Here’s how Nokia describe the facility:

[Agora is] a Social Visualiser made up of six wide-screen LCD screens that brings together conversation, insight and consumer device activity about the Nokia brand in a real-time and easily digestible format.

The creation of Agora is the first time multiple listening systems have been brought together, implemented globally, and delivered in a visual format that makes content and data suitable for a wide range of diverse Nokia audiences. This allows Nokia to put social listening at the centre of its global business, with all of its workforce having access to this unique continuous insight so they can develop their brand and devices to fit in with the needs of its customers.

Have you seen anything similar in other mobile industry firms? I know many companies now have a “Situation Room” style social media monitoring centre where many of their outreach teams base themselves. I wonder how many companies are doing similar to Nokia and taking the product of these monitoring systems/centres and plotting it visually along the lines of Agora?

I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to ‘meet the industry’ in Barcelona. Yes, it’s seriously tiring and yes, the thieves and vagabonds roaming Barcelona are seriously unpleasant. However MWC is a brilliant occasion for connecting with mobile companies and individuals — and it’s especially useful for taking the temperature of the marketplace.

But this year, I’ve got an exception: BNT. That’s code for Baby-Number-Two. The due date is this Friday but the reality is the baby could arrive just about any time from now until about the last day of Mobile World Congress.

Whilst you are all of considerable importance to me, there comes a time when a chap has to accept reality and responsibility: I can’t be galavanting around Barcelona if the baby’s just arrived. Or actually arriving.

My overarching focus across the MWC period will be on the new baby, helping my wife and entertaining wee Archie (currently 20 months old and fast becoming an iPad expert, by the way).

So there’s a small chance I will make it to Barcelona.

For that reason I haven’t been booking meetings.

Instead, I’ve been taking a substantial amount of pre-briefings — way more than I would normally do. If anything, the week before MWC is looking to be busier than the actual MWC-week for me, especially since I can be a lot more efficient via the telephone.

I am supremely confident at being able to deliver a super set of perspectives during the MWC week whether I’m at the show or not. Indeed, a lot of the pre-briefings I’ve already held under embargo are sounding absolutely fantastic.

I think it’s going to be a bumper MWC.

[ By the way -- for PRs: I've still got a bit of space left for pre-briefings. If I haven't managed to reply to your email or call yet, please just give me a nudge! ]

In some cases, operators have sought to re-word the meaning of unlimited. AT&T has — according to the post — decided to start limiting the unlimited usage of it’s top 5% of problem customers (that is, folk who have the temerity to actually use their phone’s data connection). AT&T has apparently throttled offending connections to the point that once folk have used up their “unlimited” 2.3 gigs of data, their connection becomes virtually unusable. Or really, REALLY slow.

Did you see what they did there? Aye. It’s still an unlimited connection. Just, the speed is rubbish. So you can’t sue! You are still getting unlimited access. It’s your own fault if you can’t be bothered to wait 2 minutes for a page to load. How is this possible?

Well, nobody ever signed up for a specific speed, did they? Most customers were simply sold an “unlimited data” connection because the operator didn’t have a flying fracking clue what is was doing in the first place — despite the fact they’re selling a resource that is, by its very nature, limited.

It’s the equivalent to me selling you unlimited access to my swimming pool. You assume that this buys you access to the whole pool. You might be a little bit annoyed if I rope off a swimming lane and assign that to you. But you’d probably put up with it. If I let you use the whole pool for the first twenty minutes of your swim and then restricted you to 3 square metres of water space, you’d probably go nuts. I’d happily point out that you still have unlimited access to the pool. You can use that 3 square metres ANY time you want.

Yeah. Ridiculous.

What would be even more crazy is if I started encouraging you to use my pool for twenty minutes then get out and go to the gym opposite. You’d be responsible for paying for the joining fee and the monthly maintenance.

Does that illustration sound a little bit off-the-wall? Well, it’s more or less what AT&T is doing…

Here’s one example from the AP piece. A consumer was sent this message:

ATT Free Msg: Your data use this month places you in the top 5% of users. Use Wi-Fi to help avoid reduced speeds. Visit www.att.com/dataplans or call 8663447584.

I’m really surprised to see this kind of ‘warning-marketing’. How rubbish does your infrastructure need to be when you start telling your customers to STOP using your facilities and to start using an alternative?

I really do have to breath deeply when I see this kind of behaviour in the mobile industry.

I have been banging on about the Cisco Cius for a long, long time now. (See my post: “Cisco Cius: an iPad for the enterprise,” June 30th 2010.)

Ever since the global networking giant announced their entry into the tablet market, I have been mentioning them in the same breath as Apple’s iPad, BlackBerry’s PlayBook and Motorola/Samsung’s offerings. Now and again, i’ll meet a CIO or IT Director who raises their eyebrows thoughtfully at the mention of the Cisco product.

In recent months though, nobody’s cared. Indeed Cisco’s fall from grace in my entirely anecdotal experience has been dramatic. They were definitely a contender back when the iPad was hitting the world for the first time. Indeed I remember quite a few CIOs who quietly pointed out that they were “waiting to see what Cisco had to offer” before deciding on iPad. I think that decision period closed off quite a long time ago. The iPad won.

The last chap I spoke to about the Cius as “something to possibly consider” regarded me as though I’d suggested he put on a bright pink dress and start calling himself Elizabeth.

“How much will that cost then?” he asked. Not for nothing does he operate a technology budget that requires a footer on every page explaining, “all numbers are millions unless specified.”

“Er, well it’s Cisco I said,” with a bit of a pained look, “So it’ll be at least 3x the normal cost for a tablet.”

The executive stopped in his tracks. We were walking along a corridor West Wing style.

“And the rest?” he asked, before continuing, “How much stuff will we have to buy from Cisco just to make it work?”

I let the silence fill the void.

“Exactly,” he said, “We’ll buy iPads.”

And thus the Cius got about 2 seconds worth of consideration from this senior executive.

I wonder if the rest of the market is reacting in this manner, too?

There are lots of arguments in favour of Cisco’s tablet offering (think: Really cool unified communications) however I think they’re all being waved away with the global obsession for consumerisation. Far from pushing back, many huge enterprises appear to be fully embracing this trend which is especially popular with everyone getting a ‘free’ iPad. To the point that I’m seeing more and more companies simply buying huge data connections into their offices and letting their employees (effectively) work the rest out. Skype, FaceTime, Viber, whatever. Is there even a need to deploy an IP voice system any more?

This is all wholly anecdotal.

However based on my direct experience, I can point to about ten companies each with an IT budget of over $100m who’d never, ever buy Cisco anymore. This isn’t a slight on Cisco. It’s just that these companies have moved on. They’ve moved to the point whereby they don’t bother and don’t need to invest in this kind of technology.

Do you remember the time when enterprises would gladly spend $1,100 on a proper enterprise device when the consumer equivalent cost half or a third of the price? I do. Times have changed. How are you going to get that one past the CFO when the iPad is $399 and in active use at most of the Fortune 500?

What’s prompted my post today is the post from the team at Network World who — gasp — have seen the Cius in real life (“First Look: Cisco Cius“). They’ve even touched it. But they weren’t allowed to take it back to the office. The post is well worth a look if you’re at all interested in enterprise computing and collaboration and you’re after anice overview of the Cius. The official Cisco Cius site also has some information on the product.

Meanwhile I’ve yet to physically see one myself.

Is there room in the market for Cius? It’s not going to be an easy road for Cisco. Not at all. Not when absolutely everything they can throw at you in terms of an argument can be duplicated (or, depending on your perception, bettered) by the iPad.

I’m open to the concept myself. I still do think that, correctly implemented, a “Cius on every desk” could be a very powerful business tool. What’s your view?

I had to check through the Mobile Industry Review archives just to be sure!

What a difference a year makes in the mobile industry, eh?

This time last year the market was reacting to the news that Nokia had dumped it’s “burning platform” and moved to Windows. There were lingering questions over Symbian and MeeGo (now effectively answered: No-go) but the dramatic move by Nokia silenced absolutely everybody, especially the uber-critical and highly influential Western Media.

The move bought Nokia a year’s worth of breathing space. Obviously the company couldn’t be expected to release a Windows Phone handset immediately. And the mobile world did — I think it’s fair to say — pull a rather thin smile at the promises from Nokia’s High Command relating to delivering their first Windows Phone within the year.

Fast forward a year — a year? I can’t quite believe it — and here is an astonishingly positive post about Nokia from the Western Media Imperial leader itself: TechCrunch. In fact the post is from the site’s Editor-in-Chief, Erick Schonfeld.

Here’s Schonfeld on the Lumia 800:

When you hold one in your hand, it’s clear that the smartphone wars are far from over. It is too easy to dismiss Windows Phone 7 as being too little, too late. That was our first reaction too. No, it’s clear that Windows Phone has more than a fighting chance. Microsoft will make sure that the economics are much more attractive to the carriers than the iPhone’s so that they push Windows Phone. If consumers bite, Windows Phone could emerge as a very strong smartphone platform.

via Fly Or Die: The Nokia Lumia 800 “Flagship” Windows Phone | TechCrunch.

This is the sort of rehabilitation of Nokia’s image that was a total pipe dream 12 months ago.

Finishing off his post, Erick points out that if he had to choose between a top of the range Android device or the Lumia 800, he’d have to think very, very carefully. That’s a huge, huge #win for Nokia given the positivity that continues to surround Android in the Valley.

By aligning itself so closely with Microsoft, Nokia has bought itself a ticket at the top table of the smartphone world. Critics might argue that Nokia has been pushed to the back standing behind Microsoft, however I think that’s been necessary. The company’s image was so bad that it was next to impossible for many in the Valley to take them seriously. So a Microsoft wing-man is proving thoroughly useful.

There’s a few caveats to this broad perspective on Nokia. Of course we need to see how consumers react to the Lumia devices. At the end of the day, it’s all about sales. Ideally we need to hear about millions of Lumias being placed into consumer hands this year. And then toward the end of this year, we need to see Nokia bring some of their own tricks to the fair — especially in the context of gorgeous hardware and magical mobilised services. I think they can deliver.

To answer my question then, is Nokia’s rehabilitation in the Western Media complete? Yes. I think it’s all about delivery now.

It looks like the Cupid service has been up and live since yesterday and already the team has produced an impressive 135 personalised videos. I wonder just how many they’ll get through by the 14th of February? 500 videos? 800? Either way, it’s a brilliant marrying of social media and marketing.

Of course this is similar to what we saw with the Old Spice campaign a little while ago — I don’t think that matters at all though. It’s all about the immediacy and the personalisation. Bring it on.

If you’d like to get one of the Cupids to send out a personalised message of lurrrve, it’s really easy. You just need to tweet with the hashtag. All the details are right here.

Here’s a note of explanation from the o2 team:

Alex Pearmain, Head of O2’s social media love messengers, said:

 

“You could say it with chocolates, you could say it with flowers. But we thought that if you’re a social media fan then sending a romantic Valentine’s from the messenger of love himself might be a little more original! We hope the O2 Cupids will bring some couples together come February 14th.”

Heh. Love it!

Here’s the o2 Cupid Youtube channel.

- – - – - 

We are in an unprecedented era for discounting and promotions. The marketing tactics, designed to lift sales of a variety of consumer electronics products, may actually erode margins if hastily designed. The lagging economy, consumer demand for deals and the rapidly accelerating promotional technology of online and mobile has led to a perfect storm that mobile retailers and manufacturers must be aware of. Enticing and dynamic promotions are now necessary to get customers in the door, but be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water.

How we got here:

1)      The Groupon phenomena has taken deal finding to a new audience – 18-35 year old, affluent households. Groupon and its competitors have so vastly changed the consumer psyche with respect to fair market value the trend is shifting – now consumers think paying full price means they are getting ripped off.

2)      Extreme couponing has become popular enough to support a prime time television show. This represents another little nudge to the consumer psyche; paying full price means you are being taken advantage of.

3)      The economy still struggles. The Great Recession has encompassed a wide swath of middle income consumers that need to price shop now even if they never had to in the past.

4)      Technology has not slowed down. This, paired with the mounting consumer demand for deals, means that promotions can spread faster than ever before thanks to couponing websites, mobile shopping applications, daily deal blogs, social network promotions and more.

Mobile retailers and manufacturers have delivered on consumers’ voracious deal-seeking demands that have grown out of the struggling economic situation. But as more shoppers take advantage of deals, margins of the sponsoring businesses are getting taxed. Moving forward, smart mobile marketers need to begin asking for more from their customers in return for these deep discounts. The good news is that a well designed promotion will not only work for the retailer or manufacturer, but offer appealing benefits to the consumer as well.

In 2012 mobile marketers must use promotions as the catalysts for long-term engagement and ROI, versus just temporary sales lift tactics. Deep discounts will migrate from instant deals to redemption-based models like rebates or cash-back promotions, and will require consumers to engage with a brand for a period of time.

The consumer redemption requirements to get a deep discount could be as simple as a Facebook “Like” or an email opt-in, or more detailed like participating in shopping preference surveys. This will give marketers the opportunity to collect critical consumer data, and provide new touch points for ongoing interaction. Plus, consumers hungry for deals seem willing to go that extra step: according to 2011 Parago research, more than 70% of consumers are willing to opt-in for additional emails when redeeming a reward.

Over the last few years this has worked well on Twitter and Facebook, where brands require customers to engage online to receive exclusive discounts. Research from Empathica shows that six in ten consumers follow at least one brand via a social network and forty percent do so to search for deals.

Next year this linking of promotions to information gathering will need to expand more concertedly beyond social networks and become a strategy for mobile retailers and manufacturers to reach all deal finders, on and offline.

Theresa Wabler is director of marketing at Parago, a provider of rewards-based incentive solutions. She can be reached at Theresa.Wabler@parago.com.

The point of the exercise is to test the company’s ability to handle the disruption likely to be caused by this year’s Olympics, especially given the Olympic rowing venue is just down the road from the Slough HQ).

I really, really like the concept of this. It’s a bold step by o2 on a number of different levels and comes after the company recently introduced it’s Joined Up People offering for enterprises.

Here’s the full release:

O2 today has announced the launch of the biggest flexible working initiative of its kind. Today, employees based at O2’s Slough HQ – a quarter of its 12,000-strong workforce – will participate in a flexible working pilot, operating remotely for the day as the doors are shut and lights turned off at the business’ 200,000 sq ft office

The pilot aims to push the boundaries of what is possible through flexible working and will underpin O2’s contingency plans to manage expected travel disruption and delays during the summer’s Olympics games.   Meticulous planning has been needed ensuring that 3,000 employees have access to the necessary technology tools, services and support to enable them to work completely remotely, for the entire day.  With one third of the UK’s businesses expected to encourage their staff to work flexibly this summer, O2 will share learnings from the pilot with other organisations, to support them in their plans for managing the impact of a range of events during the summer months.

O2 believe the initiative sends a clear signal to O2’s employees, business customers of every size and other UK organisations on the advantages of working flexibly. Earlier this year, O2 launched a new service, Joined Up People, part of its Joined Up Business vision.  The service is designed to prepare and equip businesses to maximise the use of ICT and provides businesses with the flexible infrastructure needed to support applications, content and services that their employees need to complete their job wherever they are.

O2 Business Director, Ben Dowd, commented: “We believe a cultural step-change is underway affecting staff and businesses, as work increasingly becomes something we do, rather than a place that we go. Today’s office-wide flexible working initiative is an opportunity for us to take the next step on our flexible working journey and tangibly demonstrate the opportunity and potential available to British businesses today. We practice what we preach, and by asking O2 employees to work together as a team to test the company’s flexible working practices for themselves, we want to show that there are no limits – no matter how big or small your business is. By sharing experiences from across our business, from business divisions to operations, we hope to encourage more organisations to help their workforce become mobile. ”

It is hoped that the pilot will also showcase the wider economic business case for flexible working in helping to drive efficiency, productivity and innovation. O2 has previously saved over £3 million in overheads through such measures. O2 will evaluate reductions to electricity usage, CO2 emissions and travel time as employees swap their usual journey to work in favour of working from a remote location. These learnings will be applied in line with the company’s ambitious three year sustainability plan, in which O2 pledges to help over 125,000 business employees work flexibly, and collectively save over 500,000 miles of travel and over 160,000 thousand tonnes of carbon emissions.

The initiative marks the latest phase in O2’s flexible working journey, following in the footsteps of previous efforts. These include O2’s Tomorrow’s Workspace initiative, which saw the business consolidate its operations into a single campus in Slough. By enabling the workforce to be more mobile, O2 achieved a 53 per cent reduction in its carbon footprint and despite having the same number of people HQ is now operating with 550 fewer desks.

Flexible working has become an increasingly important aspect of British business culture, with a growing number of organisations and employees adopting a more flexible approach to working life as new technologies make it increasingly easy to conduct business from beyond the confines of the office. But figures from O2 suggest businesses’ policies and practices are typically narrow in their focus.

While more than a third (39 per cent) of businesses say that allowing staff to work flexible hours makes their workforce more productive, and 43 per cent believe that it helps to retain employees, existing policies are often outdated and ineffective. 77 per cent of organisations are hindering the sharing of best practice by preventing staff from working flexibly across teams, while 16 per cent still have no flexible working policy at all.

About Joined Up People: O2 has converted it’s understanding of businesses’ needs and objectives into mobile solutions tailored to help organisations address the challenges they face as employees’ work and personal lives become blurred.
Its Joined Up People service helps organisations with widely varying flexible working practices on a journey towards implementing them more consistently and effectively. The service consists of consultancy, security and mobile device management (MDM) in addition to O2’s core portfolio of devices, hardware, mobile, fixed line and broadband. It is supported by technical professional services and end user adoption training to help organisations.

Bring it on, o2! It’s going to be fascinating what results you report. I look forward to reading.

And here’s a video from the company outlining what’s going on:

In a rather unexpected twist, Canada’s largest newspaper and newspaper of record — The Globe and Mail — has published details of Apple’s upcoming iTV. According to the paper, Rogers and Bell — Canada’s two largest telcos — are already testing the Apple iTV in their labs.

via Apple iTV detailed: It’s like a 42-inch iPad | ExtremeTech.

I’ll have two, by the way. Or maybe three.

Mobile World Congress isn’t far away now.

The noise has already begun — at least when I’m looking at the avalanche of emails arriving about the planet’s biggest mobile event.

Back in January I wrote about some of the rather cool sponsorship packages we’ve got ready-and-waiting to help boost attention during this period. We’ll be unveiling the sponsors shortly. However I wanted to point out that it’s not too late if you’re looking for a way ahead.

I know from direct experience that one of the biggest problems with MWC is trying to get the ‘buzz’ factor locked down. That can be really difficult in today’s environment when the attention naturally falls on only the biggest brands.

The worst situation for many companies is the week after MWC — or worse, the board-meeting after MWC, when the rest of the company asks you what you achieved for all the money and resource you invested. Sadly, the stark reality is that beyond collecting a lot of business cards and attending some smart parties, it can be difficult to demonstrably ‘break through’ the noise. And this year’s MWC promises to be absolutely filled to the rafters with noise given the status of the mobile industry at the moment.

That’s where we come in.

We’ve got some sponsorship packages ranging from £5.5k to £25k. A video series, a text content series, a mix of both. We’ve designed each package to help significantly contribute to that buzz factor for the duration of MWC. Sponsor a series with us here at MWC and you’ll get our support alongside our usual MWC coverage. If the Wall Street Journal does in fact pick up your announcement — then that will be fantastic. But just in case the only thing you’re guaranteed is some cut-n-pasting on those press release sites, we can be there to make sure that you’ve got a nice chunk of buzz from sponsoring a series here on MIR.

You’ll also receive a warm note of thanks from us and the readers — any revenues we make in sponsorship help augment the site’s on-going running costs (and our legendary Unlimited Drinks events).

I’ve put everything in a PDF file together with a site overview, stats and the like. Shoot me a note (ewan@mobileindustryreview.com) and I’ll send it to you by return — and if any of the packages look interesting, let’s discuss some more.

There’s still plenty of time. And what’s more, we’ve configured the packages so that they can be fire-and-forget — i.e. it’d only require the minimum of time from your point of view. Indeed we can get a sponsorship package up and running with just a 30 minute briefing chat.

(And if you’re a PR, I know that sponsorship doesn’t necessarily qualify as true ‘public relations’ but if you think your clients might have an interest or if you reckon one of our packages might be nice to run alongside your planned campaign, please do also drop me a note.)

Meanwhile: Bring on MWC!

Read on for more details:

Dan and James are doing it again:

Are you having trouble making it to MWC? Have you decided to say ‘BALLS!’ to Barcelona?

Do you have a slight obsession with all things cellular?

THEN JOIN US FOR BEERS AND GENERAL MOBILE MERRIMENT ON THURSDAY MARCH 1st 2012

We’ve got the upstairs at the All Bar One on New Oxford Street booked, but if we over do it we can just flood the ENTIRE PUB with mobile folk and have a jolly good time.

Spread the word – #NotatMWC

The Facebook event page is right here.

Here’s what he’s looking for:

Role 1:

The Product Owner is responsible for to driving the lifecycle of the growing number of apps we have from inception to live. The person will be managing multiple third-parties in an agile environment to deliver apps across multiple platforms on time.

Role 2:

I also need a Mobile Business Banking app strategist. This person will help us understand our competitive environment, analyse in depth the growing mobile payment ecosystem offering insight and suggestions on RBS’s mobile roadmap.

What do you think? Are any of them up your street? Or perhaps relevant to a friend or colleague?

Both positions are permanent at a mid-senior level and offer the right person the hugely exciting opportunity to help define the future of the burgeoning mobile banking industry.

If you’re interested in talking with Ed and getting some more information, he’s asked that you email me directly and then I’ll forward your note on or simply give you his email. (I didn’t want to publish it here though.)

My email is ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

Please do pass this around to anyone you think might want to know.

Super work Best Buy!

- – - – -

Square Mobile:

The camera phone:

Video sharing:

The first text message:

Text to speech:

Shazam:

Instagram:

The dated, dusty and generally dreadful technology store?

Oh dear.

Let’s be clear, Dixons Travel is pretty excellent. I’ve bought quite a lot from them over the years — indeed I even picked up a £1,400 laptop once on a semi-whim. Dixons Travel shops at Heathrow tend to be brightly lit, modern and staffed by (generally) keen folk, ready to help.

Almost the polar opposite, then, to the dive that is Dixons Bracknell, nearby my place in Ascot. It’s a shocking place, stuffed to the brim of old, over-priced technology that’s hardly helping anyone. As for customer service? It’s rare, very rare, to find a Dixons chappy who’s happy to help beyond demanding you ‘enter your PIN’ and querying if you ‘want the receipt in the bag’.

PC World is another flipping tragedy. If John Browett is seriously meant to be the guy who masterminded their development, I’m sorry to say, they’re about a trillion miles away from the quality environment of an Apple Store.

That, I should point out, hasn’t stopped me buying — begrudgingly — from PC World on occasion, especially since it’s rather useful to walk-away with something there-and-then.

Perhaps John was the loanlone voice at Dixons/PC World? Perhaps he was the chap kicking and screaming and trying to get the dead-end retailer to do something, anything, that might make customers smile? Maybe he focused his attention on the Travel shops first?

Either way, the benefit of the doubt is most certainly necessary. It’s a phenomenal role for John and I wish the chap every success. He’ll be inheriting probably one of the most fascinating physical sales environments on the planet.

Here’s how GigaOM reacted to the news:

Tim Cook has made his first major appointment since taking the reins at Apple, bringing in the head of British technology retailer Dixons, John Browett. He comes in to fill the gap left by the departure of Ron Johnson, the man who spent a decade building the Apple Store into a force to be reckoned with.

 

via Who is Apple’s new retail boss, and what will he do? — Tech News and Analysis.

The iPad is a luxury toy. It’s also a powerful, adaptable tool. That much has become obvious over the past two years as the device has made its way into classrooms, cockpits, and hospitals.

The iPad’s fairly steep price, however, has kept it firmly entrenched in the developed world. That’s starting to change, as evidenced by efforts from Exprima Media and coffee importer Sustainable Harvest to bring the iPad to coffee co-ops and farmers in East Africa, Mexico, and South America.

via Can The iPad Revolutionize Rural Agriculture? | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation.

Now, all the iFans go absolutely nuts, there’s method in this apparent madness, especially given Apple has just completed yet another ridiculously amazing quarter.

If you recall, Nokia was swimming along knocking out millions of handsets a day before it reached what we might politely describe as a market-required-correction. Things got so bad in February last year that the company found itself in a seriously precarious ‘burning platform’ position.  It’s of platforms we wanted to talk, though.

In this week’s episode we discuss the ‘technology cycle’ and how the need to refresh a mobile platform every 5 years – something that is currently causing Nokia and RIM so much pain – will eventually come to Apple.

How will Apple handle that?

How will they navigate the treacherous waters? The mobile industry is moving faster and faster — and although Apple is easily knocking back billions in revenue at the moment, it’s conceivable that it could come unstuck rather fast.

We do think Apple is one of the few firms with the vision and experience to navigate this tricky process successfully. That didn’t stop us wargaming a host of scenarios though.

Have a listen and tell me what you think:

[ Direct MP3 download - 34MB ]

There are lots of ways to follow or subscribe to the Podcast using iTunes and other popular services.

Of course, Citrix is nothing new — it’s been around for a long time — what’s new, here, is that this demo desktop is running out a data centre in the Docklands area of London, which means it’s ridiculously fast and ridiculously responsive. Plus the desktop is running on a dedicated blade server that just SCREAMS through the standard desktop applications. Word, Excel, and so on, they all start up in what feels like a few miliseconds. I particularly like the ability to return to my virtual desktop and find it sitting there precisely as I left it. I like the fact it’s online all the time!

I’m hopeful that we’ll see more and more companies begin to adopt this kind of facility for their end-users. I don’t think it will be long before many companies start moving the whole issue of ‘desktop’ into the cloud and simply pay for it like they do any other commodity service.

Are there any readers already using this kind of service in a live environment?

Posted via email from MIR Live

The latest results from data firm GfK show that BlackBerry® was the #1 selling smartphone in the British market for the second year running. It continues to dominate the market, grabbing 26.3% of December sales and averaging 27.7% through 2011.

The BlackBerry® global subscriber base grew 35% year on year in December to 75 million. The UK customer base is going from strength to strength with over eight and a half million active subscribers by the end of 2011.

This is good news for RIM. They surely need it.

I’m going to be posting more about them as I’m due an updated opinion post given the shenanigans over the last few weeks. The short version: RIM is down but most definitely not out. Depending on how the company responds to the new chap, I think RIM could come back very strong.

If you’re budget is £20 then perhaps some nice flowers might suffice. But if you’re looking to shock-and-awe your other half (or, if you’re like me and looking for any excuse to buy cool technology), then this marketing messaging could well pay dividends. Apple has kept things neutral — however Amazon adopted a rather brazen approach, assuming that anyone reading would be male. Or, at least, specifically targeting males (e.g. “Buy her a Kindle.”)

I reckon a lot of women would be seriously impressed by the arrival of an iPad on 14th of February, as apposed to some beautiful flowers. And if goes both ways. If you’re looking for something to buy for your chap, surely you can’t ever fail buying an iPad or a Kindle Fire for them?

However spare a thought for the poor florists who are less than impressed with this marketing. Valentine’s Day used to be exclusively about (crazily expensive) flowers and (crazily expensive) paper cards. Now, as far as Apple and Amazon are concerned, it’s about (crazily expensive) consumer electronics.

My view: If in doubt, buy her an iPad. If she’s got an Android phone, buy her a Kindle Fire. Job done.

In today’s environment, what you really want is the customer’s money, every month, like clockwork. You can make a lot more cash out of the customer in other ways, for example up-selling smart services or taking a cut of other transactions. Of course, when you’re entire operation is obsessing over how to take an extra twenty pence from me for a particular phone call, they’re not bothering focusing on taking tens of pounds in revenue from other activities.

All operators know this. They know they’re spunking their efforts up against the wall, most of the time. Witness, for example, the numerous industry executives I meet regularly telling me that they’ve no flipping clue what voice revenues they’re going to make this year. Yup. What they do know is that the majority of consumers are doing their level best to stick-one-in-the-eye of the finance bods and be very, very careful about what they do with their phones, so as not to overpay.

Why not stop fighting with the consumer? Why not zero-rate everything for a fixed monthly fee on a 24-month contract? Then at least the finance bods can relax and you can then focus on creating added value services that add significantly to the revenue?

Well that’s what T-Mobile has announced this morning.

It’s called The Fully Monty — and yes, it is absolutely unlimited everything. And before I go into detail, I should point out that this is potentially hugely damaging to Three. We’ll get to that in a moment.

There are four price ‘brackets’ thus:

As you can see there, at £36/month, you’ll get 2,000 minutes to other networks and a fairly good deal on the key smartphone offerings. Beyond £36, it’s now about how much you want to pay up-front for your handset. For an extra £5, you can advance to unlimited everything. And if you jump to £61/month, the 32GB iPhone 4S is free — and it’s just £29 for the 64GB.

Now then. It’s not truly ‘unlimited everything’. No. The finance bods obviously stuck their pins into Ben Fritsch, T-Mobile’s Head of Propositions, preventing him from zero-rating calls to number ranges such as 0800, 0808, 0845 and so on. They’re still a bollock-crushing 40 pence a minute. A FLIPPING MINUTE! And if you’re calling Jersey, that stlll-doesn’t-count.

However let’s stay positive.

Finally, one of the top operators in the UK has decided to dump the “minutes”. For quite a while, unlimited texts has been a popular add-on for most price plans, but usually you’ve had to pick and choose your ‘add-ons’ to try and get, for example, unlimited landline calls, but only 200 cross-network calls. It’s made the whole price plan decision process a bit annoying for everyone for the last decade.

It’s a landmark gesture to just make it all (or, most of it) unlimited.

I think this will appeal to quite a lot of contract customers.

Let’s hear from Mr Fritsch of T-Mobile:

The Full Monty has been designed for customers who want the peace of mind that there are absolutely no limits placed on their allowances, whilst also knowing they’re getting market leading value for money. We believe our Pay Monthly portfolio offers plans to suit anyone’s needs, all at accessible prices – and we’re really proud to be the first to offer a plan like The Full Monty in the UK”.

And for those of you reading, wondering whether there’s a fair-use policy on the data? There isn’t. Here are the words direct from T-Mobile’s release:

Customers signing up to The Full Monty 24 month plan will not only have the reassurance that there are no caps on their calls, texts and internet, they will also have access to unlimited WiFi, and can use their mobile internet for whatever they like – including tethering (using a smartphone as an internet connection for a laptop or tablet), streaming and downloading.

And here, for the sake of clarity, are the little footnotes:

Minutes and texts unlimited allowance apply to all UK mobile networks, voicemail and numbers beginning with 01, 02, 03 (excluding Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man). Calls to 08 (including 0870) or 070 numbers are premium rate numbers and excluded from your inclusive allowances. Calls to 0800, 0808, 0845 and other 08 numbers cost 40p/min. See www.t-mobile.co.uk/help&support/priceplans. Picture messages are not included within the allowance.

The Full Monty plan provides access to our preferred WiFi partner’€™s WiFi network; presently this is BT Openzone network excluding any sites providing access to any organisation or location which is part of the Olympic Games in London in 2012. The BT Openzone terms can be found at www.btopenzone.com/terms-and-conditions/index.jsp

So, this is good news. It’s about time we had this kind of action from the big operator groups in the UK. I’m interested to see just how long Vodafone will be able to cling-on to their “minutes” obsession as a result.

But there’s a few issues to consider.

First, T-Mobile and Orange have 28 million customers in the UK. Yes, their networks are shared, but just how well can they support data? Is this likely to turn into a One2One-style free-evening-and-weekend-calls arrangement whereby yes, it’s unlimited, but you can’t actually *access* the network because of congestion? That’s going to be interesting to see.

Second, if you’re paying a metered £1 or £2 per megabyte for data on T-Mobile, you’re hardly likely to react very well to other people paying ‘nothing’ but sitting on the internet watching iPlayer from their handsets all day, “cos it’s free”, especially if your data speeds go from good to super-slow.

I suppose that by limiting the spend to £36+/month, T-Mobile will be hoping to avoid the yoof community who are likely to spend a lot of time doing this.

Third, I worry for Three.

Their whole marketing campaign and message has been about their “The One” plan which has been trampled all over by today’s announcement. There’s still some juice in Three’s offer (their plan starts at £25/month, 2,000 minutes, 5,000 texts with unlimited data). For instance, the company’s “Text 500″ plan comes with 500 minutes, 5,000 texts and 1GB of data. For £2 more on T-Mobile, you can get everything unlimited. This is a bit of an arse for Three.

I trust the rest of the UK operator community will now sit up and start dusting off the “what happens when someone else does unlimited, properly” strategy plans.

Good work T-Mobile.

Meanwhile, if Ben Fritsch and his team could see their way to introducing TMOGOLD (full details here), I’d be even more delighted.

Posted via email from MIR Live

The city of Austin’s Convention Center waves goodbye to over-sized, overstuffed paper binders by deploying iPads and developing custom apps with FileMaker Go.

via How the Austin Convention Center saved $50,000 by deploying iPads and Filemaker Go | TabTimes.

This paragraph in the post specifically caught my attention:

In previous iterations, the organization attempted to use Windows-based tablets by Motion Computing and Samsung’s Q1 device. Both proved too cumbersome. A second attempt at mobilization using Dell’s Windows Mobile Axim Pocket PC also fell apart. “There were too many steps involved in turning on the device and using it,” Moore explained.

There’s such pent-up demand for mobilised strategies in enterprise. Since the days of the Compaq iPad (and before), organisations have been trying to implement mobile strategies, but as the chap in this piece points out, it’s always been a little bit too difficult for anyone but the most committed.

There was a simply brilliant array of vendors and brands represented, from e-commerce platforms to aggregators, digital service providers, mobile advertising, telecoms — indeed the selection of innovative mobile companies present was really encouraging.

Perhaps predictably, there was strong enthusiasm for MWC — and I must say a shout-out to James Body of Truphone for having attended 13 MWCs (and 3GSMs as they were own) so far. There were also some MWC-first-timers so I did my best to offer some useful advice.

What was clear from the discussions last night is that there’s a real mix of companies exhibiting this year — not just the usual suspects — so this certainly suggests that MWC will have quite a different look and feel this year.

Given the fact MWC has been pushed back to late February this year, I think it’s fair to say that quite a lot of people are a bit late to the game this year. Some companies I’ve spoken to recently are only JUST getting round to planning things. It’s getting late!! If you’re in need of a bit of assistance for the show, do consider talking to Hotwire. They’re task masters when it comes to MWC so if you’d like a warm intro, please let me know or give Annette Leach a call (+44 207 608 2500) and tell her I sent you.

Thank you to the Hotwire team for hosting the event and taking care of the drinks.

If you managed to make it down, thank you for coming!

We’re not quite there today in terms of ensuring everything will intelligently connect, but I don’t think we’re very far away from that. Witness, for example, the GSMA’s prediction that by 2020 — that’s less than 8 years away — the world will have a networked ecosystem of 24 billion connected devices!

I’m particularly interested in the segment below on automotive connectivity — I think that’s due for quite a renaissance over the next few years. My Range Rover, for example, has a built-in car phone system. So that does count as ‘connected’. But can you imagine if the car had an iPhone or a BlackBerry integrated into the dashboard? The possibilities and use-cases would be far, far more exciting. I’m looking forward to something like that.

There’s a lot more information at the association’s Connected Life website. Here’s the infographic: