iPhone/Nikkei Electronics February 16, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentMy comments on iPhone appeared in 1/29 issue of Nikkei Electronics (Thanks Phil). Unfortunately, it’s in Japanese.
Some info (in English) on the issue is available here.
Mobile Steganography February 15, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , add a comment
(Source: BBC)
Good overview of mobile Steganography. I can see the genesis of some clever marketing campaigns coming up
Indian wireless market continues its march
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentJan 2007 saw 6.81M net subs with total subs reaching 156.31M
iHollywood - Digital Media Summit Discount
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentChetan Sharma Consulting is a research partner to iHollywood Forum events. As such we can pass along some savings to our readers. Some info on the upcoming Digital Media Summit in Hollywood next month. If you are interested, let me know and I will send you the code.
REGISTER AGENDA EVENT DETAILS WHO WILL ATTEND SPONSORSHIP
MARCH 13-14, 2007 • HOLLYWOOD ROOSEVELT HOTEL • HOLLYWOOD, CA
Keynotes:
United Talent Agency
Brent Weinstein
Head of Digital Media
Disney Online
Paul Yanover
EVP &
Managing Director
Sony Corp. of America
Albhy Galuten
VP, Digital Media Technology Strategy
NBC Universal
George Kliavkoff
Chief Digital Officer
Digital Media Meets Social Media
At Digital Media Summit we introduce Hollywood to its future in social media. Consumers are no longer passive recipients of Hollywood content and marketing. They create their own content, pass it freely to each other, build online communities, and generate their own buzz.
A New Paradigm
This year, DMS has been completely redesigned to meet the social media revolution in digital music and video, online games, mobile content, digital rights management and other sectors of digital entertainment.
Destination for Dealmakers
At DMS, you don’t just learn from the leaders, you do deals with them. Our intimate receptions, exclusive parties and dinners are designed to help you do business with the top executives in the industry. Studios, music labels, venture capitalists, top technology companies, entrepreneurs – they’re all here, in face-to-face settings you’ll never find at a big trade show.
The Bottom Line
If you don’t make money, you’re out of business. DMS focuses on what’s happening in digital and social media right now or in the next few months so you come away with timely, actionable information.
Pre-Summit Workshops
This year we are offering these exclusive in-depth workshops to Deluxe ticket holders at no extra fee. You can choose to attend from four workshops with several expert industry speakers which includes handouts. Our workshops are interactive conversations designed to offer practical knowledge in an intimate setting.
Submit Your Company to Pitch for Venture Capital
Pitch for funds at our concurrent Digital Media Venture Forum There is no charge to submit your company for review. If selected, you will have the opportunity to give a five-minute pitch to investors, venture capitalists and strategic investors. Our past events attracted investors representing billions of dollars in venture funding.
Wireless Net Neutrality
Posted by chetan in : General , 1 comment so farThere are some early rumblings of Net Neutrality debate coming to the wireless world. Really 
An interesting paper by Tim Wu of Columbia University here.
Abstract:
Over the next decade, regulators will spend increasing time on the conflicts between the private interests of the wireless industry and the public’s interest in the best uses of its spectrum. This report examines the practices of the wireless industry with an eye toward understanding their influence on innovation and consumer welfare.
This report finds a mixed picture. The wireless industry, over the last decade, has succeeded in bringing wireless telephony at competitive prices to the American public. Yet at the same time we also find the wireless carriers aggressively controlling product design and innovation in the equipment and application markets, to the detriment of consumers. Their policies, in the wired world, would be considered outrageous, in some cases illegal, and in some cases simply misguided.
The Ad-free cellphone may soon be extinct February 14, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentAfter WSJ’s cover story last month (sub required), NY Times does a long piece on Mobile advertising.
Mobile Advertising - Part II of the Sell Phones article
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentThis article is published by Wireless World Magazine in their upcoming March 2007 issue and is part II of the mobile advertising piece I did with Victor Melfi. Part I here. There has been considerable discussion on the subject in the last few months, including at 3GSM in Barcelona. I am sure CTIA will bring its own set of sessions and keynotes addressing the opportunities and challenges.
This series represents our views on the subject. It is a tremendous opportunity not only for mobile but also for advertising industry as a whole. It is also prudent to think outside the narrow “cell phone” box and consider the opportunity for portable devices. Sky is the limit. Of course, there are natural pitfalls for ill-conceived business and technical strategies.
Microvision - a peak into the future
Posted by chetan in : General , 9 commentsEarlier today, at the invitation of Ben Averch, I visited Microvision and got a view into their upcoming products/technology based on Integrated Photonics Modules (IPM). Also, met with Alex Tokman (CEO) and Ian Brown (VP, Sales and Marketing).
Source: Microvision
Essentially, it allows you to project the screen of your device without losing focus or clarity, colors are incredibly sharp irrespective of the size of the projected image (depends on how close the projection surface is). OEMS better line up to integrate in their devices.
If you combine IPM with amBX, you are in the different generation of user experience unlike you have ever experienced anywhere. I will be covering these emerging technologies more in detail in the future. Stay tuned.
Mobile Advertising Framework February 13, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentOperators and the industry is coming to a realization that they need a mobile advertising framework - a view we have long advocated - to be meaningful in the advertising business.
“The problem is, today we are highly fragmented,” said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association, the global trade group for Global System for Mobile Communications operators, at the group’s conference in here.
Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone Group PLC, agreed. Despite the interest from advertisers in using mobile phones to deliver ads, the mobile industry needs to create a consistent framework.
“If we went to Procter & Gamble and said, ‘this is how Vodafone does it, but Orange is different,’ they will find it hard to move their ads onto mobiles,” Sarin said. “If we don’t move together, we will have a fragmented medium and user base instead of a single valuable medium that reaches 2 billion people.”
A common framework would include specifications for the appropriate size of banner ads and length of video ads, as well as a reporting mechanism to help advertisers measure the success of their campaigns.
We have helped develop such frameworks for our clients.
MCI Cover Story - Mobile Search 2.0: Relevancy Rules
Posted by chetan in : General , 1 comment so farWe were quoted in the cover story article of launch issue of Mobile Communications International (MCI) that was issued at 3GSM yesterday. The article Mobile Search 2.0: Relevancy Rules by Peggy Ann Salz talks about the next iteration of mobile search and what will make it successful. It has good analysis, stats, and comments from our friends at Google, Yahoo, MCN, Infospace, Medio, and others. After the introductory paragraphs, the article opens with our quote.
By 2010, the, “gap between the average number of searches that a user does on their desktop and the number of searches they do on their mobiles will vanish,” says Chetan Sharma, president of Chetan Sharma Consulting, a strategic advisory firm. Today, he estimates, desktop search outpaces mobile search by a ratio of 3:1. But the revenue potential of the mobile search market in the US alone is set to reach $2.5bn in 2010, up from just $100m in 2007. And these estimates don’t include enterprise mobile search, a vertical poised for growth as more road warriors demand remote access to information and applications on-the-fly.
Google’s View
The mobile search experience on a personal device like the mobile phone must be more in tune with the individual user, says Deep Nishar, Google’s director of product management.
“Mobile search isn’t about browsing, it’s about finding,” Nishar says. “The next level is going to be about understanding what the user is doing and using this insight to give them results and information that are more in line with their personal usage as opposed to functional usage.”
In Nishar’s view, personalised search should satisfy three requirements: it should learn and adapt to each user (if a user always looks for traffic conditions between home and work, then they shouldn’t have to type in the route every day); it should base results on recent activities (if a user has been researching HDTVs on the mobile web, then the system should learn from the queries to volunteer additional relevant results); and it should understand the user well enough to only deliver useful results (if a user has never asked to see weather results in a search, then the system should not present them as part of the mix).
Google intends to sharpen its focus on personalised search, building on existing capabilities and features such as Google Maps and its personalised home page. While Nishar is tight-lipped about products in the pipeline, personalisation will be the thread that ties them together. “Google’s approach to search is about user-centricity.” Moving forward, and beginning with announcements during 3GSM, Google will use its tools and techniques to, “get the right users for individual users every time they search.”
Yahoo’s View
Likewise, relevancy runs like a leitmotiv through Yahoo’s new product offer and its future roadmap. It has revamped its approach by releasing oneSearch, a Web 2.0-type search engine that picks up on users’ intent, intuits the information they want and then presents the relevant content, grouped by subject, in synopsis form. A sports search on oneSearch, for example, will return a relevant bundle of scores from a team’s most recent game, along with game schedules, team rosters, photos, local results, and so on.
“First-generation search was really just repeating the search experience on the PC, and that, the industry has learned, was a fatal error,” notes Geraldine Wilson, vice president of Connected Life, Yahoo, Europe, the business group responsible for the company’s “beyond the browser” strategy.
Drawing from customer research Yahoo created a mobile search experience from the mobile user’s perspective. “One result that stood out is that users want fast answers, really instant answers,” Wilson explains. More importantly, users will vote with their feet if the search results aren’t relevant. While Wilson can’t divulge Yahoo’s next move, she assures that enabling targeted advertising - based on the user’s profile, preferences and search patterns, as well as on oneSearch’s pivotal position as the “route on to the mobile internet” - is a top priority. Adding location and local content to the mix is also a chief focus.
MCN’s view
Sensing a business opportunity in aggregating mobile search results from all the search engines, Mobile Content Networks (MCN) is the first out of the gates with a search engine platform that can incorporate the results of all search engines into a relevant subset of results. More importantly, MCN can also connect with the indexes that are growing and flourishing under the radar such as blogs, user-created music, and videos, allowing operators to offer and monetise the legendary Long Tail of content.
The approach, part of what MCN calls its “real-time mobile search platform,” effectively casts a net over the internet to capture more content hidden in its depths. “Aggregating search results creates a ‘more’ section for the users and increases the likelihood that they will see something they like,” Marc Bookman, MCN CEO says. It also increases the opportunity for operators to generate mobile advertising revenues through sponsored search and a variety of other monetisation models.
Infospace’s view
Likewise, InfoSpace, a white-label search engine company that has a long track record in the online space with its internet search engine dogpile.com, is bouncing back after restructuring with technologies and techniques to personalise search results and recommend relevant content. The company is currently gearing up to launch a, “carrier-focused client software-based scheme that can follow the clues users leave on their phone to deliver a more relevant and more comprehensive” mobile search experience, explains Brendan Benzing, InfoSpace VP of Mobile Search.
The company is also “in the process” of developing an on-device application that will “bring mobile search closer to the users in an above-the-browser experience,” Benzing says. Two options are in the running: delivering mobile search in the form of an icon on the phone or harnessing the phone’s idle screen to deliver personalised content (see box). “The paradigm is content-push, so it would be about pushing relevant content to the users without them having to ask for it, or initiate a browser session.”
Medio’s view
Improving relevancy of search results also sits at the centre of Medio Systems’ tie-up with T-Mobile USA to improve mobile search on the mobile operator’s t-zones portal. However, Medio’s mobile search and merchandising solution is not only about delivering relevant content; it’s designed to recommend content to users based on their intent, exposing users to more of what’s stored deep in the t-zones catalog, observes Brian Lent, Medio CEO.
It is clear that w/o relevancy search is meaningless. Furthermore, w/o relevancy mobile advertising is spam with varying shades of gray. Question is who is best suited to deliver this. Clearly carriers are. But, can they? this question is going to keep the industry busy for some time.
Mediaflo wraps up the US market February 12, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentMediaflo scored a big victory lining up AT&T for its mobile broadcast services. With Verizon already in its bag, it is slowly driving others like Hiwire out of the market.
Windows Mobile 6 launches at 3GSM
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Vodafone buys Hutch Essar in India for $11.1B February 11, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , 1 comment so farVodafone finally re-entered India’s telecom market.
It has bought a controlling stake in India’s Hutchinson Essar for $11.1B giving 67% control.
Arun Sarin, the chief executive of Vodafone, said the announcement was “clear evidence of how we are executing our strategy of developing our presence in emerging markets”.
Vodafone’s chairman, Sir John Bond, said India was “destined to become one of the largest and most important mobile markets in the world,” and predicted the company would be “playing [its] part in delivering the significant economic and social benefits which mobile telephony can bring to the people of India”.
It is one of the biggest deals in Indian market ans is a sign of things to come.
DoCoMo to lead handset development group February 10, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentNTT DoCoMo and five vendors have announced plans to jointly develop a next-generation mobile phone platform for dual-mode handsets supporting HSDPA/W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE. Development of the platform is targeted to complete during Q2, FY2008 (July-September). The goal of the group of six — which includes Renesas Technology, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi Electric, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications — is to provide a platform with advanced functionality for 3G mobile phones based on the SH-Mobile G3, a single-chip system LSI that supports second and third generation GSM.
The platform would eliminate the need for handet makers Mitsubishi Electric, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson to develop common handset functions, reducing development time and costs and allowing the manufacturers to invest more time and resources in developing distinctive handset features and expanding their product portfolio.
Renesas plans to provide the platform to the worldwide W-CDMA market, in addition to customers in Japan, aiming to further reduce costs.
NTT DoCoMo and Renesas have already jointly developed the SH-Mobile G1, a first-generation single-chip LSI for dual-mode handsets supporting W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS, and is now in mass production and handsets built around it first appeared on the market in the fall of 2006.
The second-generation successor, the SH-Mobile G2, and a mobile phone platform integrating core software are currently under development by NTT DoCoMo, Renesas, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi Electric, and Sharp. Handsets employing the G2 are scheduled to appear in the fall of 2007.
3GSM February 9, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentThe assault on Barcelona starts this weekend. Unfortunately, we won’t be attending due to some prior commitments but you might run into our research and commentary at 3GSM and iHollywood Forum. We are a research partner with iHollywood and if you are attending the event on 14th, you will probably see us in the research booklet.
At 3GSM, you are likely to encounter our commentary on Mobile Search market in Informa research. We will watching the news trickle in.
Btw, will be going to Orlando for CTIA, so let me know if you want to set up a meeting.
Thanks and have a good weekend and safe journey if you are heading out.
PAN-IIT Events February 8, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , 1 comment so far
Silicon Valley is going to be hosting the IIT Global Conference in July. It is a gathering of industry leaders, fellow IITians (Indian Institute of Technology alums), friends, and colleagues. The likes of Jack Welch and Bill Gates jostle to get a speaking slot - yes, it is that prestigious. Stay tuned for more news. More at www.iit2007.org
I will be attending and hope to see many of you there.
Apple (DRM) and Microsoft (Security) missive to the world February 6, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentI got two emails today, one about Steve Jobs’ thoughts on DRM and other from Bill Gates talking about security. Both are worth the read.
Bill’s note talked about Enabling secure anywhere access to the connected world. This coincided with his speech at the RSA Conference. Security has been Microsoft’s Achilles heel for a long time and they have made concerted effort to make their products more secure.
Microsoft vs. AT&T - Transnational patent law
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentPatent Law can be quite complex and dull but it is a fascinating exercise to delve into the details. PatentlyO blog talks about the dispute between Microsoft and AT&T on AT&T’s speech codecs patent.
The case at hand involves Microsoft’s infringement of AT&T’s speech coding technology patent. Microsoft has conceded that its software (once installed on a computer) infringes the patent in the US. However, Microsoft has fought against paying patent royalties for sale of the same software abroad. Microsoft’s argument, spelled out in its brief, is two-fold: (1) Software cannot be a ‘component’ as required by the statute because software code is intangible; and (2) Software copies made abroad cannot be considered ‘supplied’ from the US as required by the statute because no physical particle that Microsoft exported actually became part of the finished product.
Helio Numbers
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentI guess pressure from Amp’D prompted Helio to release some metrics on their performance. 100K subs by Q207, $100 ARPU. 25% data. Also,
TIA’s Telecom Stats February 5, 2007
Posted by chetan in : General , add a commentIn its annual study TIA released some interesting stats. These are part of their report “Broadband Demand Drives Highest Telecom Industry Growth Since 2000″. While, the headline is not a surprise. (affordable) Broadband changes everything, it was some of the other stats that caught my eye.
Worldwide, Europe has the largest telecommunications market, measuring at $1 trillion, with the U.S. second at $923 billion and Asia/Pacific third at $715 billion. Overall, the international market grew 12.1 percent in 2006. Middle East/Africa was the fastest- growing region, expanding at 21.6 percent. By 2010, the global market is expected to reach $4.3 trillion in revenue.
Growth is expected in VoIP, as the broadband-based phone technology is forecast to make up 34 percent of all U.S. residential landlines by 2010, or 25.5 million subscribers, up from just 10 percent and 9.5 million subscribers in 2006. A majority of cable telephone subscriptions use VoIP.
IP/converged systems are expected to overtake traditional enterprise systems by 2009.
