Posts Tagged “orange”
Mar
09
2010
 
Orange partners with Netvibe for mobile widgetsPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Telecom operator Orange has partnered with Netvibes, a multi-lingual Ajax-based personalized start page or personal web portal, to offer mobile widgets to all types of mobile phone users across an extensive range of handsets. Read Full Story…
Mar
05
2010
Could Vodafone nab 3 UK after T-Orange merger?Posted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Hutchison ‘looking for options’With the merger of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK approved by the European Union, the current UK leaders, O2 and Vodafone, will be mulling their competitive responses. So far, Vodafone has mainly focused on revamping its software brands and its higher-value services, but it could also move to acquire the country’s smallest cellco, 3 UK, say analysts.…
Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn’t work Read Full Story…
Mar
05
2010
Apple iPad to go on sale on 3 April in US and ‘late April’ in UKPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Apple yet to provide details on UK or international release dates, selling prices or associated mobile network companies Apple’s touchscreen iPad tablet computer will go on sale on 3 April in the US, but no specific date – beyond “late April” – has been given for its release in the UK and other international locations. The company declined to set either the selling price for its models abroad, or to name any of the mobile network companies that will be providing connectivity for the more expensive iPad systems, which have 3G data sims built in. US customers will be able to pre-order the iPad, which Steve Jobs described as a “magical and revolutionary product”, from Friday 12 March, either online or in Apple’s retail stores. The devices come in two basic forms – with Wi-Fi wireless connectivity, and with both Wi-Fi and 3G mobile connectivity. However, only the Wi-Fi versions will go on sale on 3 April; Apple said only that the 3G versions will be on sale in “late April”. All the versions of the iPad will go on sale in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland at the same time. The iPad has excited huge interest because it expands the interface of the iPhone, Apple’s hugely successful mobile phone, into a usable “slate” computer with a 9-inch screen. A number of content publishers have thought that it could be a completely new medium for sales of various products – including electronic versions of books, magazines, newspapers, music and films – that they will be able to charge for by selling them through Apple’s iTunes store, which has been a source of revenue for music, film, TV, audiobook and notably “app” creators. In the US, the basic iPad model with Wi-Fi and 16 gigabytes of storage will cost $499. Apple says that it “lets users browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more”. The device is 0.5 inches thick and weighs 1.5 pounds – “thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook” and Apple says it can run for up to 10 hours on a single battery charge. (Tests on other products suggest the figure may typically be only half that.) In the past few weeks there had been mounting speculation that there were production problems at Apple’s factories in China. Apple had no comment on that, but the staged release to the international market compared to the US – which makes half of Apple’s sales – suggests it is husbanding its resources. The announcement notably does not offer any pricing for the UK, nor any details about which mobile carriers Apple might sign up with. O2, Orange and Vodafone already offer its iPhone, but none of them are mentioned in Apple’s announcement. Nor is pricing – which could be key to how well it sells. Since the announcement of the iPad in January, the pound has slipped against the dollar in international exchange markets, which has led to speculation that Apple is waiting until the last minute to announce the price in order to minimise any losses on exchange-rate volatility. Macworld magazine, which calculated in February that the low-end iPad selling for $499 in the US might have a starting price of £388 in the UK, recalculated on Friday that the downturn in sterling would now mean a minimum starting price of £400.
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Mar
05
2010
Picking facts from speculation on iPad launch prices and datesPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Why the collapse in online advertising might be leading you to read pretty much anything about Apple’s new gizmo Hey, have you heard? Apple’s iPad is having production problems! And it’s not having production problems! Also, it’s going to cost £389! Or possibly less, or more. And in the UK the 3G version is going to be exclusively on Vodafone. As well as being on Orange and O2. Also, it’s going to be released in the UK two weeks after the US, where it’s being released on March 26, or actually 29th, except it’s being released at the same time. And it’s going to cost.. OK, enough breathless murmery. Let’s clear the air. There is an astonishing amount of speculation going on about Apple’s iPad. Very little of it seems well-founded – or even grounded in logic. The facts about the iPad: Apple hasn’t given a precise launch date; “60 days” was the best Steve Jobs had on 27 January. It’s not given one for the UK either. It hasn’t said how much the various models will cost in the UK. It hasn’t said whether the 3G mobile-connected models will be available in the UK (though it’s expected) and it hasn’t said which network(s) it will be going with. Which is about par for the course for some Apple products. And of course is enough for ever so many “news” stories. Let’s start with some of the things where people are prepared to put their names to the claims. The Register reports that Vijay Rakesh, an analyst at ThinkEquity analyst, told investors in an advisory note on Thursday that checks with manufacturers suggested “some minor delays” in ramping up production for the tablet. They can only make 200,000 to 250,000 iPads per month at present; production may not hit 800,000 to 1m units per month until at least April. “We believe this is just a minor hiccup in a longer-term entirely new revenue stream and product road map for [Apple],” Rakesh wrote. Earlier this week another US analyst, Peter Misek at Canaccord claimed that “unspecified production problems” will hold initial availability to about 300,000 units – and said Apple may keep the iPad to the US only or delay the launch into April. This was then contradicted by DigiTimes – usually the fount of unspecified vague insights into the Taiwanese and Chinese computer manufacturing insights which turn out to be bang on 50% of the time, and completely off the other 50% – which was told by Foxconn Electronics that everything’s on schedule and that it should be able to ship between 600,000 and 700,000 iPads this month. Apple said.. nothing. Conclusion: they all could be right. The iPad was announced in January, and if Foxconn has been making 200,000 for a couple of months, it’s got a nice stockpile sitting waiting for a container ship. Meanwhile Foxconn could be ramping up production towards that 800K figure. So we conclude: forecasts of a US-only launch unlikely to come true. And “delays into April”? Remember that at the launch (scroll to 7.22pm) Steve Jobs announced that they Wi-Fi only models would go on sale in 60 days, the 3G models in 90 days because they “require approval from carriers”. 90 days from the iPad launch takes you… into April. OK. Assume that it is going to launch in the UK at about the same time as in the US. Two questions: how much will it cost? And which networks will the 3G version be available on? The cost question is interesting. Apple has told us it won’t announce the UK price until it launches at the “end of March”. We’ve done our own calculation (helped by Macworld) which gives us a starting price guess of £424 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only (Macworld suggests £388), ranging up to £705 for the Wi-Fi/3G 64GB model (Macworld: £693). And which operators? No clues. Obviously, we speak to our contacts there; but so far they’ve had little to offer. So what then are we to make of the sudden flurry of emails recently from really small sites (and I do mean really small) which claim to know the launch date and/or chosen carrier? Here’s an example I received recently: “We just got word on Vodafone being the official launch partner of the iPad in the UK, direct from Vodafone. Details in the below blog post. This is from the same guy who provided details that O2 would be the Palm Pre’s UK carrier well before announcement.” And a link to the site. But we’re not going to link it here. I’ll explain why in a moment. Then there was the email from another site which said it had the price for the low-end iPad: “We are pretty confident regarding the pricing, the tip came from a source who works closely with Apple UK, obviously we can’t say much more about this. “We are 99% sure that the base model will be £389, regarding the other prices of the 32GB and 64GB models, our source said that these are likely to be the prices, although he did mention that the prices on the last two aren’t set in stone as yet.” (I should point out that the other site didn’t approach me; I contacted it to ask how sure they were of their sources.) Hmm, so have we missed a trick? Are we getting blown out of the water by dedicated bloggers running niche sites who have contacts in just the right places? Perhaps. But consider another possibility. I spoke to someone who has very good contacts in the mobile phone industry. The reply: “My source at Voda says nothing signed yet but is checking, also it’s kinda weird but [the person quoted in the Vodafone story] left a year ago.” So why the certainty in that story? My contact noted: “There are going to be more and more stories like this as the collapse in online advertising has pushed sites into e-commerce and they need the links from [the Guardian] to push them up the [search] rankings. There are quite a few mobile phone so-called bloggers already in the UK who are actually little more than affiliate channels for the mobile phone operators. That’s often how they get their stories. Watch the links when you click through, it’s often quite instructive. There is, for instance, a very well respected UK mobile phone blogger who gets a lot of very good Orange scoops. Of course he does, my mates at Orange point out, the other half of his business is a retailer for Orange so he finds out about new phones at the same time as the rest of the channel. Is that journalism? Who knows these days.” We conclude: the maths suggests that the iPad will very likely come in around the £389-£399 mark (we like the Macworld number better than ours, which by being above £400 isn’t a marketing-friendly price sticker). Networks? Whichever ones can handle the micro-sims that the iPad uses. Given that Apple is still with only one network in the US, but in the UK has signed up three (O2, Orange and Vodafone; Tesco is a virtual MNO), it’s hard to know whether it will try to be a kingmaker again or prefer to spread the love like butter among them all. Rationally, being on all three (while making them think it’s exclusive until it’s announced) would be better for sales – people could just add an iPad plan to their existing contracts. OK? We hope that puts your minds at rest about prices and operators. As for launch dates… well, Apple traditionally goes with Tuesdays or Fridays. Strictly, 60 days from the iPad announcement puts you on Sunday 28 March, so take your pick: Monday 29th, or Friday 26th? Or might it get pushed further along? As for the 3G version, if there’s a 90-day delay, then you’re not going to see it until April 27 (on the 90-days-from-iPad-ground-zero principle). So even that US analyst could be right. And remind us what you’d be buying an iPad for? We’re interested to hear.
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Mar
03
2010
Orange to carry MeeGo devices by end of 2010Posted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
HTC won’t fix, blames OrangeThe latest update to Orange’s Hero handset, manufactured by HTC, is blocking access to the Android marketplace again.…
What is your recession sales strategy? Read Full Story…
The European Commission has approved the merger, which will create the UK’s largest operator, after the parties allayed fears over spectrum and competition
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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – T-Mobile, the British arm of Deutsche Telekom, and France Telecom’s Orange won EU regulatory approval on Monday for their plan to merge after they pledged to give up some radio spectrum. Read Full Story…
Orange relied on iPhone to persuade new customers, while T-Mobile dived back into the pre-pay market
Orange and T-Mobile, who are preparing to merge their UK businesses this year, both had a bumper Christmas, but for wildly different reasons. While Orange relied on the iPhone to persuade people to sign-up to long-term contracts, T-Mobile threw caution to the wind and jumped back into the pre-pay market. But as both companies had to slash prices and offer customers ever more favourable tariffs in order to remain competitive in the cut-throat UK market, they saw margins decline and average revenue per user – a crucial metric for analysts – take a tumble. In the last three months of 2009, third-placed Orange added 404,000 new customers, while fourth-placed T-Mobile gained 571,000. Orange’s figures included 266,000 new contract customers, its best ever fourth quarter performance, and four out of every five of those customers signed up to a 24-month deal, suggesting they were either getting an iPhone or another high-end smartphone, such as one running Google’s Android operating system or a Blackberry. Orange ended O2’s two year exclusive hold on the iPhone in November and sold about 90,000 in the first month. Orange’s revenues in the fourth quarter were €1.29bn (£1.13bn), down from €1.3bn, including its struggling residential broadband business, which lost 50,000 customers in the quarter and now has just 840,000 users. There has been intense discussion within Orange about closing down the broadband business, selling the customers to a rival ISP, such as BSkyB, but management have decided to hold onto the operation and it is now offering a free 32GB iPhone to customers who sign up for its high-end home broadband package. Margins at Orange, meanwhile, declined to 18.4%, down 2 points compared with a year ago, while its average revenue per user – across both contract and pre-pay customers – was £21.41 a month in the fourth quarter, down from £24.25 a year ago. As it does not have the iPhone, T-Mobile, in contrast, put all its focus on attracting new pre-pay users, putting a lot of marketing spend behind its “free texts for life” for any customer topping up by at least £10 a month. In the second half of the year, T-Mobile added 629,000 new pre-pay users, 570,000 in the run-up to Christmas alone. All but 1,000 of its new customers in the fourth quarter were on pre-pay. Revenues, however, were down in the quarter to £737m, from £820m a year ago, with margins of 20.1%, down dramatically from 24.8% a year ago. Average revenue per user (ARPU) was £18 a month, down from £21 a year ago. In the same period, second-placed Vodafone added 410,000 new customers with ARPU of £20.40, down from £21.5 a year ago, and margins of 23.2%, down from 25.9%. The UK’s largest mobile phone company O2 will report on Friday. The fact that three of the four largest players in the UK added almost 1.4 million brand new customers means that either O2 and 3 saw subscriber numbers fall off a cliff, or the first quarter of this year will contain a nasty surprise for at least one operator. It is unlikely that O2 has seen its winning streak come to a complete halt, given O2 boss Matthew Key’s upbeat statements about life since it was forced to give up its exclusive hold on the iPhone first to Orange then Tesco Mobile before Christmas; and then to Vodafone last month. As a private company, rival 3 does not provide regular figures, but its owner Hutchison Whampoa, which keeps a very close eye on its mobile phone business, would react fast if UK chief executive Kevin Russell had lost hundreds of thousands of customers in the last three months. For the past few years, 3 has had between 3 and 4 million users and will report financial figures at the end of March. It is more likely that because of the way in which the mobile phone companies count pre-pay customers as active or inactive that the first quarter of this year will see a balancing of the books. More than half the new customers added in the fourth quarter so far, are pre-pay users and are likely to have switched between pre-pay providers. But while their new network will count them as a new customer from day one – ie in the fourth quarter – the network they are leaving will not count them as inactive until they fail to make a call or send a text within a 90 day period. As a result, they are not likely to have been identified as customers who have defected until sometime in the first quarter of 2010.
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Feb
21
2010
Orange and T-Mobile merger finds favour in BrusselsPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
• European commission set to approve plan to create UK’s largest mobile phone company The merger of Orange and T-Mobile looks set to get the go-ahead from the European commission after a last-minute deal was thrashed out over the weekend to secure the future of 3, the UK’s smallest mobile phone network. The merged business would be the UK’s largest mobile phone company, with almost 30 million customers, and Orange and T-Mobile have agreed to hand back some of the mobile phone spectrum it would own in order to allow this to be used by rivals to run super-fast wireless broadband services. The commission has yet to inform the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) about its decision, and the merger could still face a challenge from Vodafone and O2, which are understood to be “lukewarm” about the concessions made over spectrum. The commission’s decision is a blow to consumer groups that had been campaigning for authorities in the UK to investigate the deal. This month the OFT formally requested jurisdiction to investigate the merger from the commission, which had until 1 March to give a decision. The OFT will tomorrow publish the reasons why it had asked to be allowed to run its own investigation, although the commission now believes it has dealt with any concerns. It was the OFT’s request that spurred Orange and T-Mobile into action. Fears that the merger, announced last September, would become clogged up in the UK’s lengthy competition procedure led both companies to come up with a solution that met the concerns of the commission about the deal. The OFT and Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, were extensively consulted by the commission during the process. The main concern was about the merger’s effect on the future of 3, which has driven price competition in recent years. However, over the weekend, 3, which is owned by the Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, signed a new deal with T-Mobile and Orange, which will give it access to 3,000 more mast sites across the UK over the next few years, bringing the total to 16,000, the largest 3G network in the country. Second, the UK authorities and Brussels were concerned about the level of control that the merged company would have over the scarce resource that is wireless spectrum. Specifically the merged group would have the vast majority of the spectrum granted in the 1990s, when Orange and One2One were launched, at 1800MHz. As reported by the Observer a week ago, T-Mobile and Orange have agreed to hand back a quarter of the spectrum the merged group would hold. Neither 3, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2 nor the OFT would comment. The OFT will tomorrow give its reasons for asking the commission whether it could have jurisdiction over the case, in a stock exchange announcement. A copy of its reasoning, seen by the Guardian, makes it clear that the OFT’s main concern about any deal was also the future of 3. “The OFT considers that any weakening/elimination of Hutchison 3G would effectively result in a reduction of vertically integrated competitors from five to three and cause significant detriment to competition in mobile retail telephony,” the document reads.
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Feb
18
2010
Black Nokia X6 16GB now on OrangePosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News, New Deals, New MobilesNew Mobile & Latest Deal News!
The Nokia X6 16GB has an impressive 3.2 inch touchscreen that covers almost the entire front of the phone giving it a very innovative and unique design. The phone is pocket and palm friendly measuring 111 x 51 x 13mm and it’s great for watching movies with the 16:9 aspect ratio screen. With 32GB of internal memory there’s plenty of storage too. The X6 runs on Symbian OS v9.4 and has a 434 MHz processor, which is enough to compete with many of other smartphones on the market. The new X Series range from Nokia, will replace the XpressMusic range. As well as launching the X6, Nokia will release the entry-level X3 slider phone iearly in 2010. The X6’s TFT capacitive touchscreen gives a crisp, bright image and comes with scratch resistant glass. There is a built in accelerometer for automatically switching the screen from portrait to landscape, for widescreen images and videos. For texts and emails the X6 also supports handwriting recognition. The 5 megapixel camera from the Nokia N97 is built-in, it has Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, LED flash and geo-tagging to take fantastic images of your favourite moments and stamp them with their exact location. The camera also has video recording capabilities and there is the ability to edit images with software provided in the package. Compare all Nokia X6 16GB dealsTags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, Deals, email, free, latest, latest deal, mobile, mobiles, n97, new, new mobile, nokia, nokia n97, orange, palm, phone, phones, sol, test, Touch, xpressmusic
Feb
16
2010
Mobile World Congress: HTC unveils iPhone rival on Google’s Android platformPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
• HTC’s Legend smartphone will come to UK in April HTC has come of age. The Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer, once known only as the maker of Windows phones under the SPV brand, today unveiled a new phone sporting Google’s Android software which analysts are predicting could steal a march on Apple in the smartphone design wars. The HTC Legend, which runs the latest Android software called Eclair, is made from a single block of aluminium and has a very bright and clear 3.2 inch AMOLED (ultra-bright LED) display. Vodafone has grabbed the handset in Europe, wary of losing out after missing the iPhone in some of the company’s key European markets. The Legend will come to the UK in April and already analysts are predicting that it will be a design classic following its launch at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “Legend’s clever use of milled aluminium casing could scoop Apple’s direction for the next iPhone design,” said CCS Insight. Despite its body being engineered from a single piece of aluminium, the HTC Legend has a removable battery – something which the iPhone conspicuously lacks – which slides out from a compartment at the bottom of the phone. The back of the battery casing also contains the phone’s antenna so that its metal body does not hinder signal strength. HTC has updated the user face – called HTC Sense – that sits atop Android on the device. Alongside refinements to the phone’s address book, so that contacts can be organised into groups such as business contacts and friends, it pulls information from social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter into a single Friend Stream of updates. The Android platform has been the making of HTC. It created the first phone, the G1, using the software, while the Legend is the new version of another successful Android phone, the Hero. The Legend, however, has a rather less intrusive “chin” at the bottom of the device than the Hero. Alongside it, HTC also unveiled the HTC Desire, which also uses HTC Sense. It had previously been codenamed the HTC Bravo and several UK operators have been vying to get hold of it as it is essentially the same as Google’s own Nexus One device, which HTC also produced. However, it has an optical trackpad rather than a roller ball, and is understood to be cheaper than the Google device. Orange said it will be stocking the HTC Desire from April and it will be free on selected monthly tariffs. It is likely to be priced the same as the iPhone, a policy Vodafone is expected to follow with the Nexus One in the UK when it launches next month. The HTC Desire will also be available in the UK on T-Mobile from 26 March. The Desire has a large 3.7 inch AMOLED screen, like the Nexus One, and contains the 1GHz Snapdragon processor which is also found on the Nexus One. It includes such iPhone staples as pinching to zoom on web pages while it also automatically recalibrates text so that when you zoom into a page, you do not have to scroll left and right to get to the end of a line. Crucially, it also supports Flash, which Apple still resolutely refuses to back. HTC also announced the HTC HD mini, which uses the 6.5 version of Windows Phone rather than the series 7 platform launched by Steve Ballmer yesterday.
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Android 2.1 handset out in AprilMWC Orange will release HTC’s upcoming Android-based smartphone, Desire, in April.…
Offloading malware protection to the cloud Read Full Story…
Feb
16
2010
More questions than answers about the Windows Phone 7 SeriesPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Microsoft made a splash by pre-announcing the Windows Phone 7 Series phone yesterday, but it might all be forgotten by the time phones appear for the (Christmas) holiday sales season Microsoft’s launch of its Windows Phone 7 Series phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday was a huge success if you judge it by the amount of press and blog coverage. But it also provided very few details, including when phones would go on sale. Microsoft says they’ll be out before Christmas, but so will a lot of other new phones. Microsoft’s list of Windows Phone 7 partners includes Asus, Dell, HP, HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba, and it expects to have phones on most networks, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone. In other words, Windows Phone 7 is still a platform. Microsoft hasn’t followed Apple’s proprietary route, though whether phone makers will still have access to the phone’s source code and the right to change it remains to be seen. The demos showed the Windows Phone 7’s roots in the attractive user interface developed for Windows Media Center PCs and reworked for the Zune HD and the free Zune 4.0 software for Windows*. They also showed the phone’s extensive integration with Windows Live and Facebook, though at the moment, it looks as though Twitter is supported via Windows Live. Email support includes Microsoft Exchange synchronisation, Live Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and other services. But it’s not clear where Microsoft stands on supporting Silverlight, Adobe Flash, or the still-emerging HTML5 standard. Silverlight support would be welcomed by companies who want to put their business applications on the phone, and it would answer the objection that — apart from Microsoft Office — Windows Phone 7 phones are aimed much more at consumers than at businesses. Adobe Flash would be welcomed by many users and web developers, and would give Microsoft a selling point against Apple, which refuses to support Flash. However, the question is still open. The Seattle Times managed to get a quote from Karen Wong Duncan, a Microsoft product manager: “We do not support Flash. We are partnering closely with Adobe. As Steve Ballmer said earlier, we are not opposed to having Flash on the platform.” HTML5 support would be welcomed by everybody, especially if Microsoft included an expensive H.264 video codec for playing YouTube and other videos without using Flash. But we don’t know what sort of browser will be included in Windows Phone 7 phones, or what its capabilities might be. Windows Phone 7 also has an Xbox Live connection, and users will be able to score points in multi-player games, but Microsoft didn’t provide details. Apparently we’ll learn more at the Mix 2010 conference in March. Finally, there has been no mention of what has sometimes been called Pink: the code-name for putative next generation versions of the old Sidekick device. (Microsoft bought the company.) The lack of detail makes it look as though Microsoft has announced too early. Presumably it couldn’t resist the opportunity to make a splash at WMC, and there’s only one a year. Next year’s congress would be too late…. * This is worth a download if you want something to manage an MP3 player: it’s much nicer than Windows Media Player. However, you won’t be able to use the Zune Marketplace outside the US.
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• Phones with the new software will appear at the end of the year
Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer is hoping that 7 will turn out to be a lucky number again. With Windows 7 helping to bury the ghosts of the poorly received Windows Vista in its core PC market, the software group is hoping to repeat the trick with a new version of its software for mobile phones, a device that has refused to yield to the firm’s attentions despite almost a decade of trying. Windows Phone Series 7 is the result of a complete overhaul of Microsoft’s vision of the mobile phone. It has abandoned its attempts to turn mobile phones into mini-PCs, focusing instead on giving users easy access to social networking, music, video and mobile phone applications. Coincidentally Ballmer’s presentation, at the mobile industry’s annual trade show in Barcelona came hours after the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer Nokia revealed a tie-up with chipmaker Intel that is headed in the opposite direction. The two companies have pooled their software development resources to create MeeGo, a free software platform which they reckon will pave the way for the next generation of wireless communications devices. Both companies have Apple, Blackberry and Google, with its Android mobile phone platform, firmly in their sights. Fierce competition has eroded Nokia’s share of the market over the past year, and Microsoft fears that if it cannot get back in the game now, it may never manage it. Ballmer admitted that Microsoft, which has failed to gain any significant share of the mobile phone market, had been forced to “retool and reform” its mobile phone software two years ago. “There is no doubt that the phone market is highly competitive, highly dynamic, super-exciting,” he said. “There was no question in our minds… that we needed and wanted to do something that was out of the box, clearly differentiated from our past and clearly differentiated from other things that are going on in the market.” “We’re taking a big step,” he added. “I hope seven’s our lucky number.” The first phones using the new software will not appear until the end of the year and Microsoft is being very prescriptive about what they should look like, which has raised questions about whether handset manufacturers will be willing to make Windows Phone devices that they will be unable to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack. Manufacturers including HTC, LG and Samsung have, however, signed up, while Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Orange are all likely to sell the devices in the UK. The proliferation of so-called open source software platforms – such as Android – has raised the question of whether Microsoft, which still charges hardware manufacturers a licence fee to use its Windows Phone software, should adopt the same model. Refusing, as ever, to actually name Apple, Ballmer spoke about “vertical competitors” – companies that make devices as well as the software that sits on them, such as Apple – saying “their model is really clear, it’s sell devices. We sell software to companies that make devices” and that is not going to change. “My mother used to say to me, if something is free, you should take a look and find out what the real cost is.” Nokia, however, has become a convert to the idea of open source platforms. Having bought out its partners in smartphone software developer Symbian and made that available free to all developers and hardware manufacturers, it announced a tie-up with Intel under which it plans to do the same for the next generation of mobile devices. Nokia was already working on an open source platform for so-called internet tablets, called Maemo, which it used in its recently launched N900 phone. Now it is merging it with a similar programme which Intel ran for laptops, called Moblin, into a new platform called MeeGo. “It is the future of how we think people are going to use computing,” said Renee James, Intel’s head of software and services. “From Intel’s perspective, we see expansive growth which brings new users to computing and at the heart of that has always been software innovation and that happens when there is a stable platform that developers can bet on being there long-term. So I consider this critical to the long term growth initiatives of Intel.” The first MeeGo devices will start appearing in the second half of the year, but Intel already has hardware manufacturers such as Dell, Asus and Samsung making laptops for its existing open source platform and they will all be moved over to MeeGo. “They have understood the only way to beat Microsoft, Google and Apple is to do it through scale – get the platform to more devices,” according to John Strand, owner and head of Strand Consult after the announcements at the Mobile World Congress fair. Immediately dubbed MeeToo by some analysts, MeeGo will create an open source software platform which Nokia reckons will be used in a new generation of wireless devices. Both companies want to attract a wide range of operators, handset manufacturers and software developers. “This is not a closed club,” said Kai Öistämö, Nokia’s head of devices. “We are inviting everyone into this. “MeeGo will create a new strong single platform that will drive the future of mobile computing.” The announcement of MeeGo, however, immediately raised questions about the future of Symbian, but Öistämö stressed: “This is very consistent with Nokia’s software strategy. Symbian is the perfect environment for democratising the smartphone, what MeeGo allows is the future of mobile computing … well beyond what can be done with smartphones today.” The deal may raise some eyebrows at Google, however, as Intel’s chief executive Paul Otellini has sat on the Google board since 2004.
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Feb
15
2010
Sony Ericsson branches out with tweeting treePosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Phone giant puts tree that sends out Twitter updates on show at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona To show that it is prepared for the new era of mobile communication Sony Ericsson developed a device that makes a tree tweet. And this is just the start. It put the tree on show at the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where staff hooked it up to an electromagnetic field sensor that enables it to detect motion. “Arrived in Barcelona. The tension is building. #ectree”, it tweeted, followed by: “Things are shaping up. I just wish someone could clean me up a bit before it’s showtime. #ectree” In comparison with others countries, the UK is generally ahead in terms of embracing social media. A quick view on Trendsmap quickly shows that Twitter is by far the most popular in the UK out of all the European countries, and the British are already used to twittering objects – for example, BigBen tweets “Bong”, or the River Thames tells you about its tides. Sony Ericcson believes that everything that can benefit from a connection should have one – even a tree, they say. And what does the tree respond? Well, being hired by the company for a promotional gig it is obvious that it can’t really express its opinion freely. “My leaves have been stroked by 52 friendly visitors. I’m starting to like MWC. #ectree”, it says over and over again. However, there are some signs of rebellion: “99 touches in an hour. Can an orange tree get swine flu? #ectree”, or: “106 people have played with my leaves the last hour. Are there no phones to play with in this place? #ectree” The tree is right. Dear Sony, there are more than 6.67 billion people on earth, and most of them already have nothing to say. Leave the twittering tree alone!
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Feb
15
2010
Two dozen mobile carriers unite against Apple’s App StorePosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
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.
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The mobile operator has introduced a package that allows customers to get 2MB of data for a day, while they are in Europe
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O2 and Orange are to join more than a dozen mobile groups in a project to pool resources and create ‘app’-style services across their range of handsets More than a dozen of the world’s biggest mobile phone companies, including O2 and Orange, are hoping to strike back against the success of Apple in persuading people to download and use mobile applications – or “apps” – by building their own competing open platform which can be used by developers of games and other services. The mobile networks hope that by pooling their resources, creating technology that would allow services to be developed that will work across a huge range of handsets, they can claw back some of the ground they have lost to companies such as Apple and Google and generate additional revenues from third-party developers. The mobile phone networks fear that at the moment they are in danger of becoming little more than “dumb pipes in the air”, with all the revenues created by applications going to software developers and the companies that operate the stores that supply them. Apple has already seen over 3bn apps downloaded from its App Store by users of the iPhone and iPod touch. Google, meanwhile, has an application marketplace as part of its Android mobile phone platform, and several devices sporting the software will be unveiled at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the industry’s biggest trade show, which starts today. But it is not just Google and Apple that are profiting from the “apps explosion”. Steve Ballmer will this afternoon use the Mobile World Congress to unveil Microsoft’s latest attempt to break into the mobile phone industry. Windows Mobile 7 – or Windows Phone, as Microsoft has dubbed it – includes an application store that allows users of Microsoft devices to download a host of games and other applications. Even phone manufacturers such as Samsung and RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, are getting in on the app act, while Nokia already has its Ovi store open for business. Several of the world’s biggest operators are part of the Open API initiative, which allows application developers access to some of the core information contained within their networks, such as location and billing. Essentially an API (application programming interface) allows a developer to integrate its application with another piece of software. The Open API plan, for instance, allows software developers to create programmes that can be paid for by consumers on their mobile phone bills. But the new consortium, which will be announced by industry trade body the GSM Association at the Mobile World Congress today, is designed to go even further. The recent explosion in mobile phone software – from Apple’s iPhone to Nokia’s Symbian platform, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone – means the “apps” market is becoming increasingly fragmented. Also, consumers who switch from one device to another will soon find themselves having to download – and pay again – for all the applications they had on their old phone just because their new phone uses different software. The operators fear that they will be at the receiving end of the subsequent consumer backlash. Orange, Telefonica – which owns O2 in the UK – T-Mobile and several other operators are already signed up to the GSMA plan. Vodafone, however, is ambivalent as it is engaged in an open platform alliance called the Joint Innovation Lab with China Mobile, Japan’s Softbank and Verizon Wireless of the US. In fact, applications are likely to be a highlight of this year’s Mobile World Congress, with developer workshops taking place throughout the show, helping programmers create for Android, BlackBerry and Vodafone’s recently announced Vodafone 360 platform. Several companies will also announce their own app developments. Today, for instance, British digital music group Omnifone will announce that it has created a version of its mobile music service that runs on Android phones. Omnifone, which has access to a catalogue of more than 6.5m tracks, is looking for network or handset partners who want to launch an unlimited download or streaming music service on Android devices using its platform. It already, for instance, powers Vodafone’s unlimited music service in the UK and recently clinched a deal to have its MusicStation service pre-installed on Hewlett-Packard laptops and computers. Omnifone is currently developing apps for both the iPhone and Windows Mobile devices. Skype, meanwhile, will today announce that it has created a version of its popular free internet telephony service for Nokia’s Symbian operating system, which is already used by more than 200m mobile phones worldwide. Skype is now available as a free iPhone app, which has been downloaded more than 12m times since its launch in April last year. The Symbian version will initially be available as a download from the Skype website but will appear on Nokia’s Ovi store in the next few weeks. The company, which was sold by owner eBay last year, is planning an Android version for later in the year. Skype, which allows people to call other Skype users anywhere in the world for free, is also expected to announce a partnership with Verizon Wireless, which is likely to raise some eyebrows as in the past the American network’s joint owner, Vodafone, has blocked internet telephony services from its own networks.
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The technology, which provides more natural-sounding audio by using a wideband codec, has already been launched in Moldova
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