To celebrate another year of blogging at VisionMobile, we ‘ve just published a glossy brochure titled ‘VisionMobile Blog, Print Edition 2008’. This brochure contains eleven of the best articles that appeared on the blog in the last year. The Print Edition 2008 contains excerpts from the following eleven articles, organised along several themes: Theme: Mobile software strategy: – Rethinking application environments (March 07) – The significance of Google’s Android (November 07) – Prague or Berlin? Behind the scenes of the SIM industry (April 07) Theme: Mobile operator strategies: – Container projects: The next chapter in handset customisation (June 07) – Motorola’s UIQ: Diversion or U-Turn? (October 07) Theme: OEM strategies – The headaches of being a handset OEM (April 07) Theme: Service delivery technologies – On-device portals: Sardines in a can (February 07) – Activating the idle screen (June 07) Theme: open source in mobile – Sun’s open source Java policy will mean very little for the mobile industry (September 07) – Bye Bye Browser (April 07) – GPLv2 vs GPLv3: Licensing dynasty or end of the road? (September 07) You can download the PDF version of the brochure here. If you prefer the brochure in its glossy 200gsm paper glory, drop us a line with your postal address and we ‘ll send it through by snail mail (offer valid until March 7th).

Welcome to the 111th edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists! This week’s Carnival is hosted by VisionMobile. It’s been another busy week for mobile industry observers – a particularly mad week if like us you joined the Barcelona party of 50,000+ industry execs rushing across conference halls and meetings and where grand announcements of new products, partnerships and acquisitions were the norm. So what’s new this week ? An interview with the CEO of Mobile Monday, key learnings from MWC, an insight into trends around content recommendation and a comparison of mobile markets worldwide in terms of leaders and followers. Let’s start. Paul Ruppert at the Mobile Point View has done an excellent podcast interview with Jari Tammisto, CEO of Mobile Monday. For those unfamiliar with Mobile Mondays, this is a set of ad-hoc groups formed around local communities with a keen interest in mobile, and a very succesful one, too; over the last 3 years MoMo groups have formed in over 30 countries. From personal experience, the London MoMos are a highly informative, and the mailing list throws up a few gems once in a while. Paul’s interview features quite a few interesting historical facts recounted by Jari from his experience in building up the largest event organising circuit in the industry. On the subject of the MWC, I wrote a detailed post on Learnings from the Mobile World Congress and 10 predictions for MWC 2009. Recommended reading if you ‘re trying to figure out what are the main trends emerging from MWC, particularly if you ‘re interested in service delivery, Ovi vs Trolltech, open source or OHA/Google. Writer, journalist and mobile content expert Peggy Anne Salz over at mSearchGroove writes another thought-leading piece on how recommendation and viral marketing is catching on. Following an interview with JT Klepp, MoConDi President, Peggy writes about how MoConDi s one-click viral sharing gains traction lays out stats & strategy for the company and discusses the role of recommendation & reward in the scheme of things. A very worthy read for those who track where content recommendation is headed. Dennis at WAP review talks about how Yahoo has officially opened their mobile Widget platform to developers, following on the footsteps of Nokia WidSets among others. BTW, from discussion from several widget companies at 3GSM, it seems to me that there are three Widget ‘standards’ or points of API gravity forming across mobile and web; W3C Widgets specifications, Yahoo Widgets and WebKit-based Widgets (used in Apple Dashboard and Nokia Web Runtime). Megablogger, publisher and friend Ajit Jaokar talks about how Mobile Youth is a myth based on a presentation he gave at MWC. Ajit raises a very good point; that there are no ‘Mobile’ Youth – Just ‘Internet Youth’; the mobile data industry is arrogant enough in claiming a whole demographic. Ajit makes another enlightening observation, that Mobile is a just a medium and that the youth will adopt which ever medium will be the one which reflects their social graph. Judy Breck of Golden Swamp and kind maintainer of the Carnival writes about how putting knowledge on mobiles is key for new generations in Middle Eastern cultures. Always with a keen interest in education and the world around us, Judy argues that “educators [in the Middle East] can help the intellectual liberation of the commons by seeing to it that a kid in any culture who has a mobile can use that device to learn reading, writing, arithmetic and the subjects once limited to academic institutions.” C. Enrique Ortiz at the Mobility Weblog offers an accurate definition for social graphs and social networks, as a resolve to the confusing definitions in the Wikipedia entries for these terms (don’t miss the related links at the bottom of the article). Reknown consultant, strategist and author Tomi Ahonen at Communities Dominates Brands writes a long and thoughtful post where he analyses which countries are ahead and which are behind in mobile. Tomi argues that there are primarily four ways to measure leadership in mobile telecoms – the penetration rate (i.e. the number of cellphone subscriptions); the network generation(s); how advanced the handsets are; and how advanced the services are. This is a post that needs to be read from A to Z (ok, minus the sales pitch at the very end). It’s crammed with factoids based on Tomi’s extensive experience, his books and his telecoms background. A Must Read, both for novices and experts to the industry, which is why I ‘m nominating this as Post of the Week. Congrats Tomi and keep them keeping! Next week tune in to Taptology for the 112th installment of the best of the mobile blogging! – Andreas

[Trying to figure out what are the key takeways from this year’s MWC conference in Barcelona ? Research Director Andreas Constantinou reads between the lines of the MWC happenings and predicts the undercurrent of changes which will be surfacing at MWC 2009] Mobile World Congress (3GSM for the romantics) was another year of industry partying – not just the late evening parties, but more importantly the hubbub and cheering around new products, partnerships and acquisitions. Pretty much everyone’s chat-up line at Barcelona was ‘so what have you seen here?’ – I guess mostly because there was no big theme, no overarching hype, no glitz around the next killer app or megapipe technology. Oh, and fortunately, the industry is beginning to look at reality, not hype with the last two MWCs. So, in developing a response to this banal question, a few recurring themes started to emerge. Themes which were mostly not about things you could see or hear at Barcelona, but the undercurrent of changes that could only be seen by reading between the lines of both announcements and non-announcements. And so, I decided to risk a set of 10 predictions for MWC 2009, as the clearest affirmation of learnings and key-takeaways from this year’s Barcelona mega-fair. Here they are, in no particular order. Prediction 1: A new would-be Trolltech will surface as an on-device service delivery platform Analysis: Nokia acquired Trolltech for its Qt application execution platform, and specifically for two reasons (see our detailed analysis of the acquisition): a) to use Qt as a service substrate, an on-device platform which wraps each one of 10s of forthcoming Ovi services across the 10s or 100s of connected device models across PCs, home & embedded appliances and mobile devices. On-device software is these days as essential to service providers as Google Gears and Android are to Google. b) to tap into the respectable, established developer base for Qt (particularly swarmed around the KDE desktop flavour of Linux), and in this way get a helping hand for developing Ovi wrappers based on Qt. Given that every OEM (not just mobile, but also in the embedded space) is now looking at deploying connected services, a Trolltech wannabee would be a prime acquisition target for connected device manufacturers (Sony Ericsson, Sony, Panasonic, LG come to mind). Prediction 2: There will be 30+ companies offering widgets-in-an-app type of software solution Analysis: ECMAscript (the standardised flavour of Javascript) allows any small software vendor to develop a key application (read: calendar, contacts, email, idle screen, album viewer or music player) that includes widgets. Widgets are an on-device service delivery platform, albeit one that is restricted to a single app and a single device model (it doesn’t port as easily). ECMAscript implementations are becoming more ubiquitous thanks to both open source efforts (Adobe’s Tamarin and Apple’s JavaScriptCore in particular) and closed source, optimised implementations (e.g. the one developed by Bling Software). However, many vendors will discover that offering widgets in any app is not a cash-cow and comes with long and painful sales cycles. Plus the porting effort across device models is non trivial, and exactly why Trolltech gives an economy-of-scale advantage to Nokia when porting services across 10s or 100s of connected device models. Prediction 3: Qt will be relicensed under a more permissive license Analysis: Qt is offered under a dual-licensing model; GPLv3 version as a try-before-you-buy and a commercial royalty-bearing version. Nokia wants to license Qt to other device manufacturers as a service delivery vehicle for Ovi, and so will have to sweeten the pill, as the previous take-it-as-is S60 strategy has pretty much failed (only a handful of non-Nokia S60 models are launched every year, making up a tiny percentage volume-wise to Nokia S60 devices). My prediction (and indeed a bold one) is that Nokia will change the licensing model for Qt to a more permissive one, such as an MIT, BSD or Apache 2.0 license. Naturally, the Ovi-specific parts of Qt will remain closed as with S60 WebKit, but a permissive license will allow OEMs to see Qt not as a threat, but as an opportunity to build more value on top, for a reduced cost (rather than maintaining their own platforms). Prediction 4: Two companies offering WebKit derivative implementations will be acquired Analysis: Without a doubt, WebKit, the core browser engine for rendering HTML and scripting, is becoming exceedingly popular. Companies like Wake3, Pleyo, Torch Mobile and SkyFire have emerged in the last six months to offer WebKit derivative implementations for OEMs and MNOs, in addition to Nokia’s S60 WebKit, Nokia’s Web Runtime and Motorola’s WebUI who are already using WebKit (more OEMs are on the way!). WebKit is also a mature, time-tested and standardised plaform for operator service delivery beyond the browser. I believe that WebKit derivative implemenations will become mandated by mobile network operators (MNOs) in 12-18 months – at least in Europe initially. The host of OEM and MNO players who want to get in the on-device service delivery business will look to rapidly develop expertise and talent in this area by acquiring solution vendors offering WebKit customisation, porting or value adds. Prediction 5: A device model designed by Danger will be developed and launched by at least two ODMs. Analysis: Microsoft’s acquisition of Danger is due to a rather simple reasoning; The lack of consumer-driven sales of Windows Mobile devices is because there are no fun devices based on this platform. This is because of two reasons: a) ODMs don’t have industrial design skills, nor the cash flow to invest in risky form factors and un-brick-like materials. ODMs see Windows Mobile, as a surefire way to get into market and leverage on the marketing mussle of the Redmond giant, like debris at the tail of a comet. b) OEMs have used Windows Mobile as a means to sell into the enterprise market. Windows Mobile offers a plug-and-play approach for enterprise admins as its security, remote management and seamless Office integration features are no-brainer purchase criteria which drive enterprise sales of Windows Mobile. As a result, all Windows Mobile devices lack the ‘fun’ factor that Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, LG and Motorola devices sport. In a reactionary move, Microsoft bought Danger in order to imbue its ODM projects with not just a software reference and a hardware reference platform (which it already has thanks to TI), but also industrial design references. Note that Danger is a software/hardware/industrial design house, in a sense a fabless OEM – the same design house which is behind the recognisably cool Sidekick devices. In this light, the acquisition makes a lot of sense for Microsoft. The acquisition is also particularly well timed, as the company plans to launch Windows Mobile 7 which features a highly configurable UI customisation layer – the customisable UI marks an inflexion point from Microsoft’s previous strategy of enforcing the Windows signature UI across all licensees. In conclusion, following Microsoft’s past history of ODM launches we should see at least two ODM device models based on Danger designs launch in the next 12 months leading to 3GSM 2009. Coming next Next week: the remaining five predictions for 3GSM 2009, including enterprise UIs, the rise and fall of Modu, M&As amongst Linux vendors, OHA devices: cheap but ugly, the demise unstable future of UIQ and distributors as a route to market (see Synchronica, Bling) – ok, I ‘m cheating that makes for 11 trends, but stay tuned! [update: the remaining five predictions are here] – Andreas (while on the topic of predictions, make sure to check out our hugely successful Mobile Megatrends 2008 series. Full presentation below.) [slideshare id=209579&doc=mobile-megatrends-2008-vision-mobile-1198237688220186-3&w=425]

[Trying to figure out the rationale behind Nokia’s acquisition of Trolltech ? Research director Andreas Constantinou dissects the facts, figures and strategic thinking behind this seminal development in the mobile industry.] From a 10,000ft view, Nokia’s acquisition of Trolltech is about preparing the ground for Ovi; allowing Nokia to create a consistent service access platform (much like Google’s Android) that will make it fast/easier/more intuitive to access Ovi services from any connected device. Trolltech is a fundamental building block in Nokia’s transformation to an Internet services company. Read on for facts and figures. Deal Background – On January 28, Nokia announced it will acquire the majority of shares at Trolltech, a maker of cross-platform tools and software for application development. The major shareholders have agreed to the acquisition, and so Nokia is expected to eventually acquire 100% of the shares. – Nokia is paying 16NOK a share which is around 6NOK premium to the 10NOK where the share price has been hovering after Trolltech’s IPO peak. – At 16NOK/share the acquisition values Trolltech at over EUR 100 million. – Compare that with Trolltech’s FY2006 revenues of NOK 174M (roughly EUR 21.6M). This a 5:1 multiple over the company revenues, which is quite conservative for telecoms company valuations. – Trolltech revenues have been growing at 40% year-on-year, but the company has been loss-making in the last two years and only managed to bring EBITDA into positive in 3Q07. Moreover, Trolltech s share price had fallen to 10NOK for most of 2007, following an offering at 16NOK at the time of the IPO in July 2006. (see Trolltech 3Q07 results). Trolltech backgrounder Founded in 1994, Trolltech is a vendor of software platforms and development tools for Linux, Windows, OSX and mobile Linux. – The company has 250 employees and is headquartered in Oslo, Norway with offices in Beijing, Silicon Valley, Australia and Germany. – Historically, the company has been VC-funded by Index Ventures, Borland and NorthZone and raised a further $22 million through its July 2006 IPO on the Oslo Stock Exchange. – The company has more than 5,000 customers including Skype, Google, Cisco, Adobe and Industrial Light & Magic. – The main product, Qt (pronounced cute ) is an application execution environment and user interface framework for Windows, Mac and Linux desktop environments. – Trolltech Qtopia (previously Qt/Embedded) is a version of Qt downsized for mobile and embedded devices. Qtopia has shipped in more than 10 million devices to date and more than 40 models, primarily Motorola handsets for China and also handsets from Cellon, ZTE and Wistron. – Qt (incl Qt/E) has also shipped in more than 130 embedded device models, such as PVRs, automotive devices, medical devices and set top boxes. – Qt and Qtopia have been licensed under a dual licensing model; a GPL-licensed branch for non-commercial use and a proprietary licensed branch for commercial use. – Qt has been the main money-maker for Trolltech (primarily from ISVs), while being backed by a reported 100,000-strong application developer community. – On the contrary, Qtopia sales have not met expectations. Indeed, Trolltech s strategy with Qtopia hasn t been performing as had been hoped; the Greenphone was discontinued a year following its introduction and Qtopia had lost all of its community developers, as Trolltech had not been paying due attention to its GPL branch for over two years. Qtopia had also been sidelined by the industry, given that GTK (a graphics framework and competitor to Qtopia) had been selected by most industry Linux players (including forums LiPS, LiMo, GMAE, and OEMs NEC, Panasonic and Nokia). The rationale behind the Nokia acquisition – Nokia s strategy is to use Qt to establish a uniform service development, deployment and access platform across various embedded devices (set-top boxes, IPTVs, home appliances, tablets) using a single codebase with form factor specific UI on top (Qt has been ported on Desktop Linux, Windows, MacOS, embedded Linux (Qtopia Core) and Windows CE (under development). Qt supports C++ and recently Java (via Qt Jambi) – Combined with Ovi, Qt/Qtopia is essentially the foundation layer for developing, deploying and accessing Ovi services. – The acquisition further allows Nokia to strengthen its tools offerings. Trolltech offers a range of development tools, including RAD tools, QtDesigner, qMake a command line tool chain, a plugin for Visual Studio and internationalization utilities. Note that Nokia had also acquired the Symbian tools from Metrowerks tools in September 2004. – The acquisition also allows Nokia to tap into the very respectable 100,000 reported developer base of Qt most of which are KDE desktop developers). – It also gives Nokia a stronger access to a modern application execution environment for connected devices, where Nokia has to compete with Google s Android (with the Dalvik J2SE-like virtual). – Whereas there is a high-degree of functionality redundancy between S60 and Qtopia, there are interesting synergies between S40 and Qtopia (note that for each S60 device, there are roughly eight S40 devices shipping). – S40 has over the years managed to support modularity, most importantly operator and regional variants. Adding parts of Qtopia above S40 would create a much more customisable stack in terms of the UI and middleware components. (Qtopia Core is also known to be lighter than GTK in terms of footprint/performance). Industry impact – Motorola has committed to the Qtopia SDK as their development platform for external developers. Following the acquisition, Motorola will therefore have to move away from relying on Trolltech. – In practice Motorola will need at least 18 months to migrate away from Qtopia (assuming that handset business still bares the Motorola brand name by then!). Motorola will also have to eventually write off related investments, including the 300 developer seats it purchased for Qt/Embedded. – Trolltech joined the LiMo foundation in 7 January 2008, which is clearly synchronous to the acquisition announcement (the Nokia Trolltech discussions should have been intensified 3-6 months before the acquisition). As such it is likely that Nokia does care about a stake in the LiMo foundation and is initially using Trolltech as a vehicle to participate to the major forum competing with Google-led Open Handset Alliance. – The acquisition bares little direct impact to Symbian and Nokia s S60 strategy, but a turn away from potentially using Symbian for Nokia s S40 platform (something Symbian has been long-hoping for). – There is an indirect, negative impact to Symbian, since now Nokia is perceived by the industry to be less and less reliant on Symbian OS. Nokia itself reinforces that perception: This acquisition will also further increase the competitiveness of S60 and Series 40. , according to Kai Öistämö , Executive Vice President, Devices, Nokia – Qt is at the heart of one of the biggest pieces of open source software: the KDE Linux Desktop (parent project of the now famous Webkit browser engine). Nokia needs to learn from the successful Maemo project on how it should treat open source developers. Ari Jaaksi should now be a very prominent figure within Nokia. Qt/Qtopia as the foundation for Nokia’s Ovi Zooming out, it is clear that Nokia wants to use Qt/Qtopia as the foundation for Ovi, in three ways: – use Qt/Qtopia to support rich Ovi services across a large footprint of embedded/mobile devices. As Ovi is the evolution of S60, it also needs a foundation layer for developing rich Ovi clients (this rhymes with rich internet clients from Adobe and Google). – use Trolltech developer tools and environments to enable richer delivery and implementation of Ovi services and future Ovi-based services. – tap into the repored 100,000+ developers of Qt Quick background on mobile software trends: the war of the OSes (read Symbian vs Windows Mobile) has faded, while the war of the application exec environments is the flavour du jour (see Flash Lite vs Java; Java SE vs Java ME; web programming vs C++). Nokia, as a long-term thinker is preparing for the next war: that of the service access environments for connected devices. Much like Google’s Android, I expect that Nokia wants to turn Qt/Qtopia into a service access environment, to feature: – an environment for connected applications and often-on connectivity which treats each application as a Web 2.0 citizen. – which taps into the long tail of developers, not just the short head, like S60 does. – and which is backed by established developer communities In the meantime, Nokia should be seeing that S60 and S40 middleware is commoditising, following the fate of Symbian OS. Perhaps it could get the other OEM stakeholders at Symbian to fund an acquisition of the S60 stack, while Nokia concentrates on the UI and service access layer which is Qt/Qtopia. Thoughts ? – Andreas Further reading: For a historical (mid 2006) perspective on Trolltech s strategy, see the research paper we wrote on Mobile Operating Systems: The New Generation, which was sponsored by Trolltech. For a strategic perspective on manufacturer strategies and the rise of the service environments, see our mobile megatrends presentation (particularly trends 4 and 10).

Big news in our world! Check the press release. Price (the offer values the company to 100 Millions Euros) is not so high compared to Trolltech technical and community assets (but high …looking at the actual company revenues of 22 Millions Euros). This is not a dot com acquisition. Period. The next game would be to understand why. Trolltech is providing a native development environment called Qt, which is a set of “OS services” (memory management, Thread, etc…) and is famous widget library. This environment has been ported on Desktop Linux, Windows, MacOS and embedded Linux: “Qt/embedded”, now called Qtopia Core , on top of which a nearly complete phone application stack has been built, Qtopia. The framework allows C++ development but recently a java version surfaced: Qt Jambi Trolltech provides also (and sell) some development tools: a RAD, QtDesigner, qMake a command line tool chain, a plugin for Visual Studio and some internationalization utilities. While huge adoption in the mobile phone market remains to be seen, Qt is at the earth of one of the biggest OpenSource piece of sotfware: the KDE Linux Desktop (…father project of the now famous webkit browser engine). So crossing with Nokia current strategy and ths interesting quote from the Nokia PR: “Trolltech’s deep understanding of open source software and its strong technology assets will enable both Nokia and others to innovate on our device platforms while reducing time-to-market. This acquisition will also further increase the competitiveness of S60 and Series 40.” Kai Öistämö , Executive Vice President, Devices, Nokia Here are the different bets: It is widely known that the proprietary S40 is difficult to maintain and extend/modernize, porting Qt as a companion framework may allow Nokia to open it’s most widely used platform (S60 is negligeable compared to S40 market share) to third party developpers … and open source developpers. Nokia wants to have cross platform technologies to merge S60/S40 and desktop environment, so take advantage of the HUGE Qt developper pool. Nokia desperately needs a credible platform and a set of APIs to counter Android in the web services area…and the Java Qt makes sense here. Does Nokia has some ambitions for KDE to use it as its base OS for its forthcoming “Personal Computer”, touted as the next big thing and next strategy of Nokia? Be prepared for a S40, a S60 Qt port …. and perhaps an opening of the S40 platform, at least for selected third parties. Anyway I quite don’t get this … In Hildon regards, the Maemo Tablet OS running on the nokia Internet Tablet (n770, N800 and N810). This one is based on GTK, the Qt archrival on the Linux Desktop, uses a Mozilla based browser, so is in the opposite technical direction: will it be cancelled as it is to run a Qt based Tablet OS? For KDE Desktop: Dealing with a little company like Trolltech is something, having Nokia as the main backer of its framework is something else. How the OpenSource community will react? What do you think Nokia has in mind? Thomas

[guest blogger Thomas Menguy praises the virtues of web applications on the iPhone.. and realises how the mobile internet has already taken off] Ok I admit, I have an iPhone. I love it, blablabla you know the story already. It has its flaws, but as an old time mobile software engineer I’m really stroked by one BIG fact: The applications I use the most on it are fully web based!: My IM messenger (JiveTalk), my english/french dictionary (Ultralingua), my mail and rss reader (special version of gmail and google reader) … even my all time favorite mobile game Bejeweled is web based! What a shock.. I wasn’t prepared for that: when Steve Jobs told us that the only way to add application will be (at first) through the web browser I was the first to laugh, only raw C++ is meaningful for applications, a web browser is a mere toy compared to a real application framework. How wrong I was. And here is why. (and no it won’t be only about the iPhone) Unlimited and affordable data plan, and efficient bandwidth and coverage: I’m in Europe (France) and here network coverage and edge (2.5G) are very efficient. Webkit and Mozilla : Webkit engine tends to begin the defacto mobile web browser (check what pleyo is doing) embedded in S60, MacOS, Android…the only other credible contender is the Nokia Mozilla version (my Nokia N800 is simply unbeatable for web browsing). Raise of ad-hoc web services framework: the famous and numerous web widget frameworks (webwag being one to be noticed), and Yahoo GO for example. And the biggest one which is vastly under looked: modern websites, sorry webservices, are fully Model/View/Controller (ruby on rails, but above all struts2, etc.) what does it means in human readable language? : it is VERY easy to adapt the content/services of a web site to different browsers / way of presenting data. Look at the plethora of “iPhone” optimized sites (ebay, dailymotion, facebook, etc) that have popped up everywhere in few months. Those approaches have something in common Need of a reliable wireless data link Well architectured network backend to provide optimized business data and adapted rendering data (the last one is not mandatory, check RSS for example were the business data has no notion of representation in it). An “On Client” web service framework: a browser with standard and added proprietary APIs like the iPhone Safari, a limited and fully proprietary engine like Yahoo Go!, or a full OS with the complete stack like Android and … the iPhone OS (OK, don’t forget the “old” high level OSes like S60 and WinMobile). Everything seems to be in place, and from what we saw above a good web service client platform would have to: Be fun to use and compelling, tailored for each user Be VERY efficient for the phone common tasks (phone call, address book) Offer a nice and easy way to deploy data representation and flow control from existing web services backends…with good performance and relatively wide access to the underlying platform and datas For me the first two doesn’t have to be understated (just try a WinMobile phone for a few months to understand what I mean 🙂 ), as the device remains a phone, a communication machine and voice is still the undefeated champion for communication. This is where the iPhone is groundbreaking at a first sight…and also where I’m not sure of what Google Android will deliver (call me skeptical if you want…). The third point may bring a lot of optimism … as it implies that we don’t need a single platform anymore, but a bunch of deployment possibilities, tailored for each device/client or even each service. Android and the iPhone may be seen as such a platform with at least two of those deployment possibilities: the browser and application native development, here Android is much more friendly to Java/Web programmer that the iPhone. But we could perfectly imagine devices with more deployment options or other completely different but close enough to web development standards to allow fast adaptation of web backends….why not an iPhone with an Android sandbox? At the end the famous “cloud” (the network) is really shaping the “on device” clients, allowing more and more diversity and at there won’t be a “one fit all” solution… Thanks Steve Jobs for being the first to have put in place all the elements of the chain, dealing with carriers, content provider, services providers…and coming with a great consumer electronic design. Google wants to go further? not sure for now, but the US 700 MHz auction have to be followed very carefully cause if this spectrum becomes “free” of the carriers, we don’t know how fast it could go! – Thomas

Data and voice ARPU have always dominated discussions about network operator performance. As ARPU is declining in both mature and global markets, data ARPU is seen as the main revenue source for network operators. Indicatively, data revenues contributed to almost 18% of total wireless revenues in the US in 3Q07 and to 21% of total revenues in Western Europe for 2007, according to Chetan Sharma and Informa, respectively. Yet it seems that the focus in data ARPU may be overrated for two reasons; firstly, because the data ARPU mentality puts the emphasis on technology (e.g. advanced messaging, mobile TV and faster pipes), but not use cases (e.g. communicating to your closest friends, or living the brand experience of your favourite pop star on your phone). Secondly, because a new source of revenue is emerging that may eventually overshadow data ARPU in terms of industry focus. Introducing Channel ARPU Both voice and data revenues are being mostly derived by billing the end user for anything from calls and texts to ringtone downloads and mobile TV. Increasingly however, revenues may be derived from third parties as a fee towards the party facilitating the delivery of mobile services through the last mile to the end user. Channel revenues are not a new concept; Rental, revenue share or other fees for channeling services, products and promotions to the end user are commonplace in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) are well as mainstream media industries. And mobile services can be increasingly modelled after the business models prevalent in the FMCG industries, as the margins in manufacturing decrease and the value shifts in defining the customer proposition and controlling the delivery of services through the last mile to the end user. We ‘ve coined the term Channel ARPU to refer to this new source of revenue. This is for a number of reasons; firstly, channel ARPU is derived from a new part of the pie, i.e. service providers wanting to tap into the wallet share of the consumer – and as such it’s important to distinguish this new source of revenue. Secondly because channel revenues are derived from attracting consumer eyeballs, selling to consumers and understanding consumer behaviour, activities which all take place in the last mile to the consumer (or last few inches if you consider the phone screen). Thirdly, because these revenues are most interesting if seen in a per-user context. The many forms of channel ARPU Channel ARPU comes from a number of sources, most of which should be familiar to industry pundits: – UI inventory leasing: commonly referred to as mobile advertising, UI inventory leasing refers to the ability to channel promotions and services throughout the handset real-estate, across the user journey. This is about advertising not only in-SMS, in-video, in-game and on-idle-screen, but about channeling content through every application on the handset, from the start-up screen through to dialer, inbox and main menu. In this case Channel ARPU is the ARPU derived by auctioning handset UI inventory to advertisers and promoters in the form of bunding with the handset or time-based leasing. For example, Android is means for Google to massively increase its ad inventory and derive Channel ARPU using mobile networks as a simple transport medium. (see previous article on the significance of Google’s Android for more details). The Blyk MVNO is another category leader here, where Channel ARPU is used to offset customer (and handset) acquisition costs. – Retail sub leasing: leasing of shelf space to OEMs and service providers through the operator’s physical retail shelf space. Apart from special handset promotions this model hasn’t really been ‘productised’. However, the potential of selling services visually through the retail space is huge and hasn’t really been exploited (see earlier article on how to exploit the retail space as a point for visual service discovery). – Service delivery leasing. Operators may make a revenue cut from handset OEMs by allowing OEMs to deliver services to the end-user. The example here is the revenue share deals that Vodafone, TIM and Telefonica have established with Nokia’s Ovi. Although officially unconfirmed, operator deals with Ovi involve bundling of Nokia Ovi services on a Nokia handset in return for a revenue share of Ovi revenues with the operator in the case of Vodafone this is music services only. Channel ARPU here is the revenues operators derive from Ovi. – User analytics leasing. Increasingly, efforts like Nokia’s 360 and CarrierIQ use a handset agent to derive a diverse range of information on device usage, service usage, user profile, network usage, user social graph, etc. This is an underhyped area of mobile solutions which deliver unprecedented insight into mobile consumer behaviour; an opportunity which may ultimately result in creating a metrics aggregator that is to the mobile industry what Nielsen is to TV (and an area of interest here at VisionMobile, as we authoring a research report on this very topic). As in every industry, metrics on sales, performance and analytics on consumer behaviour can be a very lucrative business indeed. Channel ARPU therefore includes revenues which operators can source by leasing metrics and analytics to third parties (a direction where Verizon appears to be heading). Last but not least, Apple’s iPhone can command a revenue share for providing network operators with access to high-spending customers. I have not classed this as Channel ARPU here as this revenue goes to the OEM, not the operator. Technically though, this may be called recurring subscribing acquisition costs (SACs) or a negative Channel ARPU as it flows out from the operator. As an indication of numbers involved here, Piper Jaffray calculated that AT&T pays Apple $18 per iPhone user per month. In a sense, this is a similar business model to the revenue sharing agreements that retailers practice with mobile operators, when a retailer signs up a new subscriber (I have heard of figures in the order of 15% of ARPU going to the retailer, which is modest compared to the iPhone revenue share estimates). Adopting the Channel ARPU mentality It is also important to note that the Channel ARPU mentality is about growing wallet share based on collaboration with third parties. This is contrary to the traditional view of voice and data ARPU which is about growing wallet size based on customer ownership and exclusive provision of services to the customer in the all-too-famous one-stop-shop model. In conclusion, Channel ARPU is a refreshing and meaningful approach to viewing per-user revenues derived by leasing access to the consumer through that last mile. However, much like data ARPU, network operators have to formalise and standardise the metrics by which Channel ARPU is calculated, if this new form of measuring ARPU is to be adopted. Perhaps a task for the GSMA or the OMTP ? – Andreas [updated: mega-blogger and friend Ajit Jaokar argues that ARPU may be outdated providing some strategic arguments; ARPU does not translate to the web; or to multiple SIM ownership; advertising models relate to a service, not a user; the global web supercedes local operator strategies; and that customers have relationships with multiple service brands] (Channel ARPU is trend 15 in our Mobile Megatrends 2008 series. Full presentation below.) [slideshare id=209579&doc=mobile-megatrends-2008-vision-mobile-1198237688220186-3&w=425]

[ever thought how hard it is for mobile software companies to penetrate the mobile space? guest blogger Morten Grauballe introduces the ‘100 million unit club’ of successful mobile software firms and spins a tale of myth and reality for making it big in the mobile phone industry] 2007 became the year when mainstream Silicon Valley decided to attack the mobile phone market head-on. With over 1 billion mobile phones shipped every year and the market moving towards 3 billion mobile subscribers, you can understand why. Apple started the year by announcing the iPhone. Half way through they started shipping and quite successfully too. The incumbent players took notice believe me. Then to make 2007 a real year of change, Google announced Android a new platform meant to change the dynamics of the value chain. It is free (in a royalty sense) and with a strong focus on allowing internet applications and services (to make money). Apple has also announced that it will open up the iPhone for native applications in 2008. It is a complete onslaught on the mobile phone market. So, if you are a large software player in the PC or internet space, then 2008 seems like the perfect year to penetrate the market and get onto those 1 billion units. You can easily envision the following conversation taking place in well-establish software players from San Francisco down to San Jose: CHoM (Clever Head of Marketing): Over 1 Billion mobile phones every year that is too good to be true!….How do we penetrate this market? How do we get to the biggest installed base of users? RAG (Resident Architect Genius): Not sure CHoM: Java seems to be a good option there are millions of java-enabled phones in the market A little later . RAG: I had a look .Java ME does not give good access to a broad set of APIs. Also .there is significant Java fragmentation across handsets complete nightmare, if you ask me! CHoM: I got it! We will move to native programming – Smartphones are taking off! RAG: Hmm .Symbian OS, with the largest installed base, is on single digit percentage market share. CHoM: But if we add Brew we will get a few more percentage points! [in denial!] RAG: We are still nowhere near 1 billion units! CHoM: What about adding Windows Mobile? Or the new Android thing? [Now completely in denial!] A few hours later CHoM: So in summary, we need to port to 8-12 different operating systems to be successful! RAG: Yep and most of these operating systems do not have publicly available SDKs! [clearly enjoying himself] CHoM: What ? [Almost crying!] RAG: Finally….you should know that there is no distribution method for getting software onto phones! [Big grin!] CHoM: ..! [in tears] A few more hours . CHoM: So what you are saying is ..we need a relationship with the handset manufacturers to get the SDKs and to get our software embedded into their phones! [with a hardened sense of realism! RAG: Spot on, boss! In a world like that, it might be surprising to newcomers (like CHoM and RAG above) that there are successful software players in the mobile phone industry. There are in fact quite a few. When your software is on 100 million phones globally, then you have joined the 100 million unit club . Some of the leading members of this club are: – Adobe (formerly Macromedia) provides the Flash Lite execution environment – Access provides a successful mobile browser – Beatnik provides the polyphonic ringtone engine on most mobile phones – Packet Video provides the audio and video technology, i.e. for the Verizon V-Cast music service – Opera provides a successful mobile browser – Red Bend Software provides the majority of Firmware updating Over-The-Air (FOTA) software – T9 provides the predictive text engine found on a lot of phones – The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) provides the graphics engine that drives a lot of UIs in the wireless industry By studying the approach of these companies, newcomers can learn a lot about how you tackle the world of mobile. What do they do right? First of all, they all have excellent products that excite not only the mobile operators, but also bring true value and benefits to the consumers around the world. Without this, you should not even try to enter the mobile phone market. Secondly, these companies embrace complexity, rather than trying to ignore it or wait for it to disappear. Most, if not all, members of the 100 million units club have ported their software to the 8-12 leading operating systems in the industry. Where applicable they will have a Java version (like Opera Mini) and a native version (like Opera Mobile). They have also invested in the art of software optimization (something not always needed on a PC), which allows them to move into the mid-tier and low-tier segments of the market. They also understand the complexities of software distribution. When appropriate they will have relationship with the handset manufacturers. At other times, the will use the portals for the mobile operators or independent service providers to distribute their solution. Thirdly, these companies understand the market dynamics of the global mobile phone market. Some markets are operator-led, while other markets are more OEM-led. If, for instance, you have managed to get your software embedded on some of DoCoMo s MOAP-S based handsets in Japan, then your next port of call should probably be the S60 or UIQ licensees in Europe. If you manage to get on these handsets, then you have an opportunity to move to the proprietary operating systems of these licensees. Gradually you expand your market to more and more platforms across the various markets in the global mobile industry. Finally, all of the above companies have participated actively in standards work. To get acceptance for your solution, it important for all the players in the value chain (mobile operators as well as handset manufacturers) that your software or service is based on open APIs and protocols that other people can add value to and support. (In coining the term the 100 million unit club , I have ignored web programming. In our brave new world of web 2.0, that is admittedly a crime which I am sure web 2.0 fanatics will nail me for. The fragmentation and appropriateness of web programming for mobile phones is however a big topic in itself and is probably better left for a separate blog posting). Lessons in a changing market Basing recommendation on extrapolations from the past is always dangerous in a dynamic market. Let’s therefore also look at some of the changes taking place right now. These trends could determine who will and who will not be members of the 100 million unit club in the future. Open operating systems are definitely gaining market traction. Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and a few others are now responsible for close to 10% of the market. There is still an ongoing debate in the market as to whether they will make up 20% or 50% of the market someday. Whatever your view point, it is not going to happen overnight, and in the short term, Apple’s OS X and Google s Android platform are two new operating systems that need to be taken into consideration. Platform de-fragmentation is clearly not a trend to bet on in the next 2-3 years. In the 5 year time horizon, it might be. The good news about the increased competition in the platform market is that SDKs, tools, and support from the large platform providers are improving rapidly. It is therefore becoming easier for the software players to embrace the complexity as described above. Software is becoming more portable. If we move from the world of software platforms to the world of software distribution, there is more help to be found. The Open Mobile Alliance ratified the specification of Device Management (DM) in early 2004. At the heart of the OMA DM standard, there is a well-designed protocol which enables the service provider to query any handset for its basic characteristics (like model number, firmware version, and settings). According to Ovum (Nov 2007), there is now an installed base of 235 million handsets with OMA DM support. This will grow to 50% of all handsets by the end of 2008. With both handset manufacturers and mobile operators actively using this protocol to provision settings and new software to handsets, it is becoming possible to distribute software post-launch. All of a sudden, you know which handsets are attached to the network and you can offer new features and services. For those software players who are already comfortable with the complexity of the platform market, this is an opportunity to accelerate time-to-market and up-sell new software or services once you are on the handset. The completion of SCoMO (Software Component Management Object) with in the OMA will further accelerate this trend. 2007 was a very exciting year for software providers in the mobile market. Players, who understand how to navigate the new world of mobiles have a lot to gain. Good luck and Happy New Year to all new candidate members of the 100 million unit club! – Morten [Morten Grauballe is EVP Marketing at Red Bend and ex VP Product Management at Symbian, and has been in the mobile industry long enough to boast both scars and medals]

(browser proxies are back in fashion.. guest blogger Fredrik Ademar looks at the limitations of today’s mobile web and how browser proxies have resurfaced to bring the internet to the masses. Part of our Mobile Megatrends 2008 series). Struggling with the limitations of the mobile web Numerous attempts, more or less successful and well-known, have been made over the past years to replicate the browsing experience provided on a desktop device also in the mobile context. Latency, low bandwidth, limited input capabilities and small screens have typically been main hurdles to overcome to really get something remotely close to the original web experience. A quite interesting trend in the mobile browsing space that now has gone through an exciting renaissance, is the concept of bringing in network proxies to intercept the web-to-mobile traffic and optimize. The most well-known example is probably Opera Mini, which truly has made a significant impact on how mobile web is perceived by the masses. But Opera is only one of many contenders in this space, and there is a set of different initiatives providing similar functionality and benefits (although in slightly different packages) such as Bitstream ThunderHawk, InfoGin, Flash Networks, Novarra, WiderWeb, Google Wireless Transcoder etc. The trend seems clear going forward – this could indeed be the answer to the quest for a truly pervasive web experience across mobile and desktop. Or maybe we are hoping for too much? Ways to address the problem To begin with one should note that the solutions provided are not by any means new concepts. The ideas can be found already back in the early WAP days, and many of the issues that now attract attention, were in fact exactly the same that WAP attempted to address with the original WAP gateways etc. In retrospect one of the major problems with WAP was that the ambitions were stretching too far. For instance using SMS and USSD as transport mechanisms was a bad idea from the very beginning, and this seriously harmed the priorities and technology trade-offs made. However, one important assumption was right, the insight that simply applying the classical W3C standards to the mobile space was not going to do the job and that is still the case today. Standards like HTTP and HTML (with Javascript, CSS etc.) are simple and straightforward, but also pretty verbose formats quite unfit for a mobile environment. Applying these on top of standard TCP as transport does not really match the need for a responsive and user friendly mobile web service. To some extent it is really a no-brainer to identify potential solutions, and the most straightforward and natural approach is to introduce an intermediate proxy, which translates and optimizes the traffic over the air interface, still maintaining the legacy structure and protocols on the server side. Typical functionalities included in the available solutions are things like page pre-rendering and reformatting, image and data compression, intelligent proxy caching, image size reduction, session tracking etc. These functionalities can be basically be categorized in the following three technology segments (based on the excellent taxonomy of browser proxies at the S60 browser blog): – Speed proxies Purpose: image compression, efficient page contents caching, HTTP & content pipelining. Examples: Bytemobile, NSN, Flash Networks (NettGain), Venturi VServer, Novarra – Adaptation (transcoding) proxies Purpose: page reformatting, image reduction, menu simplification, session tracking, SSL session handling, XHTML/MP adaptation Examples: ByteMobile, InfoGin IMP, Google Wireless Transcoder (ex Req Wireless), Novarra nweb, Volantis Transcoder, WiderWeb, Greenlight Wireless Skweezer, Clicksheet – Server based (pre-rendering) proxies Purpose: pre-renders page before sending and improves navigation Examples: Opera Mini, Bitstream ThunderHawk A speed proxy typically makes the mobile browsing faster and reduces data to a certain extent, while it still preserves a full page. Adaptation and server-based browser proxies on the other hand will drastically reduce the amount of data sent over the air, but at a significant cost since the page will no longer be the original web experience. Often the page is re-formatted into one long narrow column (like e.g. Opera SSR), and dynamic effects like pop-down menus and pop-up windows will not work. Bringing in the proxies, pros and cons When benchmarking these products in terms of performance, the improvements are indeed often significant. Content size is reduced to 10-50% of the original size, and the downloading of typical sites can be done in half the normal browser download time (ballpark figures from Opera Mini). Since much of the heavy lifting is done in the network, an interesting side effect is also that the CPU, memory etc. requirements for the device are much lower. It is even possible to deploy solutions to devices post sales that will mobile web enable them, even if they did not have that kind of support from the beginning (using e.g. java based approaches like with Opera Mini) Ok, this sounds great – are there really no weaknesses with the browser proxy approach? Yes there are. A common problem highlighted is the lack of true end-to-end security, as well as the problem of ensuring integrity of the transferred data. These problems are difficult to get around given the nature of the architectural setup. Another very relevant problem is the fact that when applying different automatic intelligent conversion algorithms on content, you do indeed tend to violate the original intent of the content author. You can never replicate 100% of the experience on the desktop web, and in many cases content gets optimized away completely (like e.g. flash content). Another typical comment is that networks and device hardware are getting more capable each year, and solutions including anything other than standard web browser technology, will quickly become obsolete. I think this assumption is completely wrong, there will always be a gap between mobile and desktop web – the mobile device will always be more limited and therefore needs to be treated differently. Building a business case As always, the technology roll-out also needs to be coupled with a sustainable business model. Where is the money in all this? Besides the services of providing the core browser experience, there are lots of value added services like billing, content filtering etc. that can be applied, but the true value lies in the fact that companies in this space are right in the middle of a giant flow of very targeted user data going back and forth. Carefully catered this asset can prove to be far more valuable than what can be made from the original service – with that said it is really no surprise to find Google (Google Wireless Transcoder) as one of the contenders in this segment. A megatrend going forward? As a future outlook for 2008, the mobile browser proxies will continue to provide an increasingly important contribution to the mobile web experiences, especially important harnessing the value of the long tail. This time, there is no doubt the proxy based browser model is here to stay, but it will typically not be perceived as a ground breaking revolutionary step, more as a natural and obvious evolution. We will also likely see a consolidation of technical solutions, as some players in the space today are to some extent not providing scalable and competitive enough solutions. Comments? Fredrik

[mobile development platforms, execution engines, virtualisation, Flash, Java, Android, Flex, Silverlight.. guest blogger Thomas Menguy demystifies the alphabet soup of mobile software development]. The news at All About Symbian raised a few thoughts about low level software: Red Five Labs has just announced that their Net60 product, which enables .NET applications from the Windows world to run unchanged under S60, is now available for beta testing. .NET on S60 3rd Edition now a reality? This is really interesting: even the battle for languages/execution environment is not settled! For years Mobility coding was tightly coupled with assembly code, then C and in lesser extent C++. The processor of choice is the ARM family (some others exist, but no more in the phone industry)…this was before Java. Basically Java (the language) is no more than a virtual processor with its own instruction set, and this virtual processor, also called a Virtual Machine, or JVM in the case of java, simply does what every processor does: it processes some assembly code describing the low level actions to be performed by the processor to execute a given program/application. On the PC other execution engines have been developed: the first obvious one, the native one is the venerable x86 instruction set: thanks to it all the PC applications are “binary compatible”. Then Java, and more recently … the Macromedia/Flash runtime (yes Flash is compiled in a Byte Code which defines its own instruction set). Another big contender is the .NET runtime…with you guessed what, its own instruction set. At the end it is easy to categorize the executions engines: The “native” ones: the hardware executes directly the actions described in a program, compiled from source code to a machine dependent format. A native ARM application running on a ARM processor is an example, or partially for a Java program that is running on an ARM with Jazelle (some Java byte code are directly implemented in hardware) The “virtual” ones: Java, .NET, JavaScript/Flash (or ActionScript, not so far from JavaScript: the two languages will be merged with the next version: ActionScript 3 == JavaScript 2 == ECMAScript 4) where the source code is compiled in a machine independent binary format (often called byte code)…But how an ARM emulator running on an x86 PC may be called? you guessed, virtual. So why bother with virtual execution engines? Java has been built with the premise of the now famous (and defunct) write once run everywhere, because at that time (and I really don’t know why) people were thinking that it was enough to reduce the “cross platform development issue” to the low level binary compatibility, simply allowing the code to be executed. And we know now it is not enough! Once the binary issue was fixed, the really big next one were APIs (and to be complete the programming model) … and the nightmare begins. When we say Java we only name the Language, but not the available services, same for JavaScript, C# or ActionScript. So development platforms started to emerge CDLC J2ME .NET framework, Flash, Adobe Flex, Silverlight, Javascript+Ajax, Yahoo widgets … but after all what are GNOME, KDE, Windows, MacOS, S60, WinMob ?…yes development platforms. The Open Source community has quickly demonstrated that binary compatibility was not that important for portability: once you have the C/C++ source code and the needed libraries plus a way to link everything, you can simply recompile for ARM/x86 or any other platform. I’ve made a big assumption here: you have “a way to link everything”. And this is really a big assumption: on many platforms you don’t have any dynamic link, nor library repository or dynamic service discovery…so how to expose cleanly your beloved APIs? This is why OSGI has been introduced, much like COM, Corba, some .NET mechanisms, etc : it is about component based programming, encapsulating a piece of code around what it offers (an API, some resources) and what it uses (API and resources). Basically an execution engine has to: Allow Binary Compatibility: Abstracting the raw hardware, ie the processor, either using a virtual machine and/or a clean build environment Allow clean binary packaging Allow easy use and exposition of services/APIs It is not impossible for virtual engines to dissociate the language(s) and the engine: Java …well for Java, ActionScript for Flash, all the # languages for .NET. An execution engine is nothing without the associated build chain and development chain around the supported languages. In fact this is key as all those modern languages have a strong common point: developers do not have to bother with memory handling, and as all the C/C++ coders will tell you it means around 80% less bugs, so a BIG productivity boost, but also (and it is something a tier one OEM confirmed): it is way to more easyily train and find “low cost” coders for those high level languages compared to C/C++ experts!… another development cost gain. A virtual execution engine basically brings productivity gain and lower development cost thanks to modern languages ….. but we are far far away from “write once run everywhere”. As discussed before it is not enough and here comes the real development environments based on virtual execution engines : .NET framework platform : an .NET VM at heart, with a big big set of APIs (this is what I would like to know what are the APIs exposed in Red Five Labs s60 .NET port) Silverlight : also a .NET VM at heart + some APIs and a nice UI framework J2ME: a JVM + JSR + …well different APIs for each platform J2SE: a JVM + a lot of APIs J2EE: a JVM + “server side” frameworks Flex : Adobe Action Script Tamarin VM + Flex APIs Google Android: Java VM + Google APIs,… but more interestingly also C++: as android use Interface IDL description C++/Java interworking will work (I will have to cover it in length at another post) …and the list goes on What really matters is the development environment as a whole, not simply a language (for me this is where Android may be interesting). For example the Mono project (that aims to bring .NET execution with Linux) was of limited interest before they ported the Windows Forms (Big set of APIs to make graphical stuff in .NET framework) and made them available in their .NET execution engine. What I haven’t mentioned is that the development costs gain allowed by modern languages comes at a cost: Performance. Even if Java/.NET/ActionScript JIT helped partially for CPU (Just in Time compilers: VM technology that translates virtual byte code to real machine code before execution), it is still not the case for the RAM used, and in the embedded world the Moore law doesn’t help you, it only helps to reduce silicon die size, to reduce chipset cost, so using a virtual engine actually will force you to … upsize your hardware, increasing the BOM of your phone. And it isn’t a vague assumption: when your phone has to be produced in the 10 millions units range, using 2MB of RAM, 4MB of flash and an ARM7 based chipset helps you a lot to make money selling at low cost….some some nights/days have been spent optimizing stuff to make it happen smoothly very recently… Just as an example what was done first at Open-Plug was a low cost execution engine, not virtual, running “native code” on ARM and x86, with a service discovery and a dedicated toolchain: a component platform for low cost phones. Then it has been possible to add a development environment with tools and middle to high services. A key opportunity may be for a single framework and multiple execution engines for easy adaptation with legacy software and productivity boost for certain projects/hardware, or some parts of the software. And in this area the race is not over, because another beast may come in: “virtualization” . In the above discussion another execution engine benefit was omitted: this is a development AND execution sandbox. This notion of sandbox and the last argument about performance comes really essential when you need to run a time critical code on one hand and a full blown “fat” OS on another, to be more specific if you need to run a GSM/UMTS stack written on legacy RTOS and an OpenOS (like Linux) on a single core chipset. Today this is not possible, or very difficult: it may be achieved by low level tricks if one entity master the whole system (like when Symbian OS where running in a Nokia NOS task), or with real virtualization technologies like what Virtuallogix is doing with NXP high end platforms. And in that case the cost gain is obvious: single core vs dual core chipset…. But why bother with virtualization and not rewrite the stacks for other OSs? because this is simply not achievable in our industry time frame (nearly all the chipset vendors have tried and failed). And again the desktop was the first in this area (see VMware and others): Intel and AMD should introduce some hardware to help this process…to have multiple virtual servers running on a single CPU (or more). So where are all those technologies are leading us? maybe more freedom for software architects, more productivity, but above all more reuse of disparate pieces of softwares, because it does not seem possible to build a full platform from scatch anymore, and making those pieces running in clean sandboxes is mandatory as they haven’t been designed to work together. Anyway once you know how to cleanly write some code running independently from the hardware, you have to offer a programming model! Implying how to share resources between your modularized pieces of code…and in that respect execution engines are of no help, you need an application framework (like Hiker from access, Android is about that, but also S60 and Windows Mobile, OpenPlug ELIPS, …): It will abstract the notion of resources for your code : Screen, Keypad, Network, CPU, memory, … but this is another story, for another post. Feel free to comment! Thomas

Launched in 2002, S60 has been Nokia’s software platform which delivers an application framework, key middleware, core applications and user interface on top of the Symbian OS platform. For the last few years, the vast majority (circa 65%) of Symbian devices have shipped with S60 on top, and in the form of Nokia’s own devices. But I ‘m digressing. S60 has been Nokia’s strategy to extend its market share in the value chain beyond its own 40%. The manufacturer has long realised that extending far beyond 40% of the mobile device market is pretty hard. As such Nokia developed S60, an in-house software platform that can be licensed to other manufacturers. In creating this strategy, Nokia envisaged that many OEMs would take up S60 which would translate to a meaningful addition to its revenue base. It’s worth noting that contrary to the S40 software platform, S60 incurs far greater costs in maintaining and upholding APIs, catering to developer needs and handset OEM differentiation requirements. S60 has therefore been Nokia’s strategy to extend well beyond it’s own device market share and reap licensing revenues from competing OEMs. As history has taught, very few models and volumes of non-Nokia devices based on S60 have shipped to date, compared to the 100M+ Nokia S60 devices. Visualising Nokia’s Ovi strategy Interestingly, Ovi is an extension of S60, for the connected device age. Ovi is about channeling services (e.g. music and video sharing, widgets, location services, and storage-in-the-cloud services) onto mobile devices. In this sense, Ovi is an extension of S60, but with lower costs. To deliver an Ovi service, you need an enabling client application, not a complete software platform. What more, Ovi is about extending service delivery to connected devices beyond mobile; PCs, set-top boxes, home entertainment and other appliances. And it’s about bringing those services to the consumer irrespective of the device (mobile or fixed) or the medium (over the cable or over the air). If we were to represent mobile devices as one dimension and the spectrum of connected devices as another dimension, a very revealing relationship between Ovi and S60 forms, which lends well to visualising Nokia’s Ovi strategy. Ovi = S60 squared. Thoughts ? – Andreas

A femto cell is currently the smallest implementation of a cellular network. It is designed to be placed in each home and enable ordinary mobile handsets to communicate with the mobile network through broadband connections, including cable or xDSL. Femto cells operate on the same licensed spectrum that is used in macro and micro cells but only have a range of tens of meters, to cover the area within the home. They bring a whole new value proposition to mobile operators and enable them to enter a previously unreachable market: the home environment. But do we really need femto cells ? The Femto Forum has been formed by seven early femto cell innovators mostly in the UK (including IPAccess and Ubiquisys) during July 2007 and attracted several heavyweights during the summer of 2007, including ZTE, NEC, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks, Motorola and ZTE. The forum currently consists of 50 members that are distributed across the mobile value chain. The forum has created four working groups tackling technical, business and marketing issues and aims to minimize fragmentation in this new market. Why is there a need for such small cells? The most efficient way to increase network capacity in a cellular network is to shrink the cell size – ok, there are other ways, including getting new spectrum, sectorization, adaptive algorithms for scheduling but all are semi-disruptive and cannot compete with a smaller cell size. However, in an archetypal mobile network, the cost to deploy a network with many small cells in data hungry areas is prohibitive. Femto cells piggyback on broadband connections and are relatively inexpensive and can effectively form a distributed high capacity network. On a much simpler usage case, femto cells can provide coverage where ordinary cells cannot, in highly populated areas where propagation issues are a concern. (Although pico and femto cells may appear similar, a pico cell connects to a base station controller to extend coverage in areas without, e.g. enterprise locations. Femto cells may include some form of a base station controller and are more intelligent). What femto cells really propose is revolutionary for mobile and fixed operators, assuming that they aim to provide more than just coverage in the home. Saying that, femto cell application is most likely to depend on the region it is being deployed in: Western Europe is most likely to use femto cells for advanced data services, while North America is more likely to see femto cells for coverage in remote areas where low traffic does not justify a typical base station. Are femto cells valuable as marketed currently? First of all, I am not convinced that fixed operators will be happy to see mobile operators piggybacking their broadband connections and generating revenue through them, cannibalizing bandwidth that could otherwise be used for fixed services. Although it is likely that some form of agreement will take place between the mobile and fixed operators, it is still early to discuss about this when there could be serious technical difficulties facing femto cells. A serious technical issue is interference, with femto cells interfering with each other and the macro/micro cells in the main mobile network. Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum, affirms that major femto cell developers have made their products aware of their environment and intelligent so that they do not interfere. This may be the case, but I would like to see how femto cells will interact when there are tens in the vicinity, all trying to work in the same spectrum. Another issue is whether the mobile network will be able to cope with so many distributed base stations accessing the core elements of the mobile network, including the central switches, location registers, softswitches, media gateways etc. These may have been designed to cope with hundreds of base stations in dense urban areas, but the number for base stations may escalate to several thousands if the mobile operator considers femto cells. As far as usage is concerned, I can t see a solid scenario for femto cells. They can bring mobile wireless data to the home with the added benefit that users can access the new application with a device they are already familiar with. However, I don t see how a mobile device can compete with a PC or a notebook computer for data services most commonly accessed at home: Web, email, social networking and multimedia. Especially if mobile operators build WiFi in a femto cell box to enable computer networking, I think that fixed operators will get quite alarmed. I can see three ways for mobile operators to bring something of interest to end users with femto cells: New services: Mobile operators can release new services that can target mobile devices with very high speed connections. Intelligent architectures that distribute intelligence to the edge of the network (including IMS) are ideal for this setting but then again, user behavior is nearly impossible to predict, and deploying this kind of services would require heavy capital expenditure on behalf of the mobile operator. New terminals: This is a far more radical approach. Mobile operators can promote devices with increased display and input capabilities to be used in femto cells and outdoors. This would be possible only when proof of concept has been achieved and economies of scale are in place to justify for the need to change handsets (or get an additional one). Or they could simply add coverage where there isn t to start with and build a stable of applications after end users are familiar with cell at home solutions. Do we really need femto cells ? Femto cells may be a good thing. After all, distributed is the way to go forward: FON and Meraki enjoy success with little overhead costs compared to traditional network providers by giving more power to the end user. I am not saying that the mobile operator will give more power to the end user, but will enable more advanced applications and perhaps cheaper mobile basic services including voice and SMS at home. There is a lot of work to be done to make sure that: Fragmentation is managed and technical issues are resolved (e.g. Nokia Siemens has released a femto gateway that speaks to other vendor femto cells via a proprietary interface). Operators market (and subsidize) the devices very carefully Mobile operators should work with fixed operators to setup some form of cooperation to enable femto cells, or assess whether they should offer fixed services themselves. Educate end users that health risks are minimal (as with guideline compliant macro/micro cells) However, as it stands (and in the short term future) I wouldn t pay anything to have a femto cell at home, when I can enjoy voice calls through circuit-switched (or VoIP) practically free and have a very fast broadband connection with WiFi. Would you?

Google makes money by building inventory (i.e. white space on web, print and radio) and auctioning off inventory to advertisers. Search is merely the means to create a boundless amount of inventory and attract billions of eyeballs to it. All Google products including Docs, Maps, iGoogle, Gmail, GTalk and News Alerts are strategies to increase the amount of inventory and attract more eyeballs. The Android operating system for mobile phones is no different. It’s a platform for building and channeling inventory, much like a web browser. In fact we could say that Android is similar to a browser on steroids, in that it allows developers to easily build any connected handset application anywhere within the mobile user journey, and within those create more inventory. So why is Google spending more than 200 man years building a complete operating system, instead of building just a browser for mobile phones or even a downloadable application, like an on-device portal ? Because browsers on mobile handsets are used for a tiny percentage of the time, probably less than 5% of the time the user spends on their phone. 95% or more of the user journey is taken up by the contacts application, idle screen, main menu, calendar, inbox and settings. In parallel, with Android, Google is addressing the need of handset manufacturer for an operating system they can control (it’s licensed under APL2), that’s low-cost (it’s free), that reduces time to market for variants (see the declarative XML UI framework and developer platform). Plus, Android is backed by Google, a heavyweight vendor who can support OEMs during launch of multi-million units. What’s so special about Android ? Android is different to other OSes, including Windows Mobile, Symbian/S60/UIQ, the Linux variants and proprietary OSes (Nucleus, EMP, BREW, etc) in several ways: – The declarative XML UI framework enables developers and handset manufacturers to rapidly develop the user interface for new applications. – The Android SDK is an environment for building connected applications. Every application (including dialler, idle screen, SMS, contacts, etc) can consume and produce content. Every application on Android is a Web 2.0 citizen. – The Android source code will be licensed under the Apache 2.0 license, a non-copyleft license which allows handset manufacturers to modify the source code without being forced to share back their modifications. This is in complete contrast to GPL v2 and GPL v3 which is a copyleft license (see our white paper); Sun applied the GPLv2 license to its Java ME implementation, which is the reason why not a single handset OEM is using it. – Android allows developers to program against the familiar Java SE library of APIs (the desktop version of the Java libraries), which is much broader and more powerful than Java ME, the mobile version. Much like SavaJe (now Sun’s Java FX Mobile), Android is a Java SE -like platform built on a Linux kernel, but more importantly one where the Java platform is deeply integrated with the underlying Linux support package. In other words, the Java SE-like platform is a native application platform for Android phones. Symbian may arrogantly dismiss Android as yet another Linux initiative, but the breadth and depth of Java APIs is something Symbian never managed to get right. And unlike the FX Mobile platform, Android has several OEMs who are planning to build handsets on it. – Android is not only a departure from Java ME development model, but also away from Linux development. Funnily enough, operators like Vodafone and Telefonica who have committed to supporting Linux as a prefered platform would not be counting Android in. (thanks Guy!). – Android uses Dalvik, a ‘proprietary’ (non-Sun-endorsed) Java virtual machine which means that Android developers can use Java SE APIs, while Google does not have to pay any royalties to Sun for TCK certification, as they ‘re not claiming this is a Java environment. As Stefano writes, Google doesn’t claim that Android is a Java platform, although it can run some programs written with the Java language and against some derived version of the Java class library. This is slap in the face of Sun. – Google is paying developers $10 million to write applications for Android, which is a smart move to motivate developers especially when no phones are out yet. It’s worth noting that $10 million exceeds the yearly marketing budget of most operating system vendors. The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) is formed by an array of complimentary participants; operators (covering US, Europe, Asia, Japan and Latin America), handset OEMs covering all global regions (including HTC, the second-biggest smartphone OEM after Nokia), as well as hardware and software vendors covering complimentary constituents of a mobile handset. So is Android mature and will it be adopted by OEMs ? Google has dedicated an estimated 200+ man years building the platform (since the Android acquisition), but there are still bugs (see this report). HTC has confirmed it is launching one handset in 2H08 and reportedly plans to release a total of 2 or 3 Android-based handsets in 2008. Moreover, according to a WSJ report, T-Mobile US has committed to releasing a phone in 2008 that will be based on Android. For a new Linux initiative, this level of commercial support is extremely rare. What’s in it for Google ? Android is a service access platform, not a delivery platform. It’s about growing the pie of mobile advertising inventory and not necessarily growing Google’s share. There’s nothing to stop Yahoo taking Android and launching a phone with Motorola that bundles Yahoo Go!, flickr and eBay. I ‘m guessing however that Google has some sort of agreement with OHA-participant handset manufacturers and operators about bundling Google services with Android handsets by default. Moreover, Google might want to bundle the gPay payment system (see this Times Online article). Or connect the physical world to Google advertisers via its ZebraCrossing QR reader technology for mobile phones. What’s even more interesting is that it may provide a channel for feeding customer analytics back to Google, such as presence, contacts, call logs, SMS messages and a wealth of user profile information that can be used to build extremely detailed digital footprints. Another important impact of Android is that it will catalyse the development of white-label phones, i.e. phones ready-to-customise by consumer brands like MTV, Nike, Gucci and Tag Heuer. Rapid software customisation is what hampers the scalability of customised design manufacturers like ModeLabs today. All-in-all, Android seems to be the only non-proprietary operating system with a strong chance of wider commercial adoption. Motorola is losing interest in LiMo (it committed to Qtopia APIs, whereas LiMo supports rival GTK). The LiPS forum doesn’t really have a route to market, apart from Chinese ODMs, and is a partial OS. All other mobile Linux operating systems are either in alpha stage (Celunite, ALP, A la Mobile), not shrink-wrapped (Greensuite), or not backed by a big services firm (Purple Labs). Symbian is dominated by Nokia and DoCoMo; outside Japan, the overwhelming majority (volume-wise and model-wise) of Symbian handsets are Nokia, whereas in Japan the vast majority of 30 million Symbian-based shipments are DoCoMo (60 out of 66 models). And Windows Mobile is for enterprise segments only (at least up to version 6). Plus Android ticks several boxes of OEM checklists including control, time-to-market and cost. Thoughts ? – Andreas

But what is causing all of this turmoil? Prepaid users are many more than post-paid (especially in developing markets where pre-paid may account of up to 90% of subscriptions) and operators are expected to harness their roaming potential in order to combat declining revenues due to competition, regulation (Eurotariff), increased mobile phone penetration, cheap fixed telephony services, VoIP and several others that are threatening their revenue streams. Informa estimates that approximately 62% of mobile subscribers worldwide are prepaid, counting more than 1.5 billion as of July 2006. The necessary technologies to implement prepaid roaming are heavily fragmented much more so than post-paid roaming, mainly because a prepaid user requires authorisation to communicate before each call, which is based on his credit, requiring this procedure to take place in near real-time. There are several ways to enable prepaid roaming: Call back with USSD: The Unstructured Supplementary Services Data is the simplest method of enabling prepaid roaming. It relies on entering a short code on the handset to query current balance and enable communication. An example of a USSD code is *99#phone number#. It is hardly user-friendly and in most cases complicates use beyond the reach of most users. On the other hand it is practically costless to implement but not considered as a long term solution, only in some developing markets where revenues do not permit an integrated roaming solution or roaming is not seen as a revenue driver. CAMEL: Customised Applications for Mobile networks Enhanced Logic is a set of standards published by ETSI which describe services that operate above a GSM or UMTS network and are based on Intelligent Network standards. Its use is completely transparent to the end user who uses the mobile phone as in their home network. However, CAMEL requires heavy expenditures to deploy (some vendors quote a cost of 7-8 per subscriber) and also both home and visited networks to be CAMEL-enabled. The evolved mobile markets in Western Europe have implemented CAMEL widely for prepaid roaming. Proprietary solutions: Several vendors have released roaming solutions that either mimic or translate CAMEL signalling between home and visited networks to enable prepaid roaming. Prepaid hubs: A solution vendor establishes a roaming ecosystem with multiple agreements with mobile operators, international traffic carriers, signalling providers and other players in the roaming value chain. An operators that seeks to enter the roaming market only has to form an agreement with the hub provider and enjoys several advantages: pricing transparency, wide reach and customer base without the need for complex and extensive bilateral agreements. It appears that prepaid hubs is the most efficient and cost-effective way to go forward in a fragmented roaming world but market dynamics do not suggest a simple migration. In advanced markets, CAMEL is already established, but operators will still want the flexibility of hubs in markets where CAMEL is unavailable. More so, CAMEL gives the operator the choice of partner networks abroad so that subscribers can be steered to a quasi-controlled environment allowing both operators to benefit. On the other hand, in developing markets including Asia, Africa and South America, the value of prepaid hubs may be priceless in the eyes of operators whose prepaid subscriber base accounts in most cases for more than 90% of all subscribers. It is these markets that are leading the prepaid hub evolution. In the rapidly changing world of roaming, it seems that operators are closer to breaking from the ambiguity of roaming charges and provide a transparent service and pricing to end users. Hubs are expected to change the roaming landscape, but to what extent will operators want to shift from their established semi-walled gardens to a more flexible and cost-effective offering for end users? Hubs are expected to play a major part in enabling prepaid roaming but some players in the industry including service providers, vendors and mobile operators fell that hubs are threatening their established roaming business. One thing is for sure though: With the advent of the Eurotariff and distributed solutions like hubs, the shift towards realistic and competitive charges and pricing transparency for end users is slowly becoming a reality. – Dimitris