phase focused on building out the platform to incorporate asset management and deployment planning capabilities. The recently completed phase two provides significant productivity breakthroughs in content development and deployment by enabling code re-use, collaboration and interoperability.
Tira Wireless is now embarking on the third phase in its strategic plan. This phase will enable the company to further extend its technology platform and deliver products that appeal to a broader audience of large and small developers that want to embrace the mobile platform, but require additional domain expertise and tools to address the complexities of fragmentation.
Among the potential new targets are those that offer single applications, like messaging or GPS-enabled location based services; and companies with Web 2.0 and highly interactive applications for social networking, blogging and other rich media experiences. Tira Wireless will also extend its reach to providers of branded media and traditional Internet applications for music and video.
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MEM Asia 2007
6-7 September, Suntec Singapore
The mobile and entertainment industries are increasingly merging, so why not have an event which brings together the leaders of both industries. Creating ONE Market-Place for both the mobile and media spheres.
The longest standing and most established event in the global mobile content industry. With market-leading speakers representing: mobile music, games, social networking and advertising, it will be an event not to be missed.
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Sr. Telecom Analyst/VoIP Engineer
Illinois, USA
AVVAL are looking for an experienced telcommunications analyst to help design, implement, maintain, monitor and administer an evolving PBX and Voicemail infrastructure, as well as supporting the concurrent network, systems and adjunct technologies currently supporting their enterprise telecommunications services.
Other duties will include, providing operational and maintenance support on assigned systems by supporting Moves, Adds, and Changes (MACs), providing troubleshooting, problem analysis and problem resolution for maintenance issues.
If you have been working in telecommunications for 7-10 years and have experience of implementing and supporting Voice over a data network, including unified communications, then please click here to apply or for more information call: 1-630-929-3096
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Player X Brings Zapper TV Content to Verizon Wireless Customers
Verizon Wireless, the leading wireless carrier in the U.S and mobile media company Player X, have launched Zapper TV – Player X’s family entertainment channel – on Verizon Wireless’ V CAST video-on-demand service.
Zapper TV mixes both animation and live action with programs such as Brit TV and four-time Academy Award® winner Wallace & Gromit with made-for-mobile and character-led programming from global brands such as Miami Vice, currently the #1 TV series DVD in the U.S.
“Zapper TV has been especially created for the North American market,” said Tony Pearce, Player X chief executive officer. “We’re delighted Verizon Wireless has selected Zapper TV and firmly believe content dedicated to the mobile media is what the consumer is looking for in mobile video.”
‘Voice SMS’ Pioneer Bubble Motion Innovates Ahead of Market with Launch of BubbleTALK 2.0
California-based Bubble Motion, an award-winning pioneer of 'Voice SMS' services, is launching a new platform, BubbleTALK2.0, which will make Voice SMS implementations easier for mobile operators, as well as provide a number of advanced, new features.
Sunil Coushik, Bubble Motion commented: “The key word here is simplicity. BubbleTALK was already a very simple Voice SMS system to set up and maintain. Now we have taken it even further, giving operators more advanced functionality, whilst making the overall experience even easier for them.”
Mobile Payments to generate almost $22bn of transactions by 2011 and be adopted by 204m mobile users
Juniper Research predicts that P2P fund transfers and mobile payments in the developing world, together with the commercialisation in 2009 of NFC (Near Field Communications) based mPayments will generate transactions worth approximately $22bn.
There is much to be positive about with mPayments; the ecosystem is evolving into one where cooperation between the major stakeholders is creating an atmosphere that is incubating intelligent ways in which we can use the mobile phone for payment.
Report author Alan Goode said: “The technology is available now to enable secure and fast payments to be initiated on the mobile phone. The business model stills needs some work but there are positive signals emanating from the industry that will create considerable revenue for all parts of the ecosystem. I am cautiously optimistic for the future success of mPayments.”
Price: £1490 (Single User) £1990 (Multi User) £2990 (
Enterprise Wide)
Providing an in depth analysis of the payment and mobile industries current and future strategies, the Mobile Payments: Strategies and Markets report projects the most comprehensive regional market data obtainable to date.
With a detailed forecasting suite predicting changes in the market until 2011, this report provides the complete analysis of the opportunities available for mobile operators, credit card networks, banks, vendors, handset manufacturers, chip manufacturers and hardware providers.
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