The free operation system Linux is gaining more support in the mobile handset industry. Entities like the LiMo Foundation and the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum met recently at the Linux World Conference to support Linux as a mobile phone operating system. Supporters from around the world have made Linux a major player in the mobile phone business.
While supporters like the LiMo Foundation and LiPS Forum are made up of sometimes competing companies, the goals of the groups aren’t necessarily in conflict with one another. But time restraints may cause some rough spots. As IMS Research Director John Devlin points out, “The LiMo Foundation intends to develop an actual mobile Linux platform which potentially will conform to the standards established by the LiPS Forum. However, since the LiMo Foundation has stated a desire to have products shipping as early as next 2Q08 (second quarter of 2008), they are working in advance of any final standards that will be sent by the LiPS Forum. This creates the potential for the LiMo Foundation platform becoming a de facto competing standard.”
The future of Mobile Linux may see the creation of an industry standard brought about by consolidation and inter-company agreements. In a recently published report, “The Impact of Cellular Linux,” IMS Research Analyst Alison Bogle accurately predicted much of what we are seeing come to pass. Bogle states, “There will be a period of acquisition and consolidation over the next few years, the Mobile Linux community will eventually standardize on one or two leading unified Linux-based platforms, which will become the de facto standards, and Linux will see strong adoption in the handset space based on the strength of the companies supporting it.”
If Mobile Linux can continue its journey towards standardization it will become a major player in the handset operating system arena. I would like to see one major mobile operating system become the world’s standard. This would make the connectivity of various services from differing service providers easier to translate on all mobile devices the world over. But this wish is coming from someone who would like to be able to play his old Commodore 64 games on the Xbox 360.
LiMo Foundation
LiPS Forum
Prodigious iPhone users have been receiving itemized bills from AT&T that can number hundreds of pages long. And every thing is itemized. Even a small 1K text message shows up. Some bills are so large they had to be sent in boxes. The size of the bills have enraged some customers, and not just because of their cost. Paper producing trees take years to grow and if this trend continues, Americans may be forced to limiting toilet paper use to one square per visit.
AT&T doesn’t want to cause a national inconvenience in paper consumption, so yesterday the telecommunications company sent text messages to iPhone users that itemized bills will only be sent upon request. There is a charge of $1.99 for each itemized paper bill mailed out in the future. As of September 28, all of AT&T’s new wireless customers will be sent a summary bill. Any current subscriber who makes a change to an existing account will also receive a summary bill. This is good news to trees around the world.
Places like YouTube have posted some funny videos on the subject. The one posted below has had over three million hits. Now AT&T has a Website you can go to for billing information. This fiasco is a lesson to all: the new information business requires new thinking.
YouTube: Justine’s Phone Bill
AT&T
New research from Bango shows that consumers who buy content on the mobile web buy more content, and require less support and fewer refunds than users who buy content through Premium SMS. The mobile web also has three times as many add-on sales. This gives marketers a greater return for advertising costs.
“The mobile web gives consumers a payment experience they are already familiar with on the PC web,” said Martin Harris, Senior VP of Sales at Bango. “Because they can see the price and conditions of purchase before they click to pay and are billed, they feel much more comfortable with the whole experience.”
When text buyers purchase things like ringtones, games and wallpapers only 18% buy more than one download. Bango research claims that 46% of buyers who visit a browser and buy through a mobile website purchase more than one item.
Mobile web customers also appear to be more happy with their purchases, asking for refunds in less than 1% of transactions. SMS text buyers ask for refunds in 10-20% of all sales.
Caveat: Bango is a company that provides mobile phone web base services to entities that want to sell digital applications. Those who sell services over an SMS system may disagree with Bango’s research.
Bango
SNL Kagan, a company that provides revenue projections for various communication outlets, predicts that in the next 10 years 84% of Americans will have a mobile phone. Mobile subscriptions are supposed to grow at a rate of 3% despite the fact that the American population is only projected to grow at a modest 1% rate. This growth rate is attributed to an increase in mobile data use, including Web, text and video services. Multimedia services partially or wholly paid for by advertising play a large part in the projected increase.
SNL Kagan projects total industry average revenue per user (ARPU) to grow at an inflation-paces compound annual growth rate of 1.5% over the next decade. This means the ARPU should increase from today’s $52.38 to $61.09 by 2017. Data ARPU is projected to be even stronger, with an increase from $5.92 to $8.58 by 2017.
“If carriers can hold onto their position in the revenue chain, data is poised to give them a second growth spurt,” says SNL Kagan senior analyst Sharton Armbrust. “While subscriber units and voice revenue will inch along, we expect data revenue to grow at a compound annual 14% rate over the next 10 years, rising to at least 22% of service revenue, compared to under 10% today.”
If data revenue is to grow, the American public is going to have to be sold the proposition that such mobile phone services are required. Mobile data is going to have to be sold as something practical, necessary and inexpensive. There will always be people who are interested in the latest gadget and application, but the majority of people want practicality. What is the advantage to me in watching video on my phone? Why do I want to text message someone when I can just call them? If I can use the Web on my PC, what is the point of doing so on my phone? If these and similar questions can be answered by manufactures and mobile service providers, SNL Kagan’s predictions may be on the mark. But projecting a rosy future based on what’s trendy today is bound to be disappointing.
SNL Kagan
Traditionally, Google mobile and non-mobile web surfing declines in the summer months as people go on vacation. (At least in North America). This year traffic on mobile devices utilizing Google has increased 35%. Mobile devices looking at Google Maps has increased as much as 50%. This appears to point to a trend, in which people use their mobile devices for information while taking time off from work. This shows how attached people are to such devices, when they are willing to take them along on vacation.
“I think this is sort of a sign that people are becoming savvier with their mobile devices, and that there are better devices” available for the Web, while away from computers, Mayer told reporters after a presentation to marketers at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose.
“The technology curve is catching up,” she told reporters after the presentation. “The phones are just better.”
The number of Google searches done on mobile devices are tiny compared to those done on PCs, but the summer increase in North America shows that people are realizing the usefulness of mobile search engines. Maps and other information can enhance the vacation experience. Getting lost or visiting uninteresting places may become a thing of the past.
Google says mobile usage has surged this summer [Reuters]
Giants Microsoft and Nokia are teaming up today to provide Windows Live on S60 compatible devices. This service will be available to Nokia Series 40 compatible handsets next year.
Windows Live is a comprehensive set of personal Internet services and software. It is designed to bring together in one place all the relationships, information and interests people care about. Safety and security features are carefully crafted to protect the user without interfering with communications. Window’s Live Hotmail, Live Messenger, Live Contacts and Live Spaces are all now available on Nokia devices.
“The availability of Windows Live services for Nokia’s devices demonstrates our commitment to delivering great mobile experiences and extending people’s online lives — taking them from the PC to the device,” said Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of the Online Services Business at Microsoft. “The alliance will enable a much broader group of consumers to experience the benefits Windows Live has to offer, easily connecting them to the information and people that matter most from virtually anywhere.”
This service is initially being launched today in 11 countries including; Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, U.K., Sweden, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The service is free now but may incur a monthly cost in the future. For information and updates, press the Nokia link provided below.
As mobile devices become more and more popular, services like Windows Live are bound to feature mobility. Revenue from subscription services and advertising are going to increase as popular PC features reach the mobile device market.
Nokia
Windows Live
A new group-calling service is under development that allows conference-type calling from virtually any wireless device (including phones) and your desktop. This new application is called Lypp. When the service launches, users won’t have to pay a monthly fee and the first 500 minutes are free. No installation of software will be required so the service can be used instantly after registration.
Outbound conference calls can be made from your desktop without having to visit a website. The use of callback eliminates outbound wireless minute costs and Lypp creates a seamless transition between mobile and desktop group calling.
A beta version of Lypp will be released in early September. Keep reading the Crunch family for updates on Lypp.
Lypp
A new mobile phone service is available for those of us who want to stay in contact with our MySpace friends. Tell Them is a service that lets the user send pictures and text via a mobile device. The service is free and simple to use.
First, go to the Tell Them site on your phone. Enter your MySpace E-Mail password and select the friends you want to contact. Write a message and attach a picture if you want and blamo, the message is sent.
This service is very new so it is impossible to say right now if it will become popular. Tell Them appears to be the only service that currently caters specifically to mobile users who want to send MySpace messages. By providing a specific service for a popular phenomena like MySpace, Tell Them has the potential to grow rapidly. If the service is liked, mention of Tell Them will spread through MySpace quickly.
Tell Them
MySpace
AT&T has the exclusive carrier license in the Untied States for the iPhone. It is too early to tell how profitable this will be for AT&T. The licensing agreement between the two companies includes a payout to Apple from AT&T’s revenue generated from iPhone calls and data functions. Some rumblings in Europe may be a clue as to what it takes to get an exclusive iPhone license.
Three European companies, T-Mobile of Germany, Orange of France, and O2 UK, have agreed to pay Apple 10% of all revenues generated from iPhone calls and data functions. Revenue sharing may be a new trend in the mobile business. Operators have resisted handset manufactures’ attempts to latch onto their service revenues. But the excitement generated by platforms like the iPhone may make revenue sharing by manufactures an irresistible trend.
As the functions that mobile phones can perform increase, the companies that design and manufacture these new wonders aren’t going to be happy with simply selling devices. They are going to want a percentage the carriers make off the manufacture’s product. If this trend continues, it won’t be long before service providers and manufactures of mobile devices merge. Just imagine, the A in AT&T might one day stand for Apple.
[Via: Financial Times]
Many people who live in Africa don’t have personal computers but do have mobile phones. Mobile phone providers are fulfilling the thirst for knowledge and connectivity the internet provides. The company Celtel-Sierra Leone has unveiled plans to offer internet access and downloads to an inquisitive nation. In case you’ve forgotten, Sierra Leone is a small country on Africa’s Atlantic coast.
“The mobile internet service is reliable, affordable and accessible to all subscribers using Celtel network all over the country,” a senior official told Highway Africa News Agency (HANA).
According to Andrew Johnson, a private IT expert, Tigo mobile offered the citizens of Sierra Leone mobile internet services first. “Each other mobile telecommunications network seems to be playing catch up with Tigo,” he said adding that “this will make other mobile companies to come up with more improved facilities to boost up the communications industry in the country.”
To date, Tigo offers the cheapest rates in Sierra Leone, but competition is bound to reduce costs and improve services. If you represent a company that is interested in jumping into the Sierra Leone market there is a caveat: the country underwent a bloody civil war between 1991 and 2002. But currently, the government is stable enough to have a National Telecommunications Commission (Na Tcom) that regulates and licenses mobile companies.
Sierra Leone: More Mobile Internet Services for Country[Via allAfrica]
Celtel-Sierra Leone
Tigo Sierra Leone
If you’re the sort of mobile user who has Virgin Mobile service then you’re probably the type who likes to show off your individuality. You run with a different pack, and you can’t even be bothered with the whole iPhone thing. At least that’s what the Virgin Mobile ad campaign had to say earlier this summer.
Virgin Mobile USA users can now share their feelings with like-minded people. The carrier has partnered with Intercasting Corporation to bring a diverse selection of social networking and community Web sites to its mobile carriers on the ANTHEM platform.
“We’ve built our success around empowering our customers and giving them maximum flexibility and control,” said Dominick Tolli, vice president for Virgin Mobile USA’s Mobile Data Services division. “There is a growing number of social networking sites that reflect different lifestyles and interests, and we’re committed to putting our customers in the driver’s seat: that is, enabling them to create their own individual experiences, determining how and with whom they want to communicate, whenever they like.”
The ANTHEM platform is designed to provide a Web-like experience for users. Among the social networking sites now available to Virgin Mobile users:
AsianAve – a destination for Asian Americans 18+
BlackPlanet – a social network for African-Americans
GLEE – one of the top 20 gay and lesbian sites on the Web
MiGente – one of the fastest growing English language Hispanic communities
LiveJournal – a site where users can express themselves through journals, blogs and discussion forms
Vox – a place to post and share photos and videos
This service is available on Java-enabled Virgin Mobile handsets, including the Cyclops, the Slider Sonic and the Switch_Back phones. Plans are already in place to extend the platform to a wider variety of phones in the near future.
Pricing plans include the option to pay by the day or by the month, with 24 hours costing $1.00 (with a cap of half a megabyte of data), and $3.99 for a month, with a cap of five megabytes of data. We’ll be curious if power users cap out very quickly, and if Virgin has any alternate pricing options for those extremely social types. In the meantime, if you go over the cap, you’ll just have to make calls with the handset to be social. What a concept!
Virgin Mobile USA
Shopping from your mobile phone now got a little easier with mShopper’s release of a new platform for mobile phones. All aspects of shopping online are now available to bargain hunters with a mobile phone. Users can make secure purchases in seconds.
But as every good shopper knows, there is more to shopping than just buying. Research into price and quality has to be utilized before laying out hard currency. The mShopper application helps in this by providing prices and specs on thousands of products in real time. Up-to-date information in changes can be easily accessed.
And talk about easy, the mShopper search engine allows you to find a product with as few as two or three characters. For example, if a shopper is interested in a Panasonic HDTV, typing “pan” and “hdt” would result in a hit. If a search results in too many hits, additional descriptions can be added to narrow the field. This feature helps when shopping for something in a certain color or size.
Currently, over 100 vendors are taking advantage of mShopper. More than seven million products are showcased. This allows shoppers to compare prices for the same item and make the best deal. If there is a question about an item, mShopper includes Click2Call. Click2Call is a link to customer support on every page. If you have a question only a live person can answer, Click2Call will get you there without a tussle.
“More than 95% of all retail dollars are spent in traditional stores, yet online merchants routinely offer prices that are 20% cheaper, said David Gould, mShopper’s CEO. “With mShopper, the user can save time and money. Now people can go to the store, do their research, and then buy right through their phones.”
There are some disadvantages when buying online. Shipping costs often aren’t included in the price, so that 20% cheaper thing might not be so cheap if you are buying something heavy that has to be shipped to your house. And when I buy something, I hate to have to wait for it to arrive. Sometimes the extra frustration of waiting costs more to me than 20%.
mShopper
As our sister site Crunchgear is reporting Verizon Wireless has gathered some powerful allies in its war with iTunes. MTV and RealNetworks have joined forces with Verizon in a formation called “Rhapsody America.” The idea is to create an integrated digital music service that users can access by way of their PC, portable music device and mobile phone.
Former Urge subscribers and current V CAST and Rhapsody subscribers, will be able to use Rhapsody America to integrate all three music delivery systems into one easy to use service. If a song is downloaded onto your mobile phone, it can be sent to your computer. Music downloaded onto your computer can be installed on your Verizon phone.
It’s impossible to predict how well this venture will pan out. The iTunes brand is a formidable foe. But let’s hope some unfriendly competition can lead to lower prices and better service.
Verizon Wireless
MTV Networks
Rhapsody
Mobile Entertainment reported this morning that Yahoo has acquired Actionality. Actionality is a company devoted to mobile phone marketing technologies and solutions. The company is based in Munich Germany and is considered to be a pioneer in the field of ad-funded mobile content. Actionality specializes in putting ads in mobile games at the point of download.
To date, this rumor hasn’t been verified by either Yahoo or Actionality. Keep reading MobileCrunch for confirmation and analysis.
[Via: Mobile Entertainment]
Actionality
Yahoo
The BubbleTALK service from Bubble Motion has some devoted users. The most talkative sent 3201 messages last month. The top five BubbleTALKers averaged 67 messages a day. I don’t know if these prodigious yackers said anything intelligent in their scramble to rank number one in BubbleTALK’s hall of fame, but I doubt it.
BubbleTALK is touted as a “Voice SMS.” Voice SMS is a cross between an SMS (read text messaging) and a voicemail. The sender records a short message and sends it as though it were a text message. The receiver gets the message through his or her text messaging service. But there is no conversion into actual text. The sent message is heard as it was spoken.
Sunil Coushik, President and Co-Founder of Bubble Motion said: “We have always known that BubbleTALK has a great potential for operators as well as their customers, but these latest figures took even us by surprise. It seems that some customers of operators are spending most of their day sending BubbleTALK messages. I just hope they are leaving enough time to eat and sleep!”
Let me tell you Sunil, I’ve got a couple of aunts who can talk the ear off an elephant. I can’t always follow them but they do love to talk.
I’m not sure why people want to use a service like BubbleTALK. Perhaps a person’s thumbs are too tired from playing mobile games to be able to text message. But then you can just call the person and talk live, or leave a voice message. I suppose such a service creates one more layer of distance between two people who want to communicate but don’t want to communicate too closely. Some new technologies baffle me.
Bubble Motion
Nokia announced today that SNAP Mobile Games will be available to German customers in the fall. SNAP games are currently sold in Asia and North America.
Popular handsets will come with free demo games installed. To download a full game, a user only needs to click the ‘buy’ link. A text message is then sent with link information.
Antoine Doumenc, head of SNAP Mobile stated, “After continued success in Asia Pacific, we are clearly setting our sights on the European market. Germany is our first target country and we plan to expand our service availability in multiple European distribution channels within the year. In addition, we well be offering many more opportunities to German consumers to be connected through casual games in near future.”
Sudoku and JellyPop are two popular games supported in SNAP Mobile’s Pocket Party application. Sudoku generates random puzzles that create a multitude of challenges. JellyPop is an easy to learn but hard to master puzzle game that has single and multiplayer modes. High scores, ranking, friends list, avatars, tokens and chat are all integrated into the Pocket Party universe. Friends can mobilize and game.
Nokia
Snap Mobile Games
T-Mobile wants to acquire Orange Netherlands, a branch of France Telecom. France Telecom has been trying to sell Orange Netherlands since February. European Union regulators have given the go-ahead for T-Mobile Netherlands to buy Orange Netherlands. According to the Houston Chronicle the European Commission said the deal would “not significantly impede effective competition” in EU markets.
Orange serves 1.9 million mobile phone customers and 612,000 Internet users in the land of tulips and windmills. This acquisition would make T-Mobile the second largest mobile phone provider in the Dutch market.
[Via: Houston Chronicle]
T-Mobile Netherlands
France Telecom
Ad-support mobile search is actually favored by mobile search users, who also prefer voice search to text search. These are the results of a new independent user experience benchmark on mobile search that was conducted by Usable Products Company. Participants in the survey preferred voice-enable mobile search solutions more than text-based options, and 79 percent of participants favored advertising-supported mobile search. In fact the study found that 37 percent felt that the banner ads actually enhanced the mobile search experience.
During this study four mobile search solutions were benchmarked including InfoSpace WAP, JumpTap Java (Alltel Axcess Search), Nuance Voice Control and Yahoo! Go.
Voice was initially predicted by participants to be the search that would be most difficult to use, but an hour into the study the users actually gave it higher ratings than text search. “Users predicted voice search would be the worst of the four search products, but in final usability, it performed better than expected,” said Scott Weiss, president of Usable Products. “We were surprised that participants enjoyed voice search, and how much more they liked it than searching via phone keypad.”
These results are interesting, but there are still outstanding issues. Notably, would ad-support search allow for a free search option, and will results be paid sponsors? Additionally, voice search does sound like it would have good options, but obviously users would need to speak clearly and be in a fairly quiet area. It would be worth exploring how users like voice search in loud and crowded areas, and how well the service works at these times.
Usable Products Company
Starting tonight the “Late Show with David Letterman” and the “Late Late Show”, will be available to V Cast subscribers commercial free. CBS is the first broadcast network to offer V Cast customers access to full-length on-demand programming. V Cast breaks the programming into convenient segments for viewing ease. The shows are available following their nightly broadcasts and accessible until the following night’s broadcasts. V Cast is a mobile phone service provided by Verizon Wireless.
“While we continue to provide short clips of our shows, we’re seeing a growing demand for the availability of full length, network quality shows on video on demand mobile video,” said Cyriac Roeding, executive vice president, CBS Mobile, CBS Interactive. “The ‘Late Show with David Letterman’ and the ‘Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson’ have become some of the most demanded shows in mobile and on the internet so it only makes sense that we fulfill the consumer request and help grow the popularity of these franchises. We are committed to innovation and are happy to help Verizon Wireless’ first full-length video on demand programming on its V Cast service.”
Verizon Wireless is excited about V Cast’s new late night lineup.
“CBS continues to be a great, innovative partner and we’re looking forward to the success of these full-length programs on V Cast,” said Ryan Hughes, vice president of digital media programming for Verizon. “By offering hit programs in their entirety through a series of shorter segments, we’re meeting our customers’ expectations about staying entertained and informed while on-the-go.”
CBS Mobile
Verizon Wireless
Continental Research has released a survey that claims gaming services are on the increase in the mobile industry, while other services are on the decline. Service providers that push features like web browsing and video viewing may be selling products that mobile phone users don’t want.
Since last year, the number of people who accessed the internet on mobile phones declined by 2%. Ringtone providers have been hit even harder, seeing a decline of 6% in new downloads. Other services like mobile TV and subscription-based text services have seen a decline.
Two areas that have seen an increase over last year’s numbers are photo message and game downloading services. These have increase by a modest 1%.
A majority of those surveyed (68%) said they prefer more basic service that is cheap and easy to use. Only 25% were interested in stylish handsets and the latest mobile phone technology.
Before industry people start to panic, it is important to remember that this is just one survey conducted in one country that questioned just under a thousand mobile phone customers. Further research into mobile phone consumer trends is warranted so future bottom-lines are in the black.
New innovations and services are exciting but one thing has to be remembered: mobile phones are chiefly used to call people. Customers want clear connections at a low price. Each layer of service beyond this piles up greater costs. It isn’t long before a consumer realizes that a service like watching TV on a tiny screen with a limited battery life is a luxury that isn’t needed.
Continental Research
