Nokia and Google: Too much emphasis on the mobile OS?

With Nokia’s acquisition of Symbian, it is going head-to-head with Google Android and Windows Mobile to make a run at building the top software platform for mobile phones. The problem is that all three of them could be making some bad assumptions about the way the mobile phone market — particularly the smartphone market — is going to unfold over the next five to ten years.

They all seem to be assuming that the mobile phone market will mirror the computer market, which is dominated by a small handful of platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The reality is that there is likely to be a much larger diversity of platforms in the mobile world.

In addition to Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile, there is now the iPhone with its OS X-based platform. And, beyond those four, there’s a plethora of phone makers that run their own proprietary operating systems on a variety of phones, sometimes with a customized OS for each phone.

It’s going to be very hard to put the genie back on the bottle in the phone market. All of these different types of phones are already out there and will be in use for years to come. Some may argue that the smartphone market does not have as many players as the general mobile market, but the lines are blurring between standard mobile phones and smartphones.More>>

Bharti Airtel-Apple to bring iPhone3G to India

After announcing a tie-up for bringing iPhone, Bharti Airtel and Apple extended their partnership to launch the 3G version of iPhone in India later this year.

Soon customers will be able to purchase iPhone3G at Airtel Relationship Centers. Details of pricing and availability will be announced at a later date.

iPhone3G, the latest phone from Apple, combines all the features of iPhone with 3G networking, which is said to be two times faster than the first generation iPhone. It has built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, a joint press release said.

It also has iPhone 2.0 software, which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.

“We are delighted with the opportunity to bring the innovative iPhone3G to India,” said Bharti Airtel President and CEO Manoj Kohli.

“We are thrilled to be working with Bharti Airtel, India’s leading integrated telecom company, to bring iPhone 3G to millions of mobile customers in India,” said Apple’s COO Tim Cook.

“We can’t wait to get this revolutionary product in the hands of even more people around the world.”

Idea Cellular to buy Spice Communications

Idea Cellular, India's fifth-largest mobile operator, said on Wednesday it would buy Spice Group's 40.8 per cent stake in another mobile firm, Spice Communications, at Rs 77.3 per share.

Idea also said it would merge Spice with itself through a share swap where Spice shareholders would get 49 Idea shares for every 100 Spice shares held.

Spice has operations in two out of a total 23 telecom circles and has a customer base of more than 3 million while Idea is present in 11 circles and has a customer base of over 26 million. India, the world's fastest-growing mobile services market and the second-largest market after China, has lured foreign firms like Vodafone Plc which last year bought a controlling stake in the third-largest local cellular firm.

India has 269.30 million wireless users at end-April, up 57 percent from a year earlier, according to the telecoms regulator.

Will Android have a tougher time than expected?

Access Co has been developing its own Linux ecosystem for years, and when it purchased Palm Source in 2005 it was expected that mobile Linux would go mainstream.

Unfortunately little has happened and at this year’s Wireless Developers Forum, Access had great ideas but little to show.

So Android should have a clear run. However the industry is following a different path led by LiMo, an association which includes many Android supporters plus a number of major networks and developers.

This is now a race between Google’s Open Handset Alliance and LiMo. In that case Android and HTC will be the winners.

Adobe Finally Takes On Apple, Google In Mobile

Today Adobe announced a new hugely important strategic initiative regarding the Flash Player called the Open Screen Project. The upshot: It's finally ready to start competing with Google and Apple for mobile platform developers.

There are three keys to the announcement. First Adobe (ADBE) is removing all licensing restrictions and fees for the Flash Player and the SWF file format that the player runs. OEMs will now be able to embed Flash at no additional cost and with no restrictions.

Second, the next version of the Flash Player and the AIR runtime will have two separate parts. The layer that is platform specific will be separate from the layer that is the real brains of the Flash system. This means that it will be easy to embed the Flash player any new non-PC device offering. All you will have to do is port the platform specific layer to your device. And Adobe will be providing a reference implementation so that you can see exactly how to do it, presumably just making minor changes related to the specifics of your platform.

And finally, the next version of the Flash Player will be the same across all devices. This means that you will be able to use Flex, Flexbuilder, and Thermo to build applications that run on mobile and embedded devices. This will *radically* simplify the process of making applications that run on mobile devices. It really is, essentially *the* next generation mobile operating system.

It's not an OS in the traditional sense. That will continue to be some form of Unix, or more generally,Linux. But the Flash platform will become the premier application development target for devices.

This is a direct shot across the bow of both Apple (AAPL) with the iPhone and Google (GOOG) with Android. Adobe has far more 3rd-party developers than Apple does with Mac OS/iPhone or Google does with Android, and if they can make it totally seamless to develop for desktop or mobile, it will radically change the dynamics of the business. Presumably Adobe will be able to port this next version of Flash to the iPhone as well, though the politics of that will be interesting given Steve Jobs' antipathy for Flash.

From a business perspective, Adobe seems to have everyone onboard that matters including Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Qualcomm, Samsung, Intel, and lots of others. Now that Flash is free and presumably easy to embed, it instantly becomes the mobile and embedded software platform to beat.

Samsung beats Motorola as India’s No. 3 mobile brand

The January-March 2008 quarter has seen a change in the pecking order of the Indian mobile phone market. While Nokia is still enjoying leadership position by a huge margin followed by Sony Ericsson, there has been a change in the position for the third slot. Korean vendor Samsung has replaced Motorola to emerge as the third largest player in the Indian market.

Latest ORG data reveal that Samsung is the only prominent player to have increased its market share in the Indian market in the January-March period. It has gained market share from 5.7% in January to 7% in March. In the same period, Motorola India lost market share from 6.7% to 5.9%, but Sony Ericsson remained at the same level of 8.1%.

Even Finnish handset biggie Nokia lost market share in India from 72.3% to 69.5% between January and March. Nokia India managing director (mobile phones) D Shivakumar refused to comment on the issue. “As a policy, we do not comment on market share.” When contacted, Samsung Telecommunications India country head Sunil Dutt said: “In January-March, we registered a good growth in our mobile phone business based on our channel expansion programme, new product launches like the Guru 100, SGH-G800, Samsung i450 to name a few, as well as our brand activity involving Aamir Khan.” Samsung plans to double its Indian market share by end-2008 from the present level. More>>

AOL Announces Open Mobile Platform

AOL today announced the Open Mobile Platform, which the company plans to release to developers this summer. AOL says the software development platform will help developers create applications across major mobile device operating systems including BREW, Java, Linux, RIM, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. The platform will consist of three parts: an XML-based scripting language, a device client, and an application server.

AOL's platform differs from efforts like Google's Android, which was demoed today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, in that it isn't a singular phone operating system that attempts to lock users into one way of doing things. Rather, it is a software development platform for multiple operating systems that aims to make it easier for developers to deploy apps across the various mobile OS and platform options.

Lest you think the entire endeavor is completely altruistic on AOL's part, the Open Mobile Platform is also the unified "software module" that AOL hinted at last September, which the company hopes will push its services and APIs onto as many mobile devices as possible. The platform is designed to play nice with third-party APIs, as well as those from AOL including AIM, AOL Mail, AOL Video, MapQuest, Userplane, Truveo, and Winamp. AOL is counting on developers to create mobile applications that lean on AOL services and can be deployed across multiple mobile device operating systems. Read More>>

GPhone Prototype Expected at Mobile World Congress

It's a big week coming up in the Mobile Web world. The annual Mobile World Congress is being held in Barcelona, 11-14 February. The early buzz is around Google's much (and oft) rumored GPhone. According to the Times Online, Google "is expected to produce a prototype mobile handset" at the show. Even if Google itself doesn't unveil a phone, there will be plenty of Android prototypes on display (Google's open source Mobile Operating System).

CNN is reporting that "as many as one dozen handset makers and chip companies are expected next week to unveil mobile phone prototypes designed to operate with Google Inc.'s (GOOG) new Android software platform".

We'll just have to wait and see if Google itself comes out with a phone, although our network blog last100 speculated recently about a potential partnership with Dell. Check out a classic last100 post from last August if you're interested in some visual concepts on what a Gphone may look like! Read More>>

First Google Android phone may debut next week

The first mobile phone to incorporate Google’s open-source Android platform will debut at next week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a source close to British chipmaker ARM Holdings has told Reuters.

According to the source, ARM, a U.K.-based company that makes embedded and graphics processors, as well as processors for mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs, will introduce a prototype for a telephone that uses Android as its operating platform as soon as next Monday.

Google and its partners in the Open Handset Alliance unveiled their open source Android platform last November with the goal of spurring third-party developers to create new and innovative applications for mobile devices. Read More>>

Nokia N82 smartphone

Review Nokia has boosted its N series with its most heavily-featured candybar yet. With a five-megapixel Carl Zeiss-lensed, xenon flash equipped camera and GPS, it’s comparable to the N95 and one of the best cameraphones around. Even if it’s not the prettiest.

Working on the principle that you shouldn’t judge a book by the cover, anyone serious about getting a high-quality cameraphone should take a long hard look at the N82.

With Wi-Fi and HSDPA 3G connectivity, it has versatile options for high-speed web surfing and content downloading. It doesn’t have the 8GB built-in storage capacity of the recently upgraded N95 8GB - reviewed here - just 100MB of internal dynamic memory. But the N82 does have the same media player plus a Micro SD card slot. The N82 comes with a 2GB card, but can take Micro SDs of up to 8GB. These are widely available for around £40, giving you an affordable route to upgrade to iPhone-like music player capacity.

Other plus points include unusually high video recording quality for a cameraphone, and the facility to upload pics and clips online to content sharing sites. The N82 is also one of the new breed of N-series phones to support the Nokia Music Store and revamped N-Gage gaming platform. Read More>>

Google to Launch a Search Engine for Ringtones

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google works on a search engine for mobile media content that will include ringtones and games.

"With the new system, users would search for a piece of content -- such as ringtones -- and would get back a list of companies that provide it, with links letting them easily purchase the material. (...) The company has been working for months with content providers -- including large entertainment companies and smaller mobile media aggregators -- to index their material and make it available via mobile search. (...) The Internet company has considered including a social-networking component that would let users of Google's Gmail email service exchange content, one person familiar with the initiative said. Google declined to comment."

Google has launched mobile versions for most of its services, including search, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and it's now testing AdSense for mobile content. But a search engine for ringtones and games could jeopardize Google's partnerships with many carriers that want to keep the customers inside their "walled gardens". There aren't many good services in this space (Mogmo comes to my mind), so Google's search engine will actually fill a void. Until some carriers decide to block it.

How the iPhone will rock the mobile industry

The initial release of the iPod wasn’t great. A so-so product that only worked with Macs and required users to spend their lives ripping CDs. But its long-term effect were huge: a massive 10% (and rapidly growing) chunk of music is now sold digitally to the iPod and its competitors. So what will the iPhone’s long-term effect on the cell phone industry be?

Accelerate 3G adoption in the US
The iPhone is a 2G device - ie, it’s slow. This was the right decision: the US has paltry 3G coverage. In most major cities, however, free 802.11b wireless networks are ubiquitous. People with devices like the iPhone and Nokia’s N95 (which also has a desktop-quality web browser) can get a taste of viewing real web on their phones content at reasonable speed over 802.11b wireless networks in cafes and bookstores. The massive speed drop users will get attempting to view a real website over an EDGE network will raise consumer demand for 3G and better networks from carriers.

They’ll also want a 3G iPhone like their friends in Australia have. Late next year Apple intends to release the iPhone in Australia, where 2G networks are being shut down, 3G or 3.5G HSDPA is everywhere, and free 802.11b wireless is rare. By the time that happens, the iPhone will be 3G - not only because Apple wants it to be, but because it has no other choice.More>>

Introduction to JavaFX

The JavaFX Scripting Programming Language (JavaFX) is a new family of Sun products based on Java technology and targeted at the high impact, rich content market.

JavaFX is a highly productive scripting language that enables content developers to create rich media and content for deployment on Java environments. JavaFX is a declarative, statically typed programming language. It has first-class functions, declarative syntax, list-comprehensions, and incremental dependency-based evaluation. It can make direct calls to Java APIs that are on the platform. Since JavaFX is statically typed, it has the same code structuring, reuse, and encapsulation features such as packages, classes, inheritance, and separate compilation and deployment units, that make it possible to create and maintain very large programs using Java technology. Using the JavaFX language it is possible to create GUI using swing GUI components. This document gives a description of the JavaFX programming language.read full article

Is Big 'G' Planning for Mobile domination?

Anyone can get the Web on their cellphone these days. But now it seems Google is interested in so much more than that. It has reportedly approached the Federal Communications Commission recently about obtaining wireless spectrum, the base upon which mobile-phone networks are built, in the U.S. agency's next auction.

Never mind the potential buyout of Bell Canada Inc. or Apple Inc.'s much-hyped introduction of the iPhone yesterday, there's a much larger, game-changing force in telecommunications lurking just around the corner.

Search engine giant Google Inc. has been putting together a massive cable network to provide customers around the world with telecommunications services ranging from broadband Internet to home and mobile phones.More>>

Apple's iPhone casts big shadow on cell industry

If the device—a melding of phone, Web browser and music and video player—is a hit, analysts say it will cut into market share of major phonemakers, including Schaumburg-based Motorola

As if struggling cell phone-maker Motorola Inc. doesn't have enough to worry about: Here comes the iPhone, heir to the mighty iPod, brainchild of tech golden boy Steve Jobs—and riding a tidal wave of hype to boot.

Due in U.S. stores Friday, the iPhone promises to stir up the mobile phone business. Apple Inc.'s first phone isn't expected to take much business from Schaumburg-based Motorola or anyone else in the short term, but it will change the industry landscape nonetheless, analysts say.

"It will not be a financial disrupter, but it will be a psychological disrupter, a research and development disrupter," said Roger Entner, senior vice president of IAG Research's communications sector. "That's because everybody will say [to competitors like Motorola], 'Why can't you do that?' " More>>

India's Telecom Sector Growing Exponentially

The mobile phone industry in India is growing rapidly and has even left China behind by some measures, whereas wireless operators are competing for the available and expanding spectrum. A record 5.9 Million new mobile phone subscribers were drawn by the Telecom sector in India in the month of August 2006, according to the COAI ( Cellular Operators Association of India ).

While India witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of mobile subscription, the number of mobile subscribers in China, for the first time, went below that of India in the month of August 2006, according to COAI.

RNCOS has recently published a report named "Indian Telecom Sector Analysis ( 2006-2007 )". The report provides extensive research and objective analysis of the Telecommunication Sector in India. More>>