MeOnGo - Mobile Email, MVAS and More

Mobile ads: Will the carriers be left out?

2008-03-07T17:51:00.004+05:30

By Kevin Fitchard, Telephony Online
(http://www.telephonyonline.com/wireless/news/mobile-advertising-carriers-0228/index.html)

As mobile advertising gears up, one of the basic components of the ad network is still missing: the carrier. Though mobile operators hold a wealth of information on their customers, it’s still sitting dormant in the customer relations management and back office systems. The first mobile ad platforms have begun to launch without access to those databases, potentially leaving operators out to dry in what may be one of the most lucrative opportunities in wireless.

At the Mobile World Congress, Nokia launched its mobile ad network, based on the assets it acquired with its purchase of Enpocket in October. The network comprised 70 different publishers, including Nokia’s own mobile portal properties as well as worldwide publishers such as Hearst, Reuters and the Discovery Network. It included advertisers like Paramount and BMW, and even included a service provider, Sprint. But one thing the network does not do is incorporate the user data of the carriers whose networks these ads will run over, said Mike Baker, former CEO of Enpocket and current head of Nokia Interactive’s new ad business.

The interfaces between carrier customer data and ad networks haven’t yet been developed, and it could take years before an open link between their arcane back office systems and ad platforms emerges, Baker said. In the interim, mobile adverting networks are going forward without them, compiling their own user databases, Baker said. Publishers and advertisers can’t afford to wait. Even in its infancy mobile ads are a $1 billion a year business, Baker said.
“We’re taking a pragmatic approach,” Baker said. “It will take three years for that subscriber data to filter back to our network, so on our own network we’re surveying the end customers and building our own databases.”

The irony of the situation, though, is that the more customer information that the ad networks collect, the less need they’ll have the carrier data when it is finally available. Through surveys and tracking customer behavior on mobile portals and sites, the ad networks can compile much of that information. When the carriers are ready to contribute, ad networks could already have the necessary data to target ads most effectively.

Still, operators' stores of information are vast and are constantly updated. That information can also be applied across the spectrum of the mobile Internet, not just on a site where a user has a history. But it’s still a matter of debate how valuable that information is, no matter how granular, Baker said.

“Even if I had all of these data fields on Mike Baker, how do I use that data for mobile advertising?” Baker said. “Maybe it’s more relevant to know what I click on than the fact I’m 44 years old.”

IBM telecom group general manager Michael Hill doesn’t agree with Baker that carrier customer data is overrated, but he does agree that operators need to be much faster at integrating it with ad networks. IBM along with several other software companies is trying to find ways of aggregating that data presenting it in a useful way to advertising platforms.

“They have fabulous data,” Hill said of the operators. “The problem is it’s so scattered. The first thing we need to do is put that data in a usable format.” Data the carrier can track and centralize will have enormous relevance to advertisers, going far beyond just basic demographic info. The customer’s pinpointed location, via GPS or cellular triangulation, can be used to tailor ads. Presence data such as whether a user is at home, at work, available to chat or offline would also help networks target ads.

Content providers and ad networks are already compiling some of that data, though. Google applications such as Maps already access location data natively from their onboard applications. It’s not too far a stretch to imagine Google using that data to target text ads. IM applications on the device could similarly leverage presence data for on-board display ads. The problem with those scenarios is information exists in a vacuum. Only the operator can aggregate the data, combine it with information from other applications and its own customer databases and then mine it to produce a comprehensive profile used for the highly accurate targeting mobile advertising promises, Hill said. For carriers there’s a definite urgency in installing the systems that can aggregate that data, Hill said, but it’s no simple task.

“An operator could take in a continuous stream of X and Y coordinates from millions users, but what the hell do they do with that data?” Hill said. “You need to be able to put that data to some use, and you need to be able to sort through it to determine what’s relevant.”

How carriers use that location and presence information is still a matter of some debate. While serving up an ad when a user requests specific information from a Web or maps search may not raise any red flags, using such personal information as whom a customer calls and his or her exact location could raise privacy hackles. Many companies that now use location-based data are restricting what information they collect and store from customers, and plans to use aggregated data are being launched entirely under opt-in situations.

Ultimately, it could be those opt-in scenarios that tie the operator and ad networks closely together. Though ad platforms may not be dependent on carrier data, they are dependent on the carrier networks to deliver services and ads, and the cost of wireless data connections is one of single biggest barriers to bringing more people to mobile Internet services. A relationship between the advertiser and operator would not only supply the advertiser with more granular information about the customer but also a means for the carrier to subsidize mobile data services to the customer. The better the information, the higher the cost per thousand of any given ad, meaning more revenue to be split between the publisher and the operator. The more revenue the operator receives the more it can discount the price of its data connections, which in turn would bring more users to the network and more eyeballs to the ads.

The goal is to bring that symbiotic relationship to the point where all wireless data services are free to the end user, funded entirely by ad revenues, said Hal Steger, vice president of marketing for Funambol. Funambol is in the e-mail business, which it offers as a white-label service to carriers subsidized by ad revenue.

“Our customers have found they can make almost as much money for free as they can offering it for a few dollars a month,” Steger said.

TRAI: SMSs losing their flavour

2007-11-27T17:17:00.000+05:30

By Joji Thomas Philip, TNN (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/TRAI_SMSs_losing_their_flavour/articleshow/2437987.cms)

Are text messages slowly losing their flavor with India’s growing cellular base?

Even as operators say it’s too early to take a call and make such a ‘sweeping statement’, the figures, however, suggest so. Data compiled by telecom regulator TRAI reveal that SMS use has steadily fallen from September 2006.

Consider this: GSM operators have witnessed close to 9% drop in the outgoing SMSs during the April – June quarter, as per the latest performance indicator report by TRAI. This implies, an average GSM user now sends about 35 SMSs per month as compared to 39 during the previous quarter.

Little wonder that GSM operators’ total revenue from SMS has now fallen below the 5% mark. Ditto on the CDMA front — the number of outgoing SMSs by customers using this technology platform has declined to 20 during the quarter-ended June against 24 SMSs during the January – March, 2007 quarter.

If one were to consider the earlier quarter (January – March, 2007), the fall in SMS usage is more dramatic – GSM operators saw a 19% decline in outgoing text messages during this period. Outgoing SMS per subscriber (for GSM) had declined by 18.75% from 48 in December 2006 to 39 in March 2007.

“This decline in usage could perhaps be linked to revision in SMS tariffs by several GSM service providers. During the quarter, there have been tariff reports indicating reduction in the number of free and discounted SMS under various packs and plans, increase in the rate for SMS, restriction on the usage of free/discounted SMS on festival/customary days. Thus, this could be a case of higher prices pushing down the usage,” TRAI had said. In this same period (Jan-March), the revenue from SMS for CDMA operators declined to 2% from 3% in December 2006.

Disputing TRAI’s figure of higher SMS tariffs, an executive with a leading GSM operator pointed that a possible explanation for the fall in text messages could be due to the steady increase in the minutes of cellular usage. “For GSM players, the average increase in outgoing minutes of usage (MOU) was 2.2% during the last quarter.

The actual figure can be much higher if one were to consider the fact that most of the new users are coming from semi-urban and rural India – a factor that can drag the MOU downwards,” the executive said. The executive also added that the average SMS usage was bound to fall as operators went rural as customers in non-urban areas were comparably less text savvy.

Another service provider pointed out that rationalization of tariff plans, where many players discontinued non-profitable SMS packages could have led to the small decline. The executive also said that despite the fractional dip in SMS usage, the overall revenues of all operators from value added services was increasing every quarter. “There is a substantial increase in revenues from VAS. SMS is no longer the single driving force behind VAS revenues — music, gaming and other applications contribute significantly,” he added.

IPOs, M&A in mobile value-added services

2007-09-28T12:01:00.000+05:30

By Namitha Jagadeesh at LiveMint.com (in association with WSJ)
http://www.livemint.com/2007/08/28235859/IPOs-MampA-in-mobile-value.html

The entry of investors such as Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers in a relatively nascent space, such as mobile VAS, is also evidence of the sector maturing.

Two mobile value-added services (VAS) start-ups—New Delhi-based Cellebrum.Com Pvt. Ltd and Bangalore-based OnMobile Global Ltd—are slated to go public this fiscal. The proposed initial public offerings (IPOs) signal the maturing of the mobile VAS industry, the highest funded start-up segment in the past two years, with more than $150 million in funding.

OnMobile and Cellebrum, along with peers such as One97 Communications (P) Ltd and Bharti Telesoft Ltd, have also lined up acquisitions during the year, which will lead to what could be dubbed the first phase of consolidation in a barely seven-year-old industry.

As this consolidation plays out over the next 12-18 months, the industry is expected to align along two clear lines—large, multi-services players and the next generation of niche start-ups.

The industry’s fast-track evolution is riding on the back of the country’s exploding mobile subscriber base—up from 108 million in July 2006 to 193 million now. Revenues from mobile VAS were Rs2,850 crore in 2006 and are projected to touch Rs4,650 crore this year-end. This includes revenues earned by VAS companies and telecom services operators, who share the revenue.

“At this stage, large players are looking to grow larger. Part of the capital raised through the IPO will fund acquisitions in the data space,” said Arvind Rao, CEO, OnMobile. Until three years ago, the Infosys Technologies Ltd-incubated start-up was chiefly focused on voice-based service offerings, such as interactive voice customer care and ringtones for telecom operators. Since then, it has diversified into data and is keen on next-generation applications, such as advertising and social networking. It has already pushed through one acquisition—ITFinity Solutions Pvt. Ltd last December—after it received $27.8 million in third-round funding from Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Polygon Investment Partners.

Peer Cellebrum, backed by New Delhi-based MCorpGlobal, got $15 million as first- round funding from Lehman Brothers around the same time. “We are looking at acquisitions both in India and overseas,” said Saket Agarwal, COO, Cellebrum. It set up an incubation cell last year in which it seeded mobile social networking company MobiSoc.

A multi-services offering would imply a combination of managed platform services across voice, WAP (wireless access protocol, a way to access the Internet through mobile phones) and SMS (short messaging services), content development and syndication, mobile data and voice applications, and enterprise mobile solutions. Not all companies in this space currently offer all services. Even early movers such as OnMobile have chosen to stay out of content. Other players in the space include IMI Mobile Ltd, Mobile2win India Pvt. Ltd and People Infocom Pvt. Ltd (which operates under the brand name Mauj).

As the country’s mobile subscriber base continues to explode, telecom operators have begun to prefer a few mobile VAS players who can offer the full gamut of services. “Players are encroaching into each other’s areas to expand their offerings,” said Vijay Shekar Sharma, founder and CEO, One97 Communications. The company has mandated an investment banker to keep an eye on firms in mobile advertising, utilities, content and mobile commerce.

Revenue models are also changing. Earlier, players would charge a one-time fee to build a WAP or voice platform for the operator (telco), and charge a regular maintenance fee. However, that is changing into a revenue-share model, where the mobile VAS player collects a portion of the user-generated fee per download or transaction. Revenue share remains a bone of contention between the operator and the VAS player, as the former keeps the majority share, often 60% to 80%. VAS firms, though, hope this will change as the industry matures, as it has in other evolved mobile markets.

The entry of investors such as Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers in a relatively nascent space, such as mobile VAS, is also evidence of the sector maturing. Both are later stage, private equity investors and, significantly, have been marked for their pre-IPO deals in this market. “It is good for the industry to have exits through IPOs, as it sets a benchmark for those to follow,” said Sandeep Singhal, director, Nexus India Capital, which has invested in two mobile VAS start-ups—Mobile2win and Kirusa Inc. Most venture capitalists (VCs) active in the space seem to think that the funding cycle for multi-services players has ended. “We are now seeing companies in the next generation of applications,” said Kanwaljit Singh, managing director, Helion Venture Partners.

Niches that have now become attractive to venture capital firms include m-commerce, local search, mobile advertising, social networking and location-based services. Start-ups in these niches, most less than two years old, have begun to get funded, both by early-stage VCs and angels.

And acquisitions planned by the larger players could also target such start-ups down the line.

Mobile Email will eventually kill SMS

2007-07-31T19:37:00.000+05:30

Indeed, a bold statement there. Had it not been an announcement from Gartner, I would have pretty much ignored it. Here is what they have to say...

Gartner predicts a fifth of all email will be wireless by 2010

There will be 350 million business and consumer users with access to wireless email by 2010, according to analyst firm Gartner, equating to 20 per cent of all email accounts.

Although there are currently fewer than 20 million business users of wireless email worldwide, representing just two per cent of all email accounts, with the increasing availability of wireless email support both in devices and from service providers as well as by improved usability Gartner expects wireless email to reach commodity status by 2012.

This rise will see email take over from other messaging services like text messages and MMS as they lack many of the restrictions these tools suffer from. It is estimated that around 114 million text messages are currently sent every day, so it may be quite some time until mobile email completely overtakes SMS.

"Over the next three years wireless email will become increasingly popular with both businesses and consumers," said Monica Basso, research vice president at Gartner.

"By 2012, wireless email products will be fully interoperable, commoditised and have standard features. They will be shipping in larger volumes at greatly reduced prices."

A longer term trend that will accompany wireless email adoption is convergence, as users choose a single tool to help simplify communication.

"Convergence will happen on the client side, hiding technology complexity from users and allowing them to focus on messaging content. By 2017, wireless email will be fully integrated with other messaging tools into personal, converged communications," added Basso.

This move towards convergence will have its consequences as growth in the consumer market will also rise as enterprises come under increased pressure to provide real-time communications for their expanding mobile workforce.

Another problem is that the increasing convergence of corporate and consumer technologies will also leave many user organisations exposed to increased security risks.

"Today wireless email is spreading across the enterprise and if not supported by the IT organisation, individuals will find their own ways to access work email on personal devices with significant security implications," warned Basso.

Rather than fighting the inevitable, Basso concludes with the advice that companies should accept the commoditisation of mobility products and rather focus on the full impact of wireless email on the IT organisation when planning a wireless email strategy.

By: Ian Williams, vnunet.com 30 Jul 2007
From : http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2195250/mobile-email-eventually-kill-SMS

iPhone - Worthy of the Hype, and Much More

2007-06-29T08:53:00.000+05:30

Here's an interesting perspective on the iPhone - no, its not yet another review of the iPhone. Rather, this one talks about the overall impact of the iPhone on the telecom industry and more so on the MVAS game. Read on...

The iPhone – Worthy Of The Hype, And Much More
by Derek Kerton, Principal Analyst, The Kerton Group

The iPhone comes out tomorrow, and the hype bandwagon is running at full steam. Usually, I'm the one to write an opinion counter to the hype, but for once, sign me up. I'll run shotgun on this hype bandwagon. Why do I think the iPhone is worthy of all the hype? I'll explain it, section by section in the following article.

You will benefit from the iPhone.
You are going to be better of because of the iPhone, whether you own one or not. It's like the advent of Local Number Portability - for those customers who changed providers, they were able to access a different phone, feature, or pricing plan that they wanted. But even for customers who did NOT switch carriers, they still benefited greatly from the fact that the carriers needed to compete for existing customers. Prior to that, carriers only really competed for new customers. Customer benefits such as free in-network calling, Cingular's "rollover minutes", Sprint's Fair and Flexible plans, T-Mobile's "Five", and VZW's pro-rated early-exit fees are all competitive responses to WLNP.

In a similar vein, the iPhone is forcing all other phone vendors and carriers to raise their game. Responses have been numerous such as Sony Ericsson W580, W200, or the older K790a (all much cheaper), the Helio Ocean (a great multimedia 3G phone), the HTC Touch. And with AT&T set to have a much more compelling music (and video) service through iTunes, Sprint and Verizon have to completely re-think their mobile music stores. Do you really think their recent drops in prices were made in a vacuum?

So, my point is that even before it's release, other competitors have doubled their efforts, lowered prices, and improved devices in anticipation of the Apple device. That's already done - in the bag. Imagine what happens to the market if the iPhone actually IS successful and other vendors copy the best practices from it.

Shaking the balance of power.
Talk about important. The carriers have had an iron grip on device design, features, and a furiously tenacious grip on the content and services that are available to subscribers. This has been to the great detriment of the wireless Value Added Services (VAS) industry (just ask any developer, off the record, when there isn't a carrier within earshot). By being autocratic and trying to control everything, they have stifled creativity. By taking 50% cuts of all VAS, they have snuffed incentives.

You would think that in a competitive market (which I believe US wireless is), you would have one or more carriers compete by...giving customers what they want! (duh) Hutch 3UK did it in Britain because they were desperately competitive. Yet what we have, in most markets including the US, is an oligopolists Prisoner's Dilemma: all carriers are choking the market in a similar way, and none have defected from this de facto pact. Driven by fear, they think the chokehold is best for them. Yet, when one of them defects, the game is over and they will all end up worse off for having played. And AT&T just flinched.

The Apple-driven iTunes model present on iPhone will work around the carriers (somewhat) and we can expect to see more music, video, and content get on the phones through a batch-sync over USB or Wi-Fi. Because of this, AT&T has relinquished significant power to Apple. When customers (including non-iPhone) learn of how easy it can be to get more into and out of their device, they will flock to this model. Other carriers will not be able to compete with AT&T on a VAS basis until they also tear down their walled gardens.

Content providers, SaaS providers, application vendors, all of these will finally get a little bit of power for once. And certainly a new power player, Apple, will have entered the game.

A new channel for content and services.
Content companies will be dancing in the streets on June 29. Finally they've got a channel into the mobile device that isn't bottlenecked by the gatekeeper carriers. They have an easy route to distribute and monetize their content via the iTunes store. Developers are, from their perspective, sick and tired of carriers getting in their way, and then taking a 50% cut. Wow, 50%! Apple makes basically nothing on the iTunes content, charging instead for the hardware. Does that sound appealing for a content company, or what?!

The competitive response.
Other device vendors will need to scramble to catch up with the iPhone's features and slick UI. But Apple will continue to innovate, so they will remain one step behind for a while. They will lose some market share in the consumer and prosumer sectors. But the upside for the other handset makers, and seldom mentioned, is that Apple has broken the grip the Telco had on the device supply chain. Apple has shown that, if you make a compelling enough device that creates demand, you can call some shots.

Some handset vendors are making fun of the iPhone's battery life. I heard a Motorola exec poke fun at it last week on stage, but I think that's a red herring. Battery life is on par with other devices. The only real problem is that it is not user-replaceable. This will manifest itself in a year or so when the cells wear down - as happened with the iPod. Apple should know better on this one.

One of the few advantages competitors have over the iPhone is cost. Price is probably the iPhone's greatest weakness. Despite the fact that consumers have indicated a willingness to pay for great Consumer Electronics products, $500-600 will definitely reduce the market for the iPhone, and leave ample opportunity for the other vendors. If they produce a competitive product at 2-3 hundred dollars less, there will be ample market for them. Creative, SanDisk, and others have already proven this in the media player category.

Time to re-write your mobile video business plan.
If you have a business plan in motion that relies on collecting $15 a month from subscribers to your mobile video service of broadcast content, time to go back to the spreadsheet. The acceptable market price for mobile music and mobile video is about to be lowered to the iTunes standard.

Don't think that your broadcast service can sell at a premium. Think of two users side by side, one with Verizon's V-Cast using MediaFLO and one with an iPhone. The V-Cast user has up to 30 channels of broadcast content to choose from, and the other has PVR-style movies and TV shows they got for free, bought on iTunes, or got from YouTube.com. Both have good quality images, but the iPhone user has pause-play-skip control, and the V-Cast user has little control. The broadcast model, though great technology, still reminds me of a Bruce Springsteen song, "57 Channels And Nothin On", which you can watch on YouTube via V-Cast or iPhone.

My take is that the user with the V-Cast phone is going to feel sorry that he hasn't got the iPhone. He'll want his video cheaper, with more choice, and more control, and in and out of coverage areas (think 36,000 ft. high). Music…much the same, if not more so because of the important iPod head-start.

It actually steals other carrier's customers.
Carriers often launch apps and content on an exclusive basis. Think Shakira videos and ringtones with VZW, or SMS that was not inter-carrier, or VZW PTT. Each one was launched in the hope of differentiating from competitors, and stealing subscribers from those competitors. Yet we've seen these apps come and go - and NONE have been important enough to churn customers from one carrier to another, and any good apps are quickly matched. The only thing, so far, that actually has driven churn was bad service from a current provider (negative differentiators). Hyped up phone features were supposed to rock our worlds, but in reality, only two non-voice apps have been remotely "killer". That's SMS and email, and no carrier really has any differentiation in these.

But this is different. The iPhone is probably the first positive differentiator that will churn customers. We know this from research, analogical evidence, and the fact that a million people have requested the device from AT&T. Four days before the launch, people are camping in front of AT&T and Apple stores. Has that ever happened before in the telecom space? eBay and Craigslist have "professional waiters" offering to hold a place in line for a fee. Subscribers of other carriers have not renewed their contracts for months so that they can be free to switch carriers for the iPhone. And if you want an iPhone, you'll need to be on AT&T. That's powerful.

And the AT&T benefit goes beyond those who churn to AT&T for an iPhone. The brand cachet gained will be significant. AT&T will be cool again for the first time in an era without horseless carriages. People will enter AT&T stores just to have a look, might even buy something else. Make a sale: minus one subscriber for VZW and plus one sub for AT&T - each churner is a double victory in Wall Street's eyes. I clearly think that the exclusive Apple deal is great for AT&T because of the reasons listed above, and I think it is actually a painless move because of the below...

And there will be ancillary benefits accrued to AT&T. I believe that the carriers historic desire for control has been self-destructive. They have shrunk the pie, and claimed a big piece. Apple is forcing AT&T to open up, and they will be the first carrier to do so, and have a leadership advantage in the new, larger pie. More content, more data services, more activity, more revenue. Hey, I warned you I was on the bandwagon in paragraph 1.

Of course, this is theirs to lose. The phone is unlikely to flop, but if the network flops (as AT&T Wireless did when their new subscriber provisioning system failed just as WLNP was implemented), they will have a lot of egg on their faces.

BTW, I also think the exclusive deal was good for Apple, because they could never have negotiated for as tough terms from carrier without offering exclusivity. Yet without the terms Apple extracted, this whole event would be 'just another device' like the ROKR was.

iPhone actually tries to give the people what they want.
Foreign concept, but that's what Apple does. Well, OK, Apple isn't 100% committed either, as we know they benefit from locking music with DRM that also locks it to iPods, but hey, they are a radical step in the right direction vis-à-vis the telecom industry. The iPhone does, and will continue to innovate in ways the customer wants, with fewer restrictions put in by what the telco wants. The end result is better overall for society - even if it is not better for every individual stakeholder.

The UI was "job one".
Finally - a phone made by a company for whom UI is the leading feature. Motorola, Nokia, et al can say what they want about how important they think UI is. It just isn't to them. Not compared to Apple. And the reality is that UI is the most important thing in any device. Every other feature lurks within the UI. Modern mobile phones start with hardware, features, and functions, and then build a UI wrapper around them. The iPhone is different: eschewing any legacy processes, this device was built from the UI down. This avoids the silos that plague conventional devices.

Now, I have some issues with the iPhone UI, don't get me wrong. I prefer devices that have more hardware buttons. There are some functions that I want one click away, with tactile feedback. I want to be able to move a few switches with the device in my pocket. But that's a relatively small gripe, especially given the UI improvements that overcome the limitation.

The right sacrifices were made.
A lot has been made of the fact that this phone only has an EDGE modem. But space/power/cost trade-offs always must be made. And those complaining about this have just bought-in too much of the 3G hype. Don't get me wrong, 3G is delightful when needed, like a laptop modem. But Blackberry, for example, works perfectly well on the 19,800kbps Mobitex network. The key is to managing the need for fast data, and deploying a slick UI that hides the latency. RIM figured it out, and got a 7-year head-start in the mobile email space.

So why doesn't the iPhone NEED 3G? Well, the notion is not that users will be actively using data-traffic-intensive applications while mobile. The notion is that they will sideload a variety of content and apps from their desktop into the device. How stupid is that? Let me see...using a 480Mbps connection that is free for data traffic (a.k.a. USB) vs. using a 600Kbps 3G connection that uses battery, increases hardware costs, and is billed by the carrier. If that's stupid, then call me Gump. Not to mention the Wi-Fi radio that can get access at home, office, or some Hotspots. 3G will come in later devices, as the market determines, but I think we will find the lack of 3G a small peccadillo.

No Keyboard. Well, this one hurts the device in the eye of the most active email users. But there is a clever text input touch-screen keypad, so for SMS messages and short emails, it works fine. And even though email push functionality and security are not enterprise-grade, this device isn't targeting the Blackberry set anyway. RIM can relax and sit this one out, for now. This is clearly a consumer device, and hardware thumb-boards are mostly an enterprise feature.

Phones are officially CE.
The other cool thing about this is that phones have historically been a utilitarian part of the network. The industry name we use for them is "terminals". We see them as the end point on the network, linked to the network provider and provisioned by them. But with the iPhone, the mobile phone is becoming Consumer Electronics for real. Phones will start to be devices bought by consumers, and simply connected to a network. Call the network a pipe, if you must…Steve Jobs does. From there, what's next? Gameboys connected to the network, cameras? What other CE will follow this leader? In this new world, many devices will connect to a neutral-host carrier that provides the simple service of connectivity.

The deciding factor.
That said, iPhone is not for me. I find that phone choice is made mostly by the Second Feature Rule. You haven't heard of that rule because I just made it up. But basically almost everyone's first priority for a mobile phone is voice connectivity. But every phone delivers that commoditized feature. So people end up choosing the kind of phone they carry by their second feature priority. These range from (followed by an example):

gaming (BREW phones)
size
design (the RAZR, Vertu)
price (developing world)
email (um..Blackberry)
enterprise apps (Windows mobile or RIM)
camera (Nokia N95)
SMS text (Danger Hiptop)
music (Sony Ericsson, iPhone)
UI (the iPhone, Helio Ocean)
WiFi
Data speed
video (MediaFlo phones, DVB-H in the EU)

But a phone today, being the size it is, cannot be great at ALL these things. Even if money is no object, compromises have to be made. So some devices are better at one thing, and others at another thing. For me, my second priority is email, and I don't consider the iPhone a strong contender. But if your second priority is media…you just might be an iPhone customer.

RIM (Blackberry) - What to expect next ?

2007-06-28T15:13:00.000+05:30

RIM headed for the scrapheap?
BlackBerry faces increased pressure

By Cath Everett of Silicon.com
(http://networks.silicon.com/mobile/0,39024665,39167655,00.htm?r=1)

Industry observers are raising the question of whether current push-email leader RIM, with its BlackBerry offering, will be able to maintain its position or whether it is destined simply to become an also-ran - or acquisition target - as the sector continues to mature, expand and consolidate.

According to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, less than 10 per cent of the 100 million potential subscribers worldwide are currently using push email services, with businesses currently making up the majority of purchasers.

The market, he believes, has to date been held back because "it is still too hard to set these things up and smartphones that use push are still too large and difficult to use for most".

While the BlackBerry "remains one of the most attractive devices in the segment" and is "comparatively easy to use", the advantage of going with a Microsoft Mobile 6 and Exchange 2007 combination, for example, is that there is no need to set up a separate back-end push email server, "although the settings on the phone can be daunting".

Using RIM, on the other hand, does require the installation of a separate BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which means that there is "yet one more device to set up and administer, though the phone is still harder to set up than it should be".

Another issue is the cost of such services, which Enderle also reckons has to come down for the market to reach its full potential, particularly in the consumer space.

But the big test for RIM over the next two years or so will be the rising levels of competition in a market that it has more or less owned since the BlackBerry was first launched in 1999. Beyond the most dangerous of rivals in the shape of Microsoft, device manufacturers such as Motorola and Palm also have RIM solidly in their sights, as do mobile network operators such as Vodafone.

Charmaine Eggberry, EMEA vice president for RIM, is sanguine. She pointed out that the company now has eight million subscribers worldwide, some 70 per cent of whom are no longer using their BlackBerry simply for push email. Instead they are also employing it to access corporate applications, such as SAP and Oracle, as well as lifestyle packages, such as gaming and health, while on the move.

Advantage Google, On the Mobile Web Too

2007-06-27T10:39:00.000+05:30

Basis a recent report released by M:Metrics Google enjoys a significant lead in the list of Top-10 Web companies visited by smart-phone users in US & UK. Here is a snap-shot of their ranking...

United States
Google Inc. 62.48%
Yahoo! Inc. 33.54%
Microsoft Corporation 33.36%
AT&T Inc. 21.22%
Time Warner Inc. 19.06%
The Walt Disney Company 17.00%
News Corporation 15.54%
Sprint Nextel 15.29%
The Weather Channel 15.28%
eBay Inc. 14.19%

United Kingdom
Google Inc. 30.94%
Orange Personal Communications 21.68%
British Broadcasting Corporation 20.90%
Microsoft Corporation 17.75%
Vodafone Group PLC 16.79%
eBay Inc. 13.08%
O2 (UK) Ltd, Service Operations 12.77%
Hutchison Whampoa Limited 12.67%
Yahoo! Inc. 10.97%
Deutsche Telekom AG 10.71%

While Yahoo! ranks 2nd in the US, it is surprisingly ranked 9th in the US - my guess is that it is because of the popularity (aided by the walled garden approach) of operator portals.

Strangely, Walt Disney figures at 6th place in the US !!

You can access the PR release from M:Metrics at http://mmetrics.com/press/PressRelease.aspx?article=20070625-april-meter

Messaging - Beyond the Blackberry

2007-06-22T11:57:00.001+05:30

By GSM>3G Vision (telecoms.com), 21st June 2007
(http://www.telecoms.com/itmgcontent/tcoms/events/gsmwfo/61/20017434791.html)

Looking at the apparent ubiquity of the Blackberrys among the business community, the layman's impression may well be that mobile email is ubiquitous in the enterprise. Jason Guesman, SVP and general manager of Americas for Seven, feels by contrast that there is "quite a bit of opportunity for significant growth in enterprise".

That's not too surprising when you consider that Seven produces mobile email software that is sold as a service by mobile operators and service providers. But he is right to say: "We think that the solutions that are out there today are really only targeting a small fraction of potential users," he says. To put it another way, RIM represents less than half a per cent of the mobile devices worldwide and Seven is not alone in wanting to go after as much of the other 99.5 per cent - consumer and enterprise - as might be interested. "We believe there's a huge opportunity and a lot of it is tied to device support," Guesman explains.

However, even in the enterprise, change is not always popular. "What you find with lots of technology in the enterprise is that a good day for the CIO is when nothing changes!" says Guesman. But end user reality is clearly against the status quo. "Look at every office in the world," he says. "There's a phone and there's a computer: these are the two key productivity tools. When you leave the office you take the phone with you and the PC stays behind. You look at that for your email, your calendar, your contacts. Taking that with you keeps you connected; the pace of business can move a lot faster when everyone is plugged in."

However, enterprise awareness of mobile email is at least strong. What about the consumer? The opportunity is clearly there given that fixed email accounts are pervasive - both as an organisational and a social tool. So how can you translate that to the mobile environment? "The key thing is first to figure out what are the most popular mail services and make sure your platform can easily support those out of the box - and that there are no barriers to setup," says Guesman. "You can't ask users to put in their SMTP address, their port settings, do this, do that... you just lose 98 per cent of the customers like that. It has to be very simple."

Obviously Seven believes it is already meeting the consumer market's requirements - at least in the US where the company's support is spread over 20 handsets, by no means all high end. "For us it's clear that email for consumer phones is a very compelling proposition," says Guesman. "It's now about running fast enough to get on as many phones as possible."

And then there's the rest of the world - notably certain parts of Asia. "The interesting thing about Asia is how much opportunity there is for mobile to really be the first computing experience," says Guesman. "In China the opportunity goes beyond just extending your mobile email experience to this being your primary mobile email experience - on your phone."

Of course consumer email is hardly a mass market yet. How long does Guesman think it will be before consumer mobile email is taken for granted in the same way as fixed email? "I'd say a year and a half," he suggests. And he sees it eventually becoming as everyday as voicemail. "You buy your phone, you set up your voicemail account, you set up your email account. It's really that easy."But is pricing easy too - or a deterrent? Enterprises may be able to tolerate a reasonable cost for mobile email, but what about consumers?

"We're seeing a number of different billing models ranging from charging for the actual application to bundling in with data services," says Guesman. "More and more we're seeing the bundling approach working where operators try to build a core value proposition". And if a user feels it's worth paying a modest amount for a core set of services that includes email, revenue from other services could follow. Ah yes, the ever-popular question: could consumer mobile email drive the use of associated content?

"We see a great intersection between content and communication," says Guesman. And he can back that statement up with at least one statistic from a couple of the company's operator clients: the news that 30 per cent of the users that signed up for email actually activated their data package at that time.

"Once you've got a really good messaging experience on the phone you start to layer content," says Guesman. And if phones with gigabytes of memory become a common feature, "you're going to want to share that content, you get more consumption of content and you get a virtuous cycle of people downloading viewing content." With messaging tightly integrated to allow easy sharing of content, he adds, "this could trigger a whole other cycle of consumption and purchases".

Mobile email accounts could hit 260m

2007-06-18T10:10:00.000+05:30

By CBR Staff Writer, 25th November 2005

Mobile email is on the verge of mass adoption, and based on the assumption that between 35% and 40% of these inboxes could potentially be mobilized, Datamonitor believes the addressable market for enterprise mobile email is around 260 million subscriptions.

There are some 650 million corporate email inboxes worldwide. According to the latest industry figures on mobilized email accounts, the number of subscribers currently stands between 5 and 6 million, indicating that the mobile email market is still in its infancy, and promising strong growth for many years to come.

According to Datamonitor surveys, 50% of the European enterprises interviewed have already deployed mobile email solutions, while mobile Personal Information Management, which bundles mobile email, messaging, calendar, address book, notes, bookmarks, and remote file access, lagged behind slightly with 34% of respondents saying they had already deployed a mobile PIM solution.

This is a notable increase on results of a comparable survey conducted a year ago when mobile email penetration was at 39% and mobile PIM penetration was at 28%. Another interesting trend in the survey was an even steeper increase in the number of respondents saying they plan to deploy mobile email and mobile PIM over the next 12 months.

The survey revealed that mobile PIM is catching up with mobile email. Mobile email penetration grew by 11 percentage points between 2004 and 2005. In the same period, mobile PIM penetration grew by 6 percentage points.

From: http://www.cbronline.com/article_news_print.asp?guid=DDAB714A-12CB-4244-BAC1-3B1241CCDE3D

Mobile email triggers content. Looks to advertising

2007-06-18T10:01:00.000+05:30

By Brian Dolan, May 18, 2007

The cliché scene of a chattering mobile phone user on a busy subway car has given way to a quieter rendition of mobile phone use: the click-clacking of the mobile email user. Although mobile email has seen dramatic growth over the past few years, most of that growth has been dominated by the enterprise user. Current Analysis reports that in 2006 about 1.2 percent of corporate email accounts, or 8 million, were mobile.

There is still plenty of room for growth on the enterprise front, particularly as handsets become more sophisticated and offer a more compelling user experience. Nevertheless, some mobile email providers are turning their focus to the consumer market. And to help tap that market, they are integrating email with mobile content and exploring advertising.

Better handsets, better email
"Consumer retail email is suddenly very much the opportunity," says Seven's CEO Ross Bott. "The single most important factor for this is the rate of change and evolution of handsets: They're finally reaching the depth of tide where all these mobile applications are beginning to float." Indeed, handsets now offer a much more compelling email experience and that is driving much of these changes. SMS won't hold the spotlight for much longer, Bott says. "CPUs on mobile phones are rivaling some PCs and they have enough memory now to make things really interesting, especially for really powerful email clients."

To help draw consumers and round out their offerings, some mobile email providers are adding more applications that will drive email usage and increase overall consumer data usage. "We see two areas in the way that we look at content: personal and general content, as it relates to mobile," says Visto Vice President of Marketing Joyce Kim. "General content people can access through carrier portals, the mobile web and mobile advertising, while personal content includes everything from contacts, photos, user-generated videos and desktop files from a computer accessible device." Kim said that email is just another form of content, and it happens to be the one the company tackled first. "Some of the other email providers have begun pushing and syncing weather updates or stock quotes, etc., but we really focused instead on how people use their email accounts and decided to streamline those things to drive content usage, [thereby] making mobile email more contextual and relevant in the process."

Visto, Seven and other mobile specific email solution providers are taking their cues from Web-based email portals such as Google's Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Microsoft's Hotmail. The timing is appropriate because these email giants are now beginning to invade the mobile platform. "If you get an email with a street address in it, you will be able to trigger a mapping function directly from the mobile email," Kim said. "The same is true for Web addresses, with one click you can seamlessly open your mobile browser and visit that site." File attachments, remote desktop access and more will become standard for most email services in 2007, according to the email service providers.

More than text
Nokia may be a bit ahead of the game after its acquisition of Intellisync last year. Tom Libretto, Nokia's director of portfolio strategy and product marketing with the mobility solutions group, says that mobile email users want more than just pushed text from their email service. When Nokia acquired Intellisync last year, the email solutions provider merged with Libretto's unit, and brought a white-labeled mobile email account: Verizon Wireless. Libretto said his unit powers hundreds of thousands of active Verizon Wireless email users, who have access to presence functionalities, remote desktop access, IM and RSS feeds. Each of the services leverage Intellisync's push capabilities, which makes integration with the email client much easier. "Whether we're pushing content to a user's handset via an RSS feed or sending documents to an enterprise's sales team, fundamentally, on the back end, the technology is identical," Libretto said.

MVNO Helio, which has positioned itself as a carrier looking to recreate the PC experience on the mobile phone, also has integrated email with other applications. Helio's latest offering, the Ocean handset, is the culmination of Helio's efforts to bring the PC experience to the handset. "If you get an embedded phone number in an email, you can dial straight off of it, or text that person," says Helio's Senior Director of Products and Services Doug Britt. "If you receive a Web address, we will parse it and invoke the mobile browser right away. We've also worked hard from an attachment standpoint; users can now take attachments right off the email and save to their device."

Integrating email with messaging
Because consumers see email as just another form of communicating, many email application providers are investigating various techniques for combining email and messaging. The goal is to help consumers track and manage their communications. "We need to decrease the complexity of them, because humans don't even consider the differences between them, they're just messages. Combining these services in logical ways is something Seven will start doing in mid-2007 and complete in 2008," Bott says.

Helio's Ocean handset already demonstrates how effective and compelling integrated messaging solutions can be, as noted by the many favorable comparisons between the device and the much-hyped Apple iPhone. Britt says that the Ocean has instant messaging platforms such as AIM, Yahoo and MSN. In addition it offers email from Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, Hotmail, Gmail, Helio Mail and Earthlink Mail. Users' regular contact lists show their friends IM presence, or whether they are online. Hyperlinks trigger browsers and friends can be located through GPS. These services are integrated with the messaging services, thus blurring the line between where one application ends and another begins.

The next frontier?
Integrating applications with email may be on the forefront of many email application providers' to-do lists but some are also looking closely at the advertising model. The key is context. Google has been successful in launching a contextual advertising based Web-based email service, Gmail.
Likewise, Visto's Kim believes that advertising is an opportunity for mobile email if it's done correctly." It's a challenge to make advertising relevant to what the users are doing, to make it contextual so they feel that it adds value," Kim says. "You've also got to be careful not to make such contextual advertising seem intrusive from a privacy standpoint."

Whether or not advertising-supported email models will make their way into the mobile space is still unclear. However, mobile email providers are confident that integrated email with other applications is the answer to getting more consumers onboard.

From: http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/feature-mobile-email-triggers-content-looks-to-advertising/2007-05-18

SMS Contributes 70-80% of Non-Voice Mobile Revenues

2007-04-26T20:21:00.000+05:30

Snippets from a recently released report from Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c54950)...

Mobile messaging is an integral and vital part of the mobile industry and contributes significantly to worldwide total mobile service revenues. This extensive new report offers a complete study of worldwide mobile messaging markets, forecasting SMS and MMS traffic volumes and revenues for the period 2007-2012, and forecasting mobile email and IM user growth for the same period.

The report studies the major categories of mobile messaging, i.e., short messaging service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), mobile e-mail and mobile instant messaging (IM).
The worldwide population is expected to rise from approximately 6.55 billion to approximately 7 billion between 2006 and 2012, and at the same time we forecast the worldwide mobile subscriber base to also increase from 2.65 billion to 4.81 billion.

Asian markets, which are growing at a staggering pace, are expected to account for 50 percent of the total worldwide subscriber base by 2008. Also, the rise in mobile penetration in Latin America and Africa will contribute significantly towards the overall growth of the mobile market.

Although revenues from voice calls still comprise 80 percent of worldwide total mobile revenues, operators globally are focusing on data services for increasing their average revenue per user (ARPU).

Of the various data services available, while attracting none of the glamour as a leading product in most MNOs service portfolio's, SMS actually accounts for approximately 75 to 80 percent of non-voice service revenues worldwide.

After a slow start, MMS has also started experiencing significant growth in several regions, especially in North America. Since interoperability agreements were finally put into place in 2005, the North American market has enjoyed rapid growth in MMS traffic. While North America and Europe now enjoy growing MMS traffic and revenues, MMS is still quite weak in much of Asia and other regions, namely Latin America and most of Africa and the Middle East.

Apart from SMS and MMS, mobile e-mail and mobile IM are showing strong future growth prospects in some geographic regions. Apart from North America and Europe, mobile e-mail is expected to grow significantly in the mobile markets of the Asia Pacific region. The success of mobile e-mail is largely driven by the growth of more advanced handheld devices, such as PDAs and smartphones, so obviously growth of these services will be broadly restricted to the wealthier, more advanced markets for the immediate future.

In response to the last bit... They obviously haven't reviewed / considered the unique positioning of MeOnGo" :)

Mobile Email - Can Pull be a "Disruptive Technology"?

2007-04-25T11:07:00.000+05:30

Came across an interesting debate titled Mobile Email: Push vs. Pull which got me to think and post as follows...

More than 2 billion mobiles world-wide, of which smart-phones account for less than 4%. 1.5 billion email accounts world-wide. And how may mobile email users do we have so far? 10M at best!!

How come no one is questioning this? As critical as email is in our life these days, why is it that only half-a-percent of email users find mobile email appealing?

My take is that mobile email, as is on offer currently... is targeted at high-end users, having high-end devices, requiring high-end email infrastructures - not to mention the ongoing high-cost of using it (data plans, license fees etc.) Many services which claim to be "mobile email for masses" require downloading and installing a client on the phone – requiring mostly a smart-phone and an entry level data-plan.

The above pretty much rules out users in emerging economies… Where internet connectivity and computers are not pervasive. Where people have mobile phones but still continue to use cyber cafe's to access email. Where "value-for-money" is paramount. Where people have browsing capabilities on the phone but data-plans are still expensive. These, accordingly to me, are people who will find great use for mobile email… provided its adoption and usage costs are attractive.

It is with this scenario in mind that our service MeOnGo was developed and launched. A comprehensive PULL mobile email service that works purely in the mobile's browser. Nothing to download, nothing to install and no complicated setups - simply go to the m.MeOnGo.com, enter your email address, password and get going.

The service is designed ground-up to work with any mobile... whether it is an old GPRS phone with only WML support or a cutting-edge smart-phone. The service, though free, provides comprehensive email functionality… there is support for multiple mailboxes, viewing of attachments, SMS alerts for new emails and much more.

In the ongoing debate of Pull vs. Push... Pull would surely fit the bill of Clayton Christensen's definition of "Disruptive Technology"...

A new, possibly lower performance, but less expensive product that addresses an existing market. The disruptive technology starts by gaining a foothold in the low-end, and less demanding, part of the market, then moves up-market through performance improvements, and finally displaces an incumbent's product.

Coverage in ET

2007-04-01T16:14:00.000+05:30

Economic Times (ET) recently covered our mobile email offering... Titled Net4Nuts Rings in Pull Email (by Kamran Sulaimani) the story seems to have appeared in most editions of ET.

What surprised me most was the kind of response it invoked. I got a call from one of the mobile operators requesting more information. A person from an industry association also contacted me saying that their members (mostly SMEs) would largely benefit from a service like MeOnGo. Not only that, a couple of end-users also called to say this was a very handy service and that they would no longer need to scout for cyber-cafes for email access, when they are travelling.

Good to know that we are bang on target with our assumption that "mass-market" needs a mobile email service that caters to their needs (and their wallets).

Interestingly, the article positions MeOnGo as a replacement for Blackberry. While MeOnGo is also a mobile email service, the target audience, positioning, costs and features are aimed at a completely different segment / class of users. More on this in my next posting.

Second Life getting Mobile-Enabled

2007-03-30T12:43:00.000+05:30

Came across an interesting write-up (see below). So what are we going to hear next? virtual Google, Yahoo! and MSNs? Wonder if then there is room for a (virtual) mobile email service for your virtual handset to access your virtual email in your Second Life.

Call me in my Second Life
by Kevin Fitchard
As I stagger around CTIA Wireless, chronically late to almost every appointment, I keep getting asked what the most interesting thing I've seen at the show is. I hate to sound negative and trite, but my usual response is "nothing." It's not that the show isn't interesting. I learn a lot, there's a lot of news to cover and technology to learn about. But it's been years since I've seen a demo or participated in a briefing that's knocked my socks off.

That said, I'd recommend taking a stroll over to the Comverse booth if you're here, and ask to see the Second Life demo. I wouldn't go as far as to say it was sock-knocking, but it definitely snapped me out of the exhausted funk I was in by mid-show. (I wasn't even supposed to have a briefing with Comverse -- I was tricked, I tell you.) Anyway, for those of you that don't know, Second Life is the online phenomenon, where you can live a virtual life. Through an online avatar, you can meet other people, buy clothes, flirt, network and generally loiter online, and no one is the wiser to your real identity.

It's an acquired taste, I suppose, but apparently a taste that millions have acquired, spawning a massive online universe, populated not just by virtual inhabitants but virtual stores and organizations from the real world. And any virtual world needs a virtual cellular company. What Comverse has cooked up is a wireless service, where Second Life denizens can call and text one another not only within the game but outside of it. Second Life may be all-consuming, but once you've turned off the computer your virtual life is temporarily on hold. Comverse has developed a way for you to be delusional 24 hours a day.

The virtual cellular carrier issues a real telephone number that doesn't actually end in a phone, but rather a server. That number acts as beard between the real world and the virtual, allowing customers to retain their hidden identities while placing calls within and outside of the game (though all of the men pretending to be women on Second Life might get their cover blown the first time they place a call). For instance: Crazy Legs Sarah sends a text message to my Second Life phone. If I happen to be online, the message is received by my avatar half--Yellow Boy--who dutifully opens his phone and displays the message. If I'm offline, the message is forwarded on to my real-life cellphone, which I can respond to just like any other text message. From there we can set a date to meet at the local virtual dance club, where I can thrill her with my virtual break dancing moves. Online romance ensues.

Second Life hasn't yet signed off on the Comverse project yet, but if it does, it's all done on open platforms that integrate easily back to any carrier's platform. So don't be surprised if you see an Amp'd Mobile or Helio picking up on it in the next year. Now if only they'd host CTIA Wireless on Second Life. I could get some real work done.

Beginning of a new journey

2007-03-20T10:55:00.000+05:30

Our company Net4Nuts, has been offering Mobile Value-Added Services (MVAS) to quite a few carriers (we call them "mobile operators") in India and S. E. Asia. Way back in 2001, we were one of the first companies to be offering mobile-email and information-on-demand (IOD) services.

Over a period of time, and in line with changing customer requirements and usage, we have indegeniously developed a comprehensive range of mobile email offerings, including solutions for:

> Email-2-SMS (and SMS-2-Email) - @carriername.com
> Email alerts
> Mobile Email for individuals / consumers (on SMS and WAP)
> Mobile Email for enterprises

A bulk of our solutions so far have been deployed and offered by carriers - burned into their SIM menus or as part of their mobile portals.

With mobile data connectivity getting more pervasive and standardisation of mobile data protocols, we believe this to be an opportune time for offering VAS directly to mobile users. We believe, we are ready to go B2C / B2B with our mobile email solution - aptly named : MeOnGo (as in "me on the go" or "mobile email on the go")

Check it out...