Gartner defines LBS as services that use information about the location of mobile devices, derived from cellular networks, Wi-Fi access points or via satellite links to receivers in (or connected to) the handsets themselves. Examples are services that enable friends to find each other, parents to locate their children, mapping and navigation. Location-based services may be offered by mobile network carriers or other providers. They are also known as location-aware services.

“The LBS industry has matured rapidly in recent months through a mixture of consolidation, improved price/performance of the enabling technologies and compelling location applications,” said Annette Zimmermann, senior research analyst at Gartner.

“Factors driving the increase in the next year or so include higher availability of GPS-enabled phones, reduced prices and appearance of application stores.”

Gartner predicts that advertising-based or ‘free’ LBS (disregarding data charges by mobile carriers) will gain more traction as users adopt it as a way to limit costs.

Mobile carriers that stick to the current predominant business model of charging users USD 5 to USD 10 per month plus data plans will experience high churn rates as users will look for free alternatives.

In North America and Western Europe, the share of users taking advantage of free services is approximately 10-15 per cent today and is expected to grow to 40-50 per cent in 2013.

Gartner expects more compelling and useful applications and services to come to market in the next 12 to 18 months such as digital coupons to be redeemed in a nearby shop and points-of-interest search services. Smaller niche players will survive in local markets only when they have an established user base and unique offering that larger players cannot compete with. Other players will be acquisition targets for larger vendors.

Gartner analysts said LBS market dynamics vary by region. For example, North America is the largest market due to mobile carriers' strong efforts in navigation services and family-safety solutions. In Western Europe, navigation is currently the most used application, followed by local search and "friend finder." There is still no significant uptake of safety applications.

Japan will continue to see steady growth as GPS has been required by law in mobile phones since 2007. In Asia/Pacific, during the summer Olympics, location services were for the first time offered in China which is now an advertising-based solution and free to the user.

“The competitive landscape will change and most mobile carriers need to alter their approach toward offering LBS and dealing with developers,” concluded Ms Zimmermann. “Subscriber growth will hinge on "free" - disregarding data charges - services. Mobile operators’ initiatives to open up the application programming interface to third-party developers will help them compete against other players in the market and will also be beneficial to the different parties involved, down to the end user.”

The popularity of the Communicator series in Indonesia has been duly noted in Nokia, but even at Nokia, people have not been aware of the origins of this unexpected fandom. However, Nokia has rewarded Indonesian Communicator fanatics by announcing new models in Jakarta and bringing the models first to the Indonesian market.

Lauri Hirvonen, who at a time was running Nokia development support organization, Forum Nokia, remembers that Forum Nokia organized extra development workshops in Indonesia. “These workshops are important. They enable developers to create applications that are tuned to local needs and work in local languages,” Hirvonen says.

In Indonesia the Nokia Comunicator is also a status symbol. The Communicator Community has tens of thousands of members, wrote CNet Asia in September 2006 in an article was about the tenth anniversary of the first Communicator. Over two thousand people attended the anniversary party.

When Nokia E90 Communicator sales started in Jakarta in June 2007, the first people lined up behind the store gates the night before. By the time the store doors opened, there were more than 3000 people waiting to get their hands on the new Communicator. Not even the recent iPhone mania has been able to match this scale of fandom.

The man who is responsible for the Communicator fandom, the founder and CEO of inTouch distributor, Kendro Hendra, has an excellent series of photographs that tell the story of what happened in Jakarta with the E90.

Andy Zain is a mobile industry activist. Besides being the founder of MobileMonday Indonesia, he is active in other industry organizations and is an active investor and serial entrepreneur. He is Vice Chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, overseeing the contents and applications sub-committee.

“We were in a difficult position. We had three hundred Communicators in stock and no one to sell them”, Andy Zain explained. At the time he was working for for inTouch.

“Mobile phone resellers said that the Communicator was a way too heavy and clunky. No one would buy one. Electronics resellers understood the Communicator even less.”

Innovative marketing proved to be the solution.

“We gave preconfigured Communicators to BMW salesmen and insurance agents. They were able to use them in closing the sales. When the customers saw the device in real life use, they wanted them. Salesmen were also able to sell the phones,” Zain remembers.

Nokia Communicators were another prestige item for luxury car owners, even though they used them for only for making phone calls and sending SMS’s.

InTouch was able to further increase the social value of Communicators by making sure that the government ministers owned the devices. And the rest is history.

The powerful Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (iDA) used the opportunity provided by the CommunicAsia Summit and invited MobileMonday activists from Finland, India, Japan, Norway, Denmark, Indonesia, Vietnam, South-Africa and Australia to talk about their respective mobile markets.

The MobileMonday people had earlier in the week given two star seminars as a part of the CommunicAsia Summit on Mobile Marketing and Advertising and on Mobile TV and Entertainment.

"It was great to see the intensity and enthusiasm in Saturday workshop. Many participants were especially interested in Africa, the hottest developing region of out industry," commented Jari Tammisto, CEO, Mobile Monday Oy.

Tammisto had a long discussion with iDA officer Christopher Chen about a possibility of setting up MobileMonday Asia-Africa support center in Singapore.

“We are in an absurd situation where the Finnish innovation strategy emphasizes the ever more international nature of innovation communities and centers and where companies lean ever more on open communities, yet MobileMonday can find no public financial support in Finland. We need to have resources to support our network reaching almost 50 countries, Tammisto says.

“Singapore’s iDa, Malyasian Multimedia Development Agency (MDec) and respective organizations of other countries have shown interest in hosting our support center. For time being, we have decided to keep the MobileMonday international coordination in Finland, as the local companies give us strong positive feedback.”

Africa lacks money, not innovation

In the workshop Teemu Kiijarvi, the founder of MobileMonday South Africa and the regional director of MobileTools International Ltd, told the audience that Africans lack money, not innovativeness.

“There is no need for Europeans or Asians to teach Africans how things need to be done. In many senses Africans are leading in mobile development. Since there is only mobile channel, African people and companies put it into wide use. Mobile banking is used more in Africa, than anywhere else,” Kiijarvi said.

He also pointed out that Mixit mobile chat/IM service has huge following among the youth since it is much cheaper than SMS messaging.

A Singaporean entrepreneur was enthusiastic about Andy Zain’s presentation on Indonesian mobile markets. He said he gained new and richer vision into neighbouring market insights, even if his company had already done some business in Indonesia.

Michelle Chan, CEO, Clearhub, a provider of email, wap-content and classified advertising, said that the presentations helped to gel some of her ideas on the next steps toward international enlargement.

Infoline’s Subramanian Veeramani thought he found new channels to sell his speech based search service technology. Infoline’s technology works over any phone connection. The search results are prioritized in a same ways as Google ranks its results or advertisements. The earning model is based on the compensation from companies that benefit from the search results.

Thirty five percent revealed they just don’t get around to using a password on their business phones and smartphones, even though they know they should as they contain sensitive and confidential information! Surprisingly, IT professionals are only marginally better at using passwords than the general population, as a survey conducted earlier in the year by CREDANT found that 40% of all users don’t bother with passwords on their mobile phones.

The sorts of information that IT professionals are storing on their smartphones and mobiles, many of which are totally unprotected with a password, include: - 80% Business names and addresses
- 66% Personal names and addresses
- 23% Business emails
- 16% Personal emails
- 12% Bank account details
- 12% Business diary with details of all their appointments and meetings
- 7% Personal diary
- 5% Credit card information
- 4% photos
- 1% Passwords and Pin numbers

Andrew Kahl, Sr. VP of Operations & Co-Founder from CREDANT Technologies explains in the company press release:

“It is alarming to note that the very people who are responsible for IT security are not much better at protecting the information on their business phones than most of their co-workers, who don’t necessarily know any better. If a mobile or smartphone goes missing and isn’t protected with a password, and contains business names and addresses and other corporate data such as business emails, then the company is immediately in breach of the data protection act by failing to meet some of its principals on electronic data.”

“Of even greater concern is the damage that can be done to a company, and the individual who is responsible for the phone, if it falls into the wrong hands, which could expose them to personal or corporate identity theft. It is therefore imperative that all mobile phone users who hold sensitive data, either personal or corporate, should always password protect it at a minimum - and encrypt it if the data is really sensitive,” added Kahl.

According to the IT professionals surveyed, the worst culprits at addressing mobile security within their companies are typically the sales teams, followed by the board of directors and senior management. HR comes out as the best at keeping their mobiles aligned to the corporate mobile security policy.

The survey also found that a third of IT professionals use their own personal mobile phone for work purposes even though the company specifically bans them for business use with almost a fifth spending more than an hour or more per day on their own personal phone for business purposes.

To realize this shared vision, both companies are expanding their longstanding relationship to define a new mobile platform beyond today's smartphones, notebooks and netbooks, enabling the development of a variety of innovative hardware, software and mobile Internet services.

Taking advantage of each company's expertise as leaders in their respective fields, these future standards-based devices will marry the best features and capabilities of the computing and communications worlds and will transform the user experience, bringing incredible mobile applications and always on, always connected wireless Internet access in a user-friendly pocketable form factor.

The Intel and Nokia effort includes collaboration in several open source mobile Linux software projects. Intel will also acquire a Nokia HSPA/3G modem IP license for use in future products.

The companies expect many innovations to result from this collaboration over time.

"This Intel and Nokia collaboration unites and focuses many of the brightest computing and communications minds in the world, and will ultimately deliver open and standards-based technologies, which history shows drive rapid innovation, adoption and consumer choice," said Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager, Ultra Mobility Group.

"With the convergence of the Internet and mobility as the team's only barrier, I can only imagine the innovation that will come out of our unique relationship with Nokia. The possibilities are endless."

"Today's announcement represents a significant commitment to work together on the future of mobile computing, and we plan to turn our joint research into action," said Kai Öistämö, Executive Vice President, Devices, Nokia.

"We will explore new ideas in designs, materials and displays that will go far beyond devices and services on the market today. This collaboration will be compelling not only for our companies, but also for our industries, our partners and, of course, for consumers."

Open Source Software Collaboration

The effort also includes technology development and cooperation in several open source software initiatives in order to develop common technologies for use in the Moblin and Maemo platform projects, which will deliver Linux-based operating systems for these future mobile computing devices.

The companies are coordinating their Open Source technology selection and development investments, including alignment on a range of key Open Source technologies for Mobile Computing such as: oFono, ConnMan, Mozilla, X.Org, BlueZ, D-BUS, Tracker, GStreamer, PulseAudio*. Collectively, these technologies will provide an open source standards-based means to deliver a wealth of mobile Internet and communication experiences, with rich graphics and multimedia capabilities.

Hosted by the Linux Foundation, Moblin is an optimized open source Linux operating system project that delivers visually rich Internet media experiences on Intel Atom processor-based devices including MIDs, netbooks, nettops, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), and embedded systems. For more information see www.moblin.org.

Maemo is a Linux operating system, mostly based on open source code and powers mobile computers such as the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. The Maemo platform has been developed by Nokia in collaboration with many open source projects. For more information see www.maemo.org.

Enabling common technologies across the Moblin and Maemo software environments will help foster the development of compatible applications for these devices – building on the huge number of off-the-shelf PC compatible applications. The open source projects will be governed using the best practices of the open source development model.

Intel to License Nokia's HSPA/3G Modem Technologies

Building on today's announcement, Intel and Nokia have signed an agreement that will enable Intel to license Nokia's HSPA/3G modem technologies with the aim of developing advanced mobile computing solutions that deliver a powerful and flexible computing experience – combining the best-in-class 3GPP modem technology with the high performance and low power consumption of future Intel Architecture-based platforms.

Intel supports multiple mobile broadband standards on its platforms to address the needs of service providers worldwide, and to provide people with an always-connected experience.

The Nokia modem license complements Intel's broadband wireless technologies and will enable the company to extend chipset solutions incorporating Nokia's modem technologies across its mobility offerings in the future.

Nokia is continuing to develop its leading modem technology, which includes protocol software and related digital design for the full suite of 3GPP standards through WCDMA/GSM and its evolution, and then licenses the technology to chipset manufacturers to develop and produce chipsets for device manufacturers.

Nokia's licensable modem technology is the trusted connectivity choice, providing credible and reliable options for the industry based on Nokia wireless modems' embedded history and experience. The Intel license of Nokia's modem technologies is another step in executing Nokia's chipset strategy to create multiple, competitive chipset choices to the industry.

The Joy GM730 is LG’s first phone to use the Windows Mobile 6.1 platform in conjunction with its S-Class user interface as the main skin. According to LG this combination brings a new level of user interactivity to the user.

3D S-Class User Interface debuted in the LG ARENA (LG-KM900) earlier this year. The LG ARENA is a fully loaded multimedia phone that offers an audio and video experience more advanced than other similar devices. LG sold more than 300,000 ARENA handsets within just four weeks of its February debut at Mobile World Congress 2009, a testament to its appeal.

Dr. John Park (third from left) was on hand to answer some of our questions regarding the newly launched LG Application Store and its plans for the Google Android platform on its LG lineup.

The LG Joy GM730 sports the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS, with a touch of S-Class UI on it. The device is slated for an update to the new Windows Mobile 6.5 OS when it's available in the market.

The upcoming LG Application Store. might have trouble differentiating itself from the competition such as Apple's App Store, Nokia's Ovi Store, Google's Android Market and the upcoming Windows Mobile Marketplace.

According to Dr. John Park, Vice President, Head of New Business Development, LG is looking closely to work with the telecoms companies to provide an all-round experience for consumers to enjoy the full extent of the LG Application Store. LG has will support credit card payments, and doesn't rule out the possibility of roping in the telecoms companies to create a convenient avenue to pay for the downloaded apps via their monthly phone bills.

Yahoo! today announced at CommunicAsia 2009 that the new Yahoo! Mobile experience is now available in nine additional countries and 100 more devices worldwide.

Yahoo! Mobile for the Web is now available across more than 400 devices with HTML-enabled mobile browsers by visiting http://m.yahoo.com, while the Yahoo! Mobile iPhone app is available in the Apple iPhone App Store.

The growth has been driven by many simultaneous developments, including upgrading the mobile device base with newer models, the improved mobile networks and the increas¬ing amount of mobile-dedicated internet sites. Yet this has not migrated into growth in the mobile content market revenue.

The new report by Idean, a multi-client study commissioned by the Ministry of Transport and Communications in Finland, Elisa, TeliaSonera, Teleforum and the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA), explains that most often mobile-accessed sites are same as most popular regular internet sites. News sites are among the most popular sites in both mobile and regular browsing. Social media and adult entertainment sites are also among the most popular mobile sites.

The Mobile Content Services Market in Finland 2009-2014, pdf report finds that the revenue of mobile content market totaled 69 million euro in 2008, which is equal to the previous year.

The mobile content market consists of dozens of service categories with different market maturity stages and growth rates and the market growth is expected to remain moderate in the coming few years but to accelerate in the long run.

Mobile advertising market is still in its infancy. However, mobile customer relation communication has become a significant market.

The list of most popular mobile content services is familiar. The largest service cat¬egories by revenue included directory services, ringtones, public transport and chat & communities.

Services that were growing and had a significant positive impact on the total market revenue in 2008 include directory services, public transport tickets, vehicle registry inquiries and mobile auctions. The market value of these services increased in 2008 due to the growing use of these services and the increased prices for some of these services.

On the other hand, the demand for many entertainment service categories has saturated. These include services such as ringtones, pictures and chat. The demand for ringtones and pictures peaked in 2006 and then started to significantly decrease after that. The market for these services would probably have decreased even more sharply had the entertainment service providers not have shifted the focus of the business model toward a subscription-based model. Previously, a great majority of these services were sold as pay per download. In 2008, a majority of these services were subscription services.

The share of information services of the total mobile content market continued to grow in 2008. The information services represented 56% of the total market value.

The biggest disappointments compared to expectations have been seen with mobile television and music services. Mobile television is currently commercially insignificant as well as full tract music sales to mobile phones. The future for these services is still open, however, and we will most likely see new attempts to increase the sales for these services.

Mobile navigation market dynamics changed thoroughly when Nokia started to offer free-of-charge one-year navigation subscriptions as a part of a handset purchase. This resulted in a four million drop in mobile navigation market revenue in 2007 compared to 2006. Prior to Nokia’s market entrance, the mobile navigation sales were suc¬cessfully dominated by dedicated software companies.

Application stores, public transport, music and games are expected to be growth drivers for mobile content market in the coming years.

The rebirth of application stores is currently the most significant trend in the content business. These stores are set up by major global companies and their impact in the market is still speculative. If they succeed, they might change the market dynamics for many of the content service fields in the long run. Their impact in the market revenue in Finland was insignificant in 2008 and it is anticipated to remain moderate in 2009. However, they may have an accelerating significance in the years beyond 2009.

According to the Idean report, the mobile device base has a strong influence on mobile content service uptake and development. The device base is developing continuously and today there are more mobile devices with advanced features than ever before. Smart phone penetration has increased and there were around 1.2 million smart phones in the Finnish mobile networks at the end of 2008. At the same time, the features in other devices have developed and the line between smart phones and other phones has become blurred.

Ekahau HeatMapper allows users to visualize their Wi-Fi networks by creating coverage maps that are color-coded to identify signal strength. The tool also locates all Wi-Fi access points and detects network configurations. With this information, Ekahau HeatMapper enables users to understand and troubleshoot their wireless networks, including resolving issues with slow connectivity, connection drop-offs and security.

“We had high expectations, but were pleasantly surprised by the market’s acceptance of HeatMapper. The announcement of HeatMapper forced us to increase the outgoing bandwidth of our web site, and we have well over 10,000 users,” said Jussi Kiviniemi, senior product manager at Ekahau.

“Word about this solution has spread quickly, because HeatMapper offers an easy yet powerful product for anyone who has a Wi-Fi network with fewer than five access points. Those users who ultimately have to deploy and administer larger networks can easily migrate to our professional Wi-Fi tool, Ekahau Site Survey, which offers the same ease of use.”

Ekahau HeatMapper runs on Windows XP and Vista laptops, and supports the new 802.11n Wi-Fi standard, as well as 802.11a/b/g standards. It is available for free at Ekahau website.

Headquartered in the Netherlands, the joint venture will be dedicated to managing and executing the Carrier Ethernet portfolio roadmap, and extends the previously announced partnership enhancement designed to deliver to service provider customers a fully interoperable Carrier Ethernet solution for mobile backhaul, business services and residential broadband networks.

The planned solution will enable customers to monetize their networks through a faster time-to-market for new revenue-generating services and by improving network efficiency, which in turn will drive down transport costs, according to Nokia Siemens press release.

This planned structure will allow both companies to contribute the necessary products and support to enable meeting the end-to-end portfolio needs of some 200 joint service provider customers worldwide. The planned solution consists of Juniper Networks MX Series Ethernet Services Routers, Nokia Siemens Networks A-series Carrier Ethernet Switches as well as the end-to-end “point-and-click” network management system.

Kamlesh Kalwar, Senior Industry Analyst, Asia Pacific ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan, said, “Nokia Siemens Networks’ success in Asia Pacific is evident from the deployment of its OSS solutions with a large number of service providers across the region. The company’s customer-centric approach, in-depth knowledge, supporting software, solution designing and system integration has enabled it to deliver high quality services and enhance customer experience. In addition, its strong multivendor OSS offering and OSS integration and consulting services have helped service providers not only achieve customer-centric OSS transformation but also reduce integration costs.”

The Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards is an annual event held to recognize the performance of companies and individuals in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry in Asia Pacific. This year, awards were presented in 30 categories, with nominees being evaluated on financial and technology criteria – including revenue and revenue growth, portfolio diversity, major wins, key achievements, infrastructure design, service assurance, and service fulfillment. The winners were selected by a panel of judges hailing from Asia Pacific’s Information and Communications Technology market.

Mats Norin, Vice President of Ericsson Mobile Broadband Modules says: "Netbooks are redefining the way consumers think about the internet and mobile broadband. Netbooks enable consumers to enjoy their music, video, photos and more, on the go. By coupling our cost-effective mobile broadband solution with the affordability of netbooks, Ericsson is bringing connectivity to the masses."

The Ericsson F3307 embedded mobile broadband module frees netbooks from other connectivity solutions such as dongles, enables users to directly access the internet through HSPA, the leading mobile broadband technology, which serves more than 1 billion subscribers in over 100 countries worldwide.

Ericsson has pre-approved its modules with mobile operators in more than 75 countries, allowing netbook manufacturers to cut the product launch phase by shortening the final certification process and enabling faster time to market.

Additionally, Ericsson is working closely with Intel to validate the F3307 mobile broadband module with Intel's next-generation netbook platform, Pine Trail-M.

Ericsson estimates that between now and 2014, more than 300 million netbooks will be sold; and by 2011, more than one third of them will have been sold through wireless operators as a part of mobile broadband subscriptions.

Wind River will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel and continue with its current business model of supplying products and services to its customers worldwide.

"This acquisition will bring us complementary, market-leading software assets and an incredibly talented group of people to help us continue to grow our embedded systems and mobile device capabilities," said Renee James, Intel vice president and general manager of the company's Software and Services Group. "Our combination of strengths will be of great benefit to Wind River's existing and future customers," said Ken Klein, Wind River Chairman, president and CEO.

The acquisition will deliver to Intel robust software capabilities in embedded systems and mobile devices, both important growth areas for the company. Embedded systems and mobile devices include smart phones, mobile Internet devices, other consumer electronics (CE) devices, in-car "info-tainment" systems and other automotive areas, networking equipment, aerospace and defense, energy and thousands of other devices. This multi-billion dollar market opportunity is increasingly becoming connected and more intelligent, requiring supporting applications and services as well as full Internet functionality.

The board of directors of Wind River has unanimously approved the transaction. It is expected to close this summer. Founded in 1981, Wind River is a publicly held company with headquarters in Alameda, Calif., with more than 1,600 employees and operations in more than 15 countries. During its fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2009, Wind River reported annual revenues of USD 359.7 million.

Wind River develops operating systems, middleware, and software design tools for a variety of embedded computing systems. Its main products include VxWorks, the market-leading proprietary and multicore-ready real-time operating system, and commercial-grade Linux software platforms. The company also provides design services and software expertise, including custom-built solutions, development tools and device testing products.

Telenor has issued the following press release: On June 3, 2009, the Moscow City Arbitrazh Court denied the request by Telenor East Invest AS to stay enforcement proceedings commenced by Moscow's bailiff service under the writ of execution issued by the Omsk court to recover $1.73 billion from Telenor East Invest AS following the action brought by Farimex Products, Inc., holder of ADRs equal to 0.002% of VimpelCom shares. The hearings started 14 April and continued 30 April, 6 and 8 May until today's decision.

Telenor will soon appeal the Moscow court's ruling to the Ninth Arbitrazh Appellate Court in Moscow.

On June 10, 2009, the Federal Arbitrazh Court of the West Siberian District in Tyumen will hear the complaint of Telenor East Invest AS on the Omsk ruling.

Earlier, on May 26, 2009 the proceeding of the Telenor East Invest AS case in Tyumen was adjourned because of the inappropriate notification of the third party (the representative of A. Reznikovich and M. Fridman) by the court.

"The Nokia N97 is an important step towards our vision of delivering a highly personalized Internet experience," said Jonas Geust, Vice President and head of Nokia Nseries.

"Fuelled by a multitude of music, maps, games, media and applications via Ovi, the Nokia N97 transforms the Internet into an experience that's completely tailored to the tastes and interests of its owner."

The Nokia N97 is Nokia's first device to feature a personalizable home screen, which can be customized with a range of widgets which bring live information directly to the device.

These widgets include key social networking destinations like Facebook and Hi5, news services like the Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters, as well as shopping and weather information. The Nokia N97 is the first device to ship with the Ovi Store which has paid and free content from global and local content providers and developers, including Paramount Pictures, Facebook and Qik, as well as a selection of Twitter applications.

The phone has 32GB of storage (up to 48GB using a microSD card), high-quality images and video clips at 30 frames per second (fps) can be captured using the 5 megapixel camera with integrated Carl Zeiss optics. Images can also be geo-tagged to specific locations and shared instantly with friends or uploaded online via Ovi Share, Twitter or Flickr.

A full list of Nokia N97 features is available here.