CompareMobiles.com

Report for app store GetJar forecasts number of downloads will rise from 7bn in 2009 to almost 50bn in 2012

Mobile app downloads are expected to increase from more than 7bn downloads in 2009 to almost 50bn in 2012, according to a report.

The independent study, carried out by Chetan Sharma Consulting for Getjar, the world’s second biggest app store, forecasts that the global mobile application economy will be worth $17.5bn in 2012, more than CD sales, which it predicts will be $13.83bn.

It says that market will continue to grow exponentially as mobile devices become as powerful as computers, and wireless networks deliver consistently higher bandwidths. “With the consumer appetite for mobile apps rocketing, the opportunities for developers are huge,” says the CEO and founder of GetJar, Ilja Laurs.

The study says that initially the focus of making revenue from apps was based entirely on paid downloads or subscription-based models, but this is going to change. Today, advertising-based revenue accounts for about 12% of app revenue, but by 2012 this figure is expected to rise to 28%. For some platforms such as Google’s Android, advertising revenue is predicted to be even bigger than revenues from paid downloads.

The price of mobile applications ranges from $0.99 to $999 but the average selling price in 2009 was about $1.90, the study says. Over the next three years this is predicted to decrease by 29% and apps will get cheaper; however, advertising revenue derived from apps is likely to stay relatively flat.

By 2012, so-called “offdeck” apps that are offered independently from a carrier will be the biggest revenue generator, accounting for almost 50% of all app revenue. By comparison, in 2009, apps available from mobile operators still accounted for more than 60% of all app revenue, but this will fall to just under 23% by 2012.

As the WSJ Digits blogger Jennifer Valentino-DeVries points out, the study will by no means be the last word on the subject, but it provides at least a look at why so many companies are excited about mobile.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, android, App Store, blog, cheaper, compare, comparemobiles.com, comparison, consumer, global, google, growth, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, phone, phones, sol, three, uk, world

Tranzeo Wireless Technologies, a manufacturer of wireless broadband and WiMAX communication systems, has received a $14 million purchase order from Indonesia-based PT Teknologi Riset Global.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, global, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk

Canada-based Tranzeo Wireless Technologies and PT Teknologi Riset Global or TRG, an affiliate company of telecommunication infrastructure provider the Indonesian Tower Group, has been selected by PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia to deploy a complete WiMAX solution across Indonesia.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, global, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk

Nokia will be online this week to discuss its environmental track record – post your questions in the comments below

Want to know how green the average Nokia phone is? For this week’s You ask, they answer, the Finnish mobile phone giant joins us to discuss its environmental track record and efforts, so start posting your questions below.

From humble beginnings as a wood pulp mill back in 1865, Nokia is now the world’s number one mobile phone company, with 37% of the global market share. Yet despite its size, the firm enjoys a good record with Greenpeace, holding the top-spot in the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics. However, Nokia lost points this year for failing to do “proactive lobbying” for the revised RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronics) directive.

Nokia has also highlighted the potential for mobile phones to collect real-time information about pollution and other local environmental data. Henry Tirri, head of Nokia’s research centre, has cited pollution as an area for which “killer” eco-apps might be created. “The things people don’t usually think about with location-based systems are aggregate things like traffic information, and collective information about air pollution and other environmental data,” he said.

Nokia is online from Monday to Friday this week to answer your environment questions – please post yours below.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, blog, comments, compare, comparemobiles.com, global, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, nokia, phone, phones, sol, uk, world

Nuance Communications, a US-based provider of speech, imaging and keypad solutions, has established a strategic global relationship with ZTE, a Chinese provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, to ship Nuance VSuite and Vocalizer on ZTE handsets.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, global, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk

If I Can Dream to use live streaming, video uploads, myspace auditions, Twitter and blogging

It seems all too familiar: five young people move into a house together in a series that follows them as they shoot for stardom in Hollywood. But while If I Can Dream, the new show from the pop and TV impresario Simon Fuller, may sound like a cross between Big Brother, The Real World and Pop Idol, it’s altogether more ambitious.

For a start, the five aspiring stars have agreed to allow the cameras to track them 24/7. And in addition to the weekly episodes, which will be shown on Hulu.com from tomorrow, there will be a live streaming feed at ificandream.com and, in the show’s most audacious move, a chance for new hopefuls to win a place in it via a public vote and an open worldwide audition.

That global audition is all part of If I Can Dream’s push to be the first reality TV hit of the social networking era. The hope is that it will become a blogging mainstay, disseminated through Twitter and uploaded on mobile phones.

“I am determined to continue pushing the boundaries of mainstream entertainment,” Fuller has said. “The next frontier is the video world of authentic real-time interaction. It is time the public got to see the truth behind what it takes to launch the careers of young artists.”

The man behind Pop Idol, So You Think You Can Dance? and the Spice Girls is rarely wrong about trends and if this latest idea takes off it will change the way in which we watch television, paving the way for other producers to cut TV networks out of the loop altogether.

But how likely is Fuller’s vision of a real-life Truman Show in which the curtain concealing the factory that makes stars is torn down Wizard of Oz-style?

Cynics will question whether in an age of scripted reality shows such as The Hills or MTV’s latest hit, Jersey Shore, it is possible to show “the truth”; and it’s hard not to wonder if the soon-to-be-famous five realise what they’re getting into. “We don’t want to be reality stars, we want to be star stars,” one of them, Amanda Phillips, said. “Our show’s not about sticking a bunch of short-fused people in a small space with a lot of alcohol and seeing what happens. If it was, none of us would be here.”

But is that the reality? Only the show’s God, Fuller, really knows.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, global, latest, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, o sim, phone, phones, sim, sol, test, twitter, uk, world

The EC will not support disconnection of unlawful file-sharers in the Acta global copyright-enforcement treaty, the trade commissioner has said

Read Full Story…
(Source ZDNet UK)

Tags: 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, global, google, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, three, uk

Corporation to roll out official applications, beginning with BBC News in April and BBC Sport in May

The BBC has announced a new range of free applications that will deliver its online services to mobile devices, starting with BBC News in April. The BBC is also considering an iPlayer application for release later in the year.

BBC Sport will follow News, lauching its application in May. Both apps will be launched in a UK and a global version.

Announcing the new mobile services today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the BBC’s director of future media and technology, Erik Huggers, said: “It’s been 12 years since the launch of BBC Online, but as media converges and technology accelerates, licence fee payers are increasingly using sophisticated handheld devices to access information. They tell us that they want to access the digital services that they have paid for at a time and place that suits them.”

A range of unauthorised BBC applications are already available and fairly popular. The new official applications now give licence payers an authorised alternative as mobile phones become more powerful and connectivity more accessible.

According to the second largest app store GetJar, an unauthorised version of BBC Mobile was downloaded 110,032 times by January. In December, the mobile BBC site attracted by 1,851,000 visitors.

BBC News

BBC News for mobile will not only provide users with updated breaking news including video and audio, it will also allow them to send comments and pictures directly to the newsroom. However, the demo of the new app reveals that the user integration isn’t as prominent as with the BBC’s international rival CNN.

The simple and intuitive navigation of thn ews app can already be tested online. “The main screen uses a carousel structure so you can quickly catch up on the news by sliding each row sideways to skim through the latest stories. You can also personalise the experience by reordering the rows to put your favourite news section at the top,” says David Madden of the future media and technology mobile team in a blogpost.

BBC News will first be available on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, followed by the BlackBerry OS and Google’s Android later in the year.

BBC Sport

Starting with the football World Cup in South Africa, the sport app will focus on the live match experience. Content that is broadcast on TV by the BBC will be available for football fans as well as on-demand clips of every goal scored in the tournament. Users will also be able to access content from BBC Radio 5 Live, and live text commentaries from BBC presenters and blogs.

The 2010/11 English football season, Formula One and coverage of other sports will be added later in the year. While the UK version of the spoart app will be free, the global version will be released separately by BBC Worldwide and, in line with other international BBC Worldwide services, will feature advertising.

How will news organisations react?

The BBC iPlayer is already optimised for mobile browsers, and available for Nokia’s Ovi app store, but there are plans to make further versions available for other smartphones available to UK audiences only.

While news organisations have pinned their hopes on smartphone applications as a way to make revenue, the BBC will offer its applications for free. Recently, News Corporation’s James Murdoch said that a “dominant” BBC threatens independent journalism in the UK.

Should the BBC charge for its mobile applications or does its licence fee already include them? What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, android, App Store, apple, bbc, Blackberry, blog, comments, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, global, google, iphone, largest, latest, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, new mobile, nokia, phone, phones, released, room, service, sim, sol, test, Touch, uk, update, world

BBC says project aimed at delivering English lessons through mobile phones in Bangladesh has got off to a good start

In mobile technology, it is often the developing world that leads the way – by using mobile phones to teach people a foreign language, for example.

In Bangladesh, more than 1m English lessons have been downloaded to mobile phones as part of the BBC’s Janala sercvice, the corporation announced today at the World Mobile Conference in Barcelona.

Offering hundreds of three-minute audio lessons and SMS quizzes for less than 4p, Janala – meaning “window” – provides low-cost education through handsets – in a country where English is not as widely spoken as elsewhere in Asia.

The service is very simple: by dialling “3000″, mobile users access classes ranging from “Essential English” to the more advanced “How to tell a story”. The BBC has also set up a website giving learners free access to content.

According to Sara Chamberlain, the head of interactive for the BBC World Service Trust, the broadcaster’s aim was to make English – the international language of business – within the reach of millions of non-Anglophones. It is aimed at young people living on less than £2 a day.

This news report shows students learning English with Janala.

Since it was launched in November 2009, 1,030,583 Janala lessons have been accessed, with Bangladesh’s 50 million mobile users eager to learn English to improve their access to the global economy.

More than two-thirds of people who use the beginners’ service return, which is impressive considering the 5% “return rate” for mobile products in Bangladesh. The BBC said overall 39% of callers returned to Janala.

An impressive majority of Bangladeshis – 84% – consider English essential to securing a good job and educating their children, according to a BBC survey.

“We knew demand for English was strong in Bangladesh, but the response to BBC Janala has been nothing short of phenomenal,” said Chamberlain.

“The growth of mobile is clearly creating an opportunity to provide access to education in a way simply not possible before.”

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, bbc, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, global, growth, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, phone, phones, service, sim, sol, survey, three, uk, world

Flat-fee deals for mobile broadband will be a thing of the past if global
networks are to meet their full potential, according to Ericsson chief executive
Hans Vestberg, who compared the mobile market today with that for electrical
power in its early days.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, compared, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, global, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, networks, new, sol, uk

Two dozen of the world’s largest mobile-phone companies, including Verizon Wireless, AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Deutsche Telekom, China Mobile and Vodafone, are teaming up to create an “open international applications platform,” which is obviously in direct response to Apple’s success with its own iPhone App Store. Release.

The announcement was made this morning at Mobile World Congress. In addition to the 24 carriers, the GSMA and three device manufacturers – LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson – are also supporting the initiative. All combined, the group reaches 3 billion subscribers worldwide, making it easily the largest app-store initiative. However, the task will also be exceedingly complicated because of the massive scope and technological barriers in uniting so many disparate platforms and operators.

Called the the “Wholesale Applications Community,” it aims to create a wholesale platform for mobile apps that provides a single point-of-entry for developers. In other words, it wants to solve the massive fragmentation problem. The group intends on using common open standards that will allow developers to create apps across multiple platforms. Those standards include JIL, which Verizon, Vodafone and China Mobile have been working on, and OMTP BONDI. Those two standards are expected to evolve into a common standard within the next year. Ultimately, they pledge to work with the W3C standards bodies to create one solution for developers to create apps and port them across mobile device platforms and operators.

The full list of operators are: America Movil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, mobilkom Austria, MTN Group, NTT Docomo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, VimpelCom and WIND. The four operators in the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) mobile apps initiative – Vodafone, China Mobile, SoftBank and Verizon Wireless – are also included.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, App Store, apple, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, global, gsm, iphone, largest, lg, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, orange, phone, phones, sam, samsung, sol, sony, sony ericsson, three, uk, vodafone, world

BT has announced a three-year extension to an existing contract between its
Global Services arm and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, global, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, service, sol, three, uk

The company’s Global Mobile Data Forecast predicts a 39-fold increase in mobile data traffic over the next four years

Read Full Story…
(Source ZDNet UK)

Tags: 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, global, google, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk

Radio listening figures for London are a good example of how misleading a snapshot can be

In the court of Rajar, no one radio station reigns forever, and the nature of the data means that a service demonstrably failing can also be heralded a success. More important than a snapshot is a con­sideration for trends displayed over time.

The radio listening figures released last week are a good example. In London’s commercial marketplace, Global Radio’s Heart 106.2 and 95.8 Capital FM claimed first and second prize in terms of reach – the number of listeners aged 15+ tuning in every week. The same figures, however, showed that while Magic 105.4 had fewer listeners, they listened to the station for longer – an average of 6.8 hours a week, compared to Heart’s 5.7 hours and just 5.5 hours for Capital. Consequently, Magic recorded a market share of 6.1%, ahead of Heart’s 5.3% and well in front of Capital on 4.9%.

Furthermore, neither Heart nor Capital was Global Radio’s top dog in London – the all-speech service LBC 97.3 recorded a modest weekly reach of 841,000 listeners but impressive average hours of 13.6, resulting in a market share of 5.7%.

Speech radio outside the BBC is rarely celebrated, but the new listening figures proved that commercial radio is providing a popular alternative. TalkSport posted a formidable set of results – a weekly reach of 2.5 million listeners and total hours of 20.44m – the station’s highest in five years.

The headlines on Absolute Radio have concentrated on its continued loss of audience, which has been significant – from 2.4 million in September 2008, to 1.5 million – although losing a brand such as Virgin from the Rajar diaries was always going to have a big impact. However, Absolute has already posted noticeably higher average hours than Virgin managed in recent years, and the latest figure of 7.6 hours is the highest in the service’s 16-year history.

Absolute has built on Virgin’s innovative approach with the extensive use of podcasts, mobile applications and new radio services such as Dabbl. This allows sampling but also builds loyalty, which is critical as data streaming to smartphones becomes prevalent. Perhaps this trend suggests Absolute is getting it right after all, despite the headlines.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, bbc, compare, compared, comparemobiles.com, global, latest, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, phone, phones, released, sam, service, sol, station, talks, test, uk, virgin

Mobile phone operating system can now be modified by anyone as Nokia’s platform struggles to compete with Apple and Google

Symbian, the operating system used in the majority of the world’s smartphones, is now available as an open source platform four months ahead of schedule as it looks to compete with Apple and Google’s Android.

In a move widely seen as a desperate attempt to prevent Google and Apple from grabbing an ever-larger slice of the smartphone pie, Nokia took control of the UK-based Symbian in the summer of 2008, announcing plans to make its mobile phone software free of charge.

Nokia helped create Symbian with the UK-based Psion more than a decade ago and it is installed in some 330m mobile phones across the world. But its share of the smartphone market has come under attack. Two years ago, Symbian devices accounted for almost 60% of the market, but now account for less than 50%. Industry experts Ovum reckon that figure will fall to below a third by 2015, in part because of the influence of Android, which is also open source.

The Symbian Foundation, which runs the platform, said the switch from a paid-for proprietary model, where developers had to pay a licence fee to create devices using the software, to a free open source model is the largest in software history.

Any individual or organization can now take, use and modify the code for any purpose, whether for a mobile device or another piece of kit.

Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation, said: “The development community is now empowered to shape the future of the mobile industry, and rapid innovation on a global scale will be the result.

“When the Symbian Foundation was created, we set the target of completing the open source release of the platform by mid-2010 and it’s because of the extraordinary commitment and dedication from our staff and our member companies that we’ve reached it well ahead of schedule.”

The hope is that allowing any developer to use Symbian will speed up the development of new and innovative devices, which will help the platform to see off the threat of Apple and Android.

But it is competing in an increasingly crowded market. Handset manufacturers from LG and Samsung to Sony Ericsson have their own proprietary operating systems, as do RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, Palm and Apple. Microsoft is still trying to gain traction for its Windows phone operating system, while a slew of handsets with Android installed will be launched this year.

All 108 packages containing the source code of the Symbian platform can now be downloaded from Symbian’s developer website under a public licence. Also available for download are the complete development kits for creating applications and mobile devices.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, Blackberry, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, global, google, largest, lg, maker, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, nokia, palm, phone, phones, sam, samsung, sol, sony, sony ericsson, uk, world

• Orange and T-Mobile hoped to escape UK scrutiny
• Merger would create country’s biggest operator

The Office of Fair Trading is calling for the proposed merger of Orange and T-Mobile to be investigated by the regulatory authorities in Britain rather than merely subjected to scrutiny in Brussels.

The news, expected to be announced on Wednesday, will be warmly welcomed by consumer groups that have campaigned hard for OFT scrutiny of the deal. There are fears the merger, which will create the UK’s largest mobile phone network, could hamper competition and force up prices for consumers.

It is a blow for Orange and T-Mobile, currently the third and fourth placed networks in Britain, as it means a further delay to a deal originally announced in September. They had hoped scrutiny of the merger would be confined to regulators in Brussels, with clearance possibly granted as early as mid-February. Orange and T-Mobile have been lobbying the OFT, the telecoms watchdog, Ofcom, and Brussels regulators in recent weeks to try to assuage competition concerns.

But the OFT will inform the European commission that it remains worried about certain aspects of the merger and wants to subject it to further scrutiny, dragging out the process for weeks, possibly months. The OFT is understood to be particularly concerned about the effect on the UK’s smallest mobile phone network, 3, and the merged group possibly having a stranglehold on the country’s mobile phone spectrum.

The OFT’s decision raises the possibility the deal could be referred to the Competition Commission, whose investigations can run for six months or more. The OFT is not, however, believed to be planning to call for an immediate Competition Commission inquiry. Instead it hopes to use the threat of one to wrest a number of undertakings from Orange and T-Mobile.

The deal would give Orange and T-Mobile more than twice the mobile phone spectrum owned by market leader O2 or second-placed Vodafone, and more than five times the amount held by 3. The government is hoping to auction more wireless spectrum over the next few years, including the slice of the airwaves freed up by the switch to digital TV. But before it can start the sell-off, the regulator needs to deal with the capacity the companies already own. Vodafone, O2, Orange and T-Mobile all want to upgrade the spectrum they were given in the 1980s and 1990s to carry so-called 2G voice services, making it capable of running 3G mobile broadband. But they all own different parts of the spectrum and 3 has no legacy network capacity at all.

As part of the government’s Digital Britain process, its independent spectrum broker Kip Meek suggested a wholesale restructuring of the airwaves, capping the amount of spectrum any operator could hold in return for freeing up existing spectrum for 3G.

The Orange and T-Mobile merger was announced towards the end of his negotiations. He was able to take it into account but the whole deal has been thrown into confusion by objections from BT, which is threatening to take the government to court.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills extended the consultation deadline on the plan by a month in an effort to appease BT. But the new deadline, this Friday, might not leave time to enact the necessary secondary legislation before a general election. The OFT is concerned the T-Mobile and Orange deal might go ahead with no workable spectrum plan in place and it wants to ensure the merged group does not rule the airwaves.

The merger with Orange could also jeopardise T-Mobile’s network sharing deal with 3. The operator has helped cut mobile prices in the UK and chief executive Kevin Russell said yesterday its two-year-old network-sharing joint venture with T-Mobile – called MBNL – is an important part of its future. The OFT is concerned the introduction of Orange could unsettle the venture, hampering 3’s ability to compete.

“MBNL for us is a fundamental strategic platform,” Russell said yesterday in a presentation to analysts about his network. “It is a fundamental piece of our strategy, any exposure, however remote, to that not being supported by the merger of Orange and T-Mobile is a risk for us we believe needs to be closed off.”

Delays and trade-offs

The OFT has no power to force companies to change the way mergers or acquisitions are structured, but it can threaten to bring in the Competition Commission to run a full-scale inquiry. Many companies would rather reach a deal than go through that lengthy process. Last year the OFT struck a deal with the Co-op: the supermarket agreed to sell 133 stores across the country in return for having its merger with Somerfield passed without a competition inquiry. The stores were snapped up by rivals such as Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. In the spring, the OFT accepted undertakings from Global Radio that it would sell a clutch of radio station in the Midlands – including Beacon, Mercia and Wyvern – to avoid a Competition Commission inquiry into its £375m acquisition of GCap Media, after raising concerns that the deal could harm the region’s advertising market. More recently, the Co-op proposed selling some of its funeral parlours in the south west to gain clearance for its acquisition of Plymouth & South West Co-operative Society, an independent co-operative which as well as being a food retailer is also a provider of funeral services.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, deal, free, global, government, HD, largest, line, merger, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, networks, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, prices, service, sol, station, t-mobile, three, tmobile, uk, venture, vodafone, world

It seems the recession is over for the global handset market as sales in Q4 2009 grew for the first time since the Q3 2008

Read Full Story…
(Source ZDNet UK)

Tags: 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, global, google, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, phone, sol, uk

The unified comms company will release its Agito Global Enterprise system in March, adding iPhone support to its portfolio for the first time

Read Full Story…
(Source ZDNet UK)

Tags: 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, global, google, iphone, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, phone, phones, sol, uk

• HP to bundle Omnifone music service with new computers
• MusicStation deal covers 10 European countries including UK

The latest salvo in the digital music war will be fired today when British group Omnifone announces it has clinched a crucial deal with Hewlett-Packard, the largest PC manufacturer in the world, to have its MusicStation unlimited track download service pre-loaded onto computers and laptops.

The deal, which covers 10 European countries including the UK, comes as online music service Spotify continues to gain ground in Europe, and Apple is understood to be planning to announce its own streaming music service for iTunes on Wednesday. Late last year, the Californian technology company snapped up small music start-up Lala. It has expertise in online storage and streaming and that deal was widely seen as preceding a move by Apple into the streaming music market.

Many current online music services only allow people to listen to tracks when connected to the internet. MusicStation, which is already available as a mobile phone service from operators including Vodafone in the UK, allows users to download an unlimited number of tracks – from a library of 6.5m – and play them offline. For £8.99 a month (€9.99 outside the UK), subscribers to MusicStation for the PC also get their 10 favourite tracks each month without any copyright protection, meaning they can load them onto any digital music device.

The digital music market has become a battleground not just for the music companies and retailers, but also for hardware manufacturers and even internet service providers. HP is just the latest in a long line of brands to jump on the bandwagon.

While iTunes and the iPod gave Apple a significant head start, its grip is being loosened by a plethora of new services. Satellite broadcaster Sky recently launched its Sky Songs streaming and download service and Virgin Media is trying to get a similar service up and running, reportedly under the title MusicFish.

Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia launched its Comes With Music service more than a year ago, bundling unlimited track downloads in with some of its smartphones. The service, however, has failed to attract significant takeup, not least because its advertising left many people baffled. Omnifone, meanwhile, powers rival mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson’s own music service PlayNow.

Omnifone launched MusicStation in 2007 and teaming up with HP, which globally ships almost 50m computers a year, will give it access to a huge potential market. Anyone buying one of 16 HP computers and laptops across Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK will get MusicStation bundled with their new hardware and will be offered a free trial and the chance to subscribe to the full service.

For HP, the deal gives the company the chance to boast to consumers about the media credentials of its hardware, at a time when bitter rival Dell has poured millions into advertising its own consumer-friendly range of brightly coloured multimedia laptops.

“Omnifone is proud to partner with HP, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, to deliver MusicStation to consumers on millions of PCs in 10 countries across Europe,” said Rob Lewis, Omnifone chief executive. “The HP rollout sees MusicStation Desktop preinstalled on multiple HP PCs, available in seven languages with each territory featuring an individually tailored music catalogue.”

“We look forward to extending our partnership onto even more PCs and territories, to ensure consumers have the ability to gain legitimate access to the world’s music on every HP PC they purchase.”

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, apple, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, deal, free, global, largest, latest, lg, line, maker, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, nokia, phone, phones, service, sim, sol, sony, sony ericsson, station, test, uk, virgin, vodafone, walkman, world

Running on Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones, the update provides free voice-guided navigation in almost 75 countries, without data-roaming charges

Read Full Story…
(Source ZDNet UK)

Tags: 10, 3, charges, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, global, google, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, nokia, phone, phones, roaming, sol, uk, update