Who Will Control the Heart of Handsets?

Symbian has a strong position among mobile operating systems, but announcements from Microsoft, LiMo, and others show the competition's heating up

by Jennifer L. Schenker

Google's new software platform for mobile phones entitled 'Android' in its prototype form on demonstration at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Getty

In years past, when the mobile-phone industry gathered for its biggest annual convention, the talk was mostly about bells and whistles—who had the sexiest, thinnest, or most feature-packed handsets. Not this year. At the 2008 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the center of attention has shifted to the software inside phones that most consumers don't ever think about.

From flashy newcomer Apple (AAPL) with its hit iPhone, to gate-crashing Google (GOOG), to stalwart Nokia (NOK), the titans of tech are locked in a high-stakes battle for the heart and soul of mobile phones. At stake is nothing less than the future of mobile communication—and, by extension, of the Internet, as a growing number of consumers around the world access the Web from handheld devices.

It's no wonder operating systems have become the industry's new focus. The majority of today's handsets are still based on proprietary operating systems developed by makers such as Nokia and Motorola (MOT) for use in their own phones. These closed software environments are costly for makers to maintain and upgrade, limiting the opportunity for economies of scale that would be possible if phones from many makers shared common software.

What's more, by fragmenting the market, closed systems make life more difficult for operators and suppliers of mobile software and services. Paris-based Gameloft (GLFT.PA), for instance, the leading seller of mobile games, has to separately develop, test, and support hundreds of versions of every game it makes thanks to the lack of software standards in mobile phones and differences in operator network configurations.

Industry leaders are fed up. "Today there are 30 to 40 different operating systems for mobile, and that is too many," said Arun Sarin, the chief executive of Vodafone (VOD) during a Feb. 12 speech in Barcelona. "We need to narrow that range to three, four, or even five." To get there, Sarin urged his rivals to join forces in defining the handful of operating systems that could power mobile phones in the future.

Fight for Midrange Phones

Undoubtedly, one of the strongest contenders is London-based Symbian, a software maker owned by a consortium of phone makers including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung Electronics, and Panasonic. Symbian is already used in nearly half of the smartphones—high-end devices with computing capability—sold today. But to stay in the game, the company is scrambling to move its software onto less expensive midrange devices of the sort now powered mostly by proprietary homegrown operating systems.

It will face far stiffer competition there. Microsoft (MSFT) and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM) are eyeing the same opportunity as they try to move beyond business-oriented devices into the consumer market. And the elephant in the room is search giant Google, which is spearheading an initiative called Android that seeks to create a Web-friendly software platform, based on open-source software, for midrange phones.

Nokia unwraps bendy nanotech phone

Nokia unwraps bendy nanotech phone

12 comments

By James Sherwood [More by this author]

25th February 2008 11:17 GMT

Nokia and the University of Cambridge jointly designed a concept mobile phone that allows users to mould the handset into different shapes.

Nokia's Morph: formed from shape-altering substances

Dubbed Morph, the handset has been designed to demonstrate the possible future benefits of nanotechnology for mobile devices. Morph is both stretchable and flexible, but a Nokia spokesman claimed that nanotechnology could also allow future mobile phones to incorporate self-cleaning surfaces and see-through electronics.

On-the-fly interface adaptation

Although very little has been said about the Morph’s technical capabilities, pictures show how, in theory, the handset’s able to alter its state between a watch-like mode, a credit-card shape and a traditional mobile phone. No dimensions are given, but the Morph appears to be extremely thin no-matter what state it’s in.

The project, which has been roughly one year in the making, doesn’t mean the Morph will be on shelves anytime soon though. Nokia admitted that it could be seven years before elements of the Morph will be available for integration into other off-the-shelf phones.

However, the Finnish mobile phone giant claimed that, eventually, nanotechnology could help reduce manufacturing costs and introduce complex features at lower prices.

One day, all mobile phones will be made this way. Apparently.

"GiFi" — Short-Range, 5-Gbps Wireless For $10/Chip

Source: http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=

"The Age reports that Melbourne scientists have built and demonstrated tiny CMOS chips, 5 mm per side, that can transmit 5 Gbps over short distances — about 10 m. The chip features a tiny 1-mm antenna, a power amp that is only a few microns wide, and power consumption of only 2 W. 'GiFi' appears set to revolutionize short-distance data transmission, and transmits in the relatively uncrowded 60GHz range. Best of all, the chip is only about a year away from public release, and will only cost around US $9.20 to produce."

Bright Ideas from Mobile Startups

Bright Ideas from Mobile Startups

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/02/0214_mwc_startups/index_01.htm?technology+slideshows

At the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, BusinessWeek picks a dozen newcomers with promising products

Hot Concepts

GestureTek was the winner of this year's Mobile Innovation Award at the Mobile World Congress. Hardly a newcomer-the company has been around for 20 years-it won hands down for bringing a fresh new application to the mobile sector. GestureTek's EyeMobile Engine software lets mobile-phone users play games, scroll menus, navigate maps, and browse Web pages by shaking, rocking, or rolling their cell phones. So far, its software has been embedded in more than 50 million mobile devices worldwide.
// ');

Social Phone Book
Zyb (www.zyb.com)Category: Contact managementCopenhagenZyb turns your dull mobile-phone address book into a live interactive experience. The company's technology lets you sync your address book with your Web profile on sites like LinkedIn and Bebo. And starting in May-provided the people in your address book opt in-when you click on their names you'll see a lot more than just a phone number. Using location-based technology, Zyb will tell you where your friends or family members are located (using Google Maps) and whether they're currently available to talk or text. It'll also let you sync up social calendars and exchange your most recent postings from sites such as Facebook, Flikr, and Twitter

Can You Hear Me Now?
Audience (www.audience.com)Category: Noise suppressionMountain View, Calif.Ever tried to make a mobile-phone call in a packed conference center or on a busy city sidewalk and struggle to hear above the din of the crowd and honking horns? Audience, the winner of this year's "Most Innovative True Mobile Startup" award at the Mobile World Congress, is a voice processor company that has developed noise-suppression technology based on the intelligence of human hearing. The technology is applicable across a broad range of voice-centered consumer products.


Hot Concepts
Pay-Buy-Mobile

French chip designer Inside Contactless specializes in chips for so-called near field communications, or NFC, which allows short-range wireless communication between electronic devices. NFC is helping cell phones morph into wallets around the world by letting users "swipe" their phones over a reader to make small payments. Inside's technology is playing a big role in NFC and the company won an award at this year's Mobile World Congress for "most innovative device-centric technology." Its MicroRead chip has been adopted by several major handset manufacturers and is a key component in the GSM Assn.'s Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative, a program for standardizing contactless payments using mobile phones.

Spinning Your Messages
SpinVox (www.spinvox.com)Category: Voice-to-text conversionLondonSpinVox captures voicemail messages, feeds them into a speech recognition system, and then spits them out as text delivered per the user's choice-via e-mail, SMS, instant messaging, or even written on a Facebook wall. The service works on any handset or network, including mobile, fixed line, and VoIP. SpinVox is rolling out its service with operators, who like it because voicemail-to-text helps push up user revenues. After all, texting is often more immediate than voicemail, and users tend to respond faster to text messages by texting back.

Would a US Recession Hammer the Indians?

Would a US Recession Hammer the Indians?
Posted by: Steve Hamm on February 11
The threat of a US recession looms large globally. There’s no question that as America’s huge and hungry consumption machine starts to sputter, other economies around the world will suffer. My colleague, Nandina Lakshman, writes in a BusinessWeek Online story published today that some of the Indian outsourcing companies are preparing for a recession by cutting salary incentives and otherwise tightening up on expenses. I actually don’t expect a US recession to do much harm to the top Indian software services outfits. It’s true that they got hit hard by the US recession of 2001/2002. But I think that was a very different situation. For starters, TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and the others were not that well known or credible five years ago. But that has changed now. They’re trusted by US and Northern European clients—depended on, in fact. Another factor: There was a lot of uncertainty in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Business spending stalled. This time, it’s consumer spending that is faltering. Businesses will want to cut costs to deal with the effects of the consumer slowdown. I believe they’re likely to increase their use of low-cost Indian services, rather than cutting back on them.

US IT Jobs: Which Way is the Wind Blowing?
Posted by: Steve Hamm on February 13
US software programming jobs took a real wacking at the end of the last recession, but bounced back since—in spite of the offshoring trend and the rise of the Indian tech services industry. Now we’re heading into another recession, it seems. Will US software programmers lose out again? I’m betting no. The reason: The impending retirement of the babyboomers. Already, a lot of federal government programmers are retiring, since they’re reached the retirement age of 55. This factor—combined with low graduating rates for computer science majors—is already causing a shortfall in US programming talent. I believe that whatever cost cutting that’s done by companies during a recession will be more than offset by the software talent shortfall. Five years from now, US programmers will be in even greater demand.
New data supporting these conclusions came in this week from the IT Governance Institute. In its IT governance Global Status Report-2008, the ITGI reported the results of its survey of global IT leaders. Fifty-eight percent of the respondents said "insufficient number of staff" was a big problem--putting it at the top of problems they listed. That's a substantial increase from 2005, when 35% said they face staffing shortages. Remember, this is a global survey, so the shortage isn't just in the U.S. John Lainhart, the principle advisor on IT governance to the ITGI, told me that the baby boomers retiring is the big culprit. With newly trained programmers in short supply, he said, "We'll have to retrain people coming out of professions that aren't doing so well."
I noticed that President Bush's budget proposal slashes the labor department budget, so there isn't much hope for federal retraining programs stepping into the breach.
Lainhart mentioned an innovative program at Penn State that seems like it's on the right track. They're teaching computer science students to be consultants rather than coding grunts. People in the program have to study a foreign language in addition to the major programming languages. In their course work they operate as teams and work on creating technology solutions for customers. Their exams are team-based, too.
This type of program seems sure to appeal to students, and also will give people the skills they need for sustainable, high-pay careers. But, to fill the staffing gap, we'll need a lot more of this kind of thing.

Why the future is in your hands

Why the future is in your hands http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7250465.stm

By Darren Waters Technology editor, BBC News website

GPS is starting to appear on more handsets

Sales of smartphones are expected to overtake those of laptops in the next 12 to 18 months as the mobile phone completes its transition from voice communications device to multimedia computer.

Convergence has been the Holy Grail for mobile phone makers, software and hardware partners, as well as consumers, for more than a decade.

And for the first time the rhetoric of companies like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, who have boasted of putting a multimedia computer in your pocket, no longer seems far fetched.

"Converged devices are always with you and always connected," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia chief executive at last week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Last year Nokia sold almost 200m camera phones and about 146m music phones, making it the world's biggest seller of digital cameras and MP3 players.

In the coming year the firm predicts it will sell 35 million GPS-enabled phones as personal navigation becomes the latest feature to be assimilated into the mobile phone.

Form and function

Nigel Clifford, chief executive of Symbian, said: "All of those single use devices - MP3 players, digital camera, GPS - are collapsing onto the phone."

"We are going past the point where this was a phone with a few other things," he said.

Symbian's operating system shipped on 188 million phones last year and a third of those came with GPS.

"We see mobile phones evolving into multi-functional devices that now support consumer electronics, multimedia entertainment and mobile professional enterprise applications; all converging," said Luis Pineda, from mobile phone chip firm Qualcomm.

More and more people are snapping shots with a handset

Convergence is being driven by a combination of software, services and hardware.

The first phones powered by a chip running at 1Ghz will hit the market later this year, seven years after the first desktop chip broke the gigahertz barrier.

Qualcomm's 1Ghz Snapdragon chipset will debut inside a number of handsets, including some from Samsung and HTC

"It's a first in the industry for a wireless chipset," said Mr Pineda.

As well as raw horsepower Snapdragon also features a dedicated application processor, as well as the ability to handle 12 megapixel digital photos and up to 720p high definition video imaging.

Mr Clifford from Symbian said the mobile industry had to deliver multi-function devices which did not compromise.

He said: "When we look at what is collapsing on to these devices and people's expectations with their experiences on single-use specialized devices there is going to be rising expectations."

Chip shop

More than 90% of the world's mobile phones are powered by technology created by British firm Arm. It designs chip architectures that it licenses to semiconductors makers such as Qualcomm and Broadcom.

Ian Drew from Arm said future mobile phones demanded ever more processing power.

But building chips with greater processing was not a straightforward, he said.

The future of the internet and computing applications is not going to be in the home or at the office; it's going to be mobile Nigel Clifford, Symbian

"If you look at a typical phone the first thing you have got to do is get within the half a watt envelope.

"It needs to get into your pocket. And there's no fan. It needs to work for days rather than hours."

He added: "When you start adding multi media experiences - such as 3D graphics, video, and games - there are two ways to do that: you can get bigger and bigger processors or you have multi core where you can switch off a processor when you don't need it."

Arm is demonstrating a chip architecture, called Coretex A9, that will offer four cores, or processors, on a single chip.

Symbian has been working with Arm on future uses for multi-core mobile phones.

"You can use massive amounts of processing if you need it. But if you don't you can power down the cores that aren't required," said Mr Clifford.

Symmetrical Multi Processing will drive the next generation of applications on a phone, he added.

"Silicon vendors are looking very seriously at how they integrate SMP."

Mr Clifford added: "The future of the internet and computing applications is not going to be in the home or at the office; it's going to be mobile."

The gaming abilities of handsets are rapidly improving

He said gaming would be the next feature to collapse into phones.

"That is one of the next single usage devices that will start feeling the pressure from the mobile device," he said.

3D graphics acceleration is becoming standard on many of today's mobile phones and specialists like Nvidia have joined the market.

Mr Clifford said today's most powerful mobile phones, such as Nokia's N96 and NTTDoCoMo's 905 series have the same power as a laptop from 2000.

Nvidia's APX 2500 chip has enough 3D graphics acceleration to handle Quake 3, a PC game from 1999, on a mobile phone.

Handset owners were also beginning to expect the same online experience they have on their desktop PCs on their mobile phones.

"Web 2.0, social networking and video sharing; that's a real driver of horsepower," said Mr Drew from Arm.

He added: "But you need to be able to get data in. The next generation of mobile phones need high performance radios - they will have high data rates that will enable this content to be streamed to you."

Symbian is working on technology called Freeway to give phones the ability to move seamlessly between wireless networks, like wi-fi and cell networks like 3G and 4G.

"We don't want people to feel the mobile web is a second class experience."

Give up apple microsoft: 77.3m Symbian phones shipped in 2007’

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/12/give-up-77-3m-symbian-phones-shipped-in-2007/

Give up: 77.3m Symbian phones shipped in 2007
Posted Feb 12th 2008 9:06AM by Paul MillerFiled under: Cellphones
Sorry Microsoft and Apple, you may have had some fancy smartphone sales this year in your cute little American way, but globally there's no question who's the real leader in this segment: the Symbian OS shipped on 77.3 million units in 2007. That's a 50% growth over 2006 sales, with over 141 different phone models from eight licensees. If the new hotness from Nokia this year at MWC is any indication, those numbers aren't going to go away very soon, but Sony Ericsson's adoption of Windows Mobile for its flagship XPERIA X1 certainly spells a modicum of trouble for Symbian land. Of course, there are many more low-end Symbian smartphones than there are cheap Windows Mobile phones, and Apple's iPhone is still a premium product , but the line is becoming increasingly blurred.

It's the User Experience, Stupid: Users' love affair with iPhone stumps Mobile World panel

Users' love affair with iPhone stumps Mobile World panel
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206504012

BARCELONA, Spain — A blue-ribbon panel of human behavior and technology experts at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain agreed that the best recent advance in the mobile telecommunications user space came not from a mobile telecom company but from Apple Inc. — the iPhone.

Anup Murarka, director of technical marketing for Adobe, cited a study showing that 77 percent of iPhone purchasers described themselves as "very satisfied" with their user experience.

In an ominous note for mobile operators, the iPhone respondents credited their happy experience not to AT&T, the channel through which iPhone services were delivered in the U.S, but to Apple, the device maker.

The panel, whose title was It's the User Experience, Stupid agreed that iPhone represents a model for mobile operators to follow, but they reached little agreement on how to follow.

One direction, advocated by Lucia Predolin, international marketing and communications director for Buongirono S.p.A. of Milan, Italy, is to manipulate users by identifying their "need states" — including such compulsions as "killing time," and "making the most of it" — and fulfilling them subliminally.

Adobe's Murarka proposed a more technological approach to improving the user experience, satisfying the mobile phone subscriber through better interface design. Sarah Lipman, co-founder and R&D director for Power2B, suggested an almost mystical solution, somehow tapping into users' "neural networks" to navigate a mobile phone interface "using touch and pre-touch input."

Panelists cautiously agreed that the current user experience — at least compared to the iPhone — is not very good. Predolin said that one problem is that many people are reluctant to tap the vast potential of mobile communications — especially the mobile Internet — because they fear the eventual cost. With so many telecom companies advertising heavily the cost of their services per minute, users hesitate to explore possibilities that might devour their precious minutes.

Predolin said that this deadline consciousness is so strong among mobile users that they even constrained their consumption of minutes in a Buongiorno-sponsored trial in which participants were given mobile phones free for a week. "Operators are putting together cost plans that people can't understand," said Predolin. "It is not just cost but the way you market your cost."

Panelist Mike Yonker, general manager of worldwide strategy and operations for Texas Instruments' wireless terminals business unit, said that the way for the user to get the rich content now available on a mobile handset is through the "search" function. But this isn't so easy. He compared the limitations of a mobile handset to a full personal computer screen.

Searching on a computer, he said, is like going to a store, where the customers sees every product displayed, and can make comparisons, touch the products, even try things on for size. Doing the same search on a mobile, he said, but like trying to shop in the same store but "through a drive-up window." No matter how much stuff is in the store, you can only find out through the cashier at the drive-up window.

The dilemma, left unsolved by the panelists, was how to squeeze the user through that window, past the cashier, to sample all the things in the store, without guilt, while still feeling grateful to the cashier who seemed, all along, to be standing in the way.

Everyone agreed that, so far, only Apple has been able to turn this trick. For users, "the content is the core," said Lipman of Power2B somewhat ruefully, "and we have to get out of their way."

Yahoo launches OneConnect

Yahoo launches OneConnect

Posted by Marguerite Reardon Post a comment
BARCELONA, Spain--Yahoo has upped the ante in its campaign to rule the mobile Web.
On Tuesday, the company announced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress here OneConnect, a new tool that allows mobile phone users to aggregate their social-networking updates and messaging in one spot on their phones. The service integrates directly with a phone user's address book and allows people to share status updates and messages from a variety of messaging and social-networking platforms. This means it can provide status updates from Facebook or MySpace.com as well as provide access to e-mail and archived instant-messaging chats.

Yahoo demonstrated OneConnect at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET Networks)
Using GPS tracking, cell tower triangulation and/or near field communications like Bluetooth to get a fix on the cell phone user's exact location, the service can be set up to let people know if their friends are in the same area.
The service sounds similar to one that is offered by a small company called Loopt. This service also allows people to track their friends using GPS and last year the company announced it had integrated the service with cell phone users' address books. But the Loopt service is only available through two carriers in the U.S., Boost and Sprint Nextel. It also costs an additional $3 a month and can only be used on certain handsets.
By contrast OneConnect should be able to run on most mass-market phones that have a browser, said Marco Boerries, executive vice president of Connected Life at Yahoo. Boerries also said the company is working on versions of the service for Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry. The service can also be accessed from any Internet browser through Yahoo Go 3.0.
Yahoo's OneConnect is yet another example of how the company is pouring resources and efforts into building up its mobile capabilities. Within the past year the company has gotten more aggressive about rolling out new mobile services and striking deals with carriers. Today, Yahoo has partnerships with 29 operators, who combined have more than 600 million subscribers, according to its press release.
Yahoo's hope is that it will become the default access point for mobile phone users accessing the Web. OneConnect fits nicely with Yahoo OneSearch, which aggregates news, weather, financial data, photos, and Web links based on search queries, Boerries said during a demonstration of the service at Mobile World Congress.
But Yahoo isn't the only company going after this market. Rival Google is also making a play in mobile. But many experts say that even though Google dominates on the desktop, the company seems to be lagging Yahoo in capabilities on mobile devices.
The two companies have taken different strategies in addressing the mobile market. Google is building its own mobile phone software in an effort to integrate its services into devices. By contrast, Yahoo is attempting to address the current phone market and is even integrating its competitors' services on this new OneConnect platform. For example, Google Talk and MSN Messenger will be aggregated as a part of the OneConnect product.
The competition between the two companies is heating up. Also on Tuesday at Mobile World Congress, Yahoo announced that its OneSearch service will be the exclusive search tool for T-Mobile's European customers starting in March. Google said Tuesday that its search tool will be embedded on the four phones Nokia introduced on Monday. Google search has previously been available on Nokia Internet tablets, and last year Nokia announced that the N95 8GB supported YouTube, the video-sharing platform owned by Google.

great news : Sony-Ericsson introduces XPERIA X1 'iPhone killer'

Sony-Ericsson intros XPERIA X1 'iPhone killer'

Sony-Ericsson opened the Mobile World Congress today by unveiling the XPERIA X1, its first true touchscreen-focused cellphone. Following a deal with Microsoft, the handset is Sony-Ericsson's first device to use Windows Mobile for its OS but also uses a custom interface of "XPERIA panels" rather than the default Microsoft front-end: users simply tap panels with their fingers to access calling, media, and other functions, according to the phone designer. Though dominated by its 3-inch, 800x480 touchscreen, the device also includes both optical and physical navigation pads at the bottom as well as a unique arc-slider QWERTY keyboard that tilts outward for more comfortable typing.
The X1 is also the most Internet-connected Sony-Ericsson device in history, the company boasts: unlike even most advanced 3G phones, it offers HSUPA (High Speed Upload Packet Access) that sends video and other media almost as quickly as it comes downstream. Wi-Fi is onboard for short-range networking and is backed by assisted GPS for route finding. A 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus and a microSD slot (versus Sony-Ericsson's favorite Memory Stick Micro format) round out its key features.The first XPERIA phone is expected sometime in the second half of 2008; with quad-band GSM and an unprecedented five-band HSPA/UMTS connection, the device should be available both in North America as well as Europe and includes

The Top 5 Reasons Nokia Should Bid On Yahoo

We all know that Nokia is moving towards, becoming an internet company.
Here is an insight into how Nokia can achieve this and establish itself as an internet giant and maybe down the line outperfom Google.

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/02/the_top_5_reaso.html

The entire tech universe is obsessed with Microsoft's attempt to takeover Yahoo. The market has been waiting for this move for the last year, so most of the "analysis" coming from bloggers and industry pundits is well-rehearsed and polished, but hardly thought-provoking. Instead of rehashing this debate, I want to start another one: Why isn'tNokia (NYSE: NOK) bidding for Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)?

I have to admit that most of the bloggers have taken a very US-centric focus in this discussion. As my colleague, Eric Zeman, pointed out in a recent post:

The likelihood of another company stepping in and beating Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s bid is not high. Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp., said his company is not interested in bidding. Rumors suggested that Apple might buy Yahoo, but that seems an unlikely scenario given Apple's strong relationship with Google.

Not many other companies have $50 billion sitting around burning a hole in their pockets.

He's right; there aren't that many tech companies (or any other kinds of companies) with access to the amount of cash it would take to challenge the gang in Redmond for Yahoo.

Well, one company, Nokia, could challenge Microsoft. Nokia has the cash, the resources, and a killer global handset business with which to fuel the deal.

Here are five reasons why I think Nokia needs to jump into the ring and fight Microsoft for the rights to buy Yahoo:

1. If Nokia wants to be a Web company it needs a stronger desktop presence to compliment its push into mobile applications.

Nokia is now a Web company, not just a handset maker. But, the company acts as if the Web is just mobile and has no desktop component. This isn't a very smart strategy.

The mobile Web needs to be seamless -- with easy connections between the desktop and the mobile phone. Nokia's rivals in mobile -- Microsoft, Google, and, yes, even Yahoo -- all have desktop products. These Web giants are leveraging their vast desktop Web audiences to grow their mobile initiatives. While Nokia has tons of mobile phone customers, it doesn't have as many Web application users.

With the exception of Navteq (a company Nokia is about to close on), Nokia really doesn't have much of a presence on the desktop. If it expects its new initiatives, like Widsets, to thrive this has to change. Nokia could integrate Yahoo's applications with its cell phones, as well as leverage Yahoo's massive desktop and mobile user bases to grow its own initiatives.

2. Navteq + Yahoo = Nokia's dominance of mobile location.

While Google Maps and My Location continues to gain users and accolades, Nokia could leverage its pending acquisition of Navteq to dominate the fast-growing mobile location market. Sure, My Location has all the hype now, but Nokia owns the global distribution platform for mobile applications, the handsets. By improving the user interface on Yahoo apps, like Yahoo's Go platform, and bundling location-based applications on the devices, Nokia could beat Google Maps before it becomes the dominant platform for LBS.

3. Nokia needs to grow its U.S. market share and Yahoo is a brand that could help it.

While Nokia claims nearly 40% of the global cell phone market, it's a niche player in North America, and its reach into the mobile application market is equally small. Yahoo, after Google, is arguably the second dominant U.S. Web brand. Nokia could leverage not only Yahoo's online market share in North America, but also its brand equity for new applications and even devices.

4. Nokia is a mobile ad company that needs to grow its share of online advertising.

Thanks to its acquisition of Enpocket, Nokia is a mobile advertising company, but it doesn't have an online desktop advertising business. I think Nokia could build all kinds of synergies between Yahoo's desktop and mobile platforms and its own mobile advertising business.

5. Nokia cannot afford to let Microsoft or Google gain any more online market share.

If Microsoft merges with Yahoo, the company will gain online market share. And while Google seems to be the most obvious loser here, Nokia would lose too. Microsoft would gain more mobile users -- and more potential mobile advertising real estate -- if it gets its hands on Yahoo.

If Google (NSDQ: GOOG) can successfully circumvent the Microsoft deal with some kind of partnership with Yahoo, Nokia would likely lose too. The most talked about scenario in this situation is that Yahoo would sell its online ad business to Google and partner with Google for ad revenue. This would cede more mobile ad real estate to Google, another Nokia rival. From Nokia's perspective, this is hardly a better alternative. If Google could then combine Yahoo's mobile ad real estate with its own Android platform, things could get even worse for Nokia.

What do you think? Should Nokia bid for Yahoo? And is your answer is yes, do you think they will?

Android "complete mis-understanding of the handset market"

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/momolondon/message/3874

[ From a posting by David Hearn on the Mobile Monday London mailing list ]

What I saw from the Android developer event was, certainly from the UK market point of view, a complete mis-understanding of the handset market. In the UK, the vast majority of handsets are supplied and subsidised by the network, customised (and often mangled) to suit their requirements - particularly with security and features. Anyone remember Vodafone stopping MP3s being used as ringtones (so only the DRM'd expensive ringtones could be used) on handsets which, if bought sim-free, could do it out the box.

Orange with their smart phones, at the start, locked everything down so almost no applications could be installed. They've now gone down the model of opening it up a bit, but you still cannot install a non-trusted/self-issued CA key without Orange having to authorise and signing the key for you and sending you an executable to install it. They also don't trust the Microsoft certified global Mobile2Market certificate (issued by Geotrust and Verisign) for privileged execution (this is required for sending SMS, making calls or making a GPRS connection) - you must be an Orange partner to get that access.

Also the much publicised removal of VoIP clients by certain networks, which if bought sim-free would include it.

So, for Android to not have *any* trusted 3rd party security included seems great for the user, but completely ignoring the networks. The only signing they have, is self-signing, which Google admit, is not there for security, but to only allow application providers to group their software together and run under a single user.

It's almost as if they're aiming at the SIM-free, non-operator supplied market.

Too many of the questions asked on the day appeared to be answered with "trust us" and "that's not yet defined yet". Everything seems a bit vague considering handsets are meant to be coming out later this year. My question about malware applications which could claim to be and look like Google apps (or any other software provider out there) was responded with, I think, admittance that nothing stops that, and a dismissal that it isn't a problem. Signing applications with trusted 3rd party keys would at least allow people to be certain that an application does come from who you think. But Google have said that
they will not support this.

I cannot imagine that the networks will be comfortable with being unable to lock down the handsets. I understand that Open Handset Alliance members aren't allowed to do this, but I guess others can modify the code to do this, but a network operator isn't going to want to have to extend the OS to that degree. They'll probably go with handsets which support such things out the box.

I think that having open handsets is great for the consumer - you can decide what to put on the device (and what to remove!) - but for businesses using these devices, corporate police may mandate lock down - and networks love to restrict things.

Good luck to them - and as people have said - they've got everything to prove, and if anyone could do it, it would be Google - but I suspect it'll not end up as open as it set out to be.