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 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

More people are repeating the rumours of last week. And the week before. So. It must be true.

And somebody’s mate reckons it’s definitely true.

Meanwhile, hold off on that iPad 2 purchase for a little while, right?

You can read BGR’s latest ‘reportedly’ post here.

This is all well and good.

It’s just a bleedin’ annoyance.

I no longer require the iPhone 4. I still require the 3UK service. So we’ve a natural way ahead, right? Why don’t you just give me the new iPhone 4S, charge me a reasonable amount and take the old one — the iPhone 4 — back and credit me the 200+ pounds of value from that.

No.

3UK isn’t built to work in this manner.

So I took out the new contract, got the new iPhone 4S in return for about £279 up front.

Then I got the iPhone 4 valued by Envirofone at about £218 if memory serves.

So that means it cost me £61 to upgrade to a new iPhone 4S, effectively — if I ignore the outstanding line rental on the existing iPhone 4 I’ve committed to.

Why couldn’t 3 have just charged me £61 to upgrade? Because their accounting and financial bods don’t view it this way. It’s not a big problem. I’m just highlighting the arse required to play the contract game.

I’m now going to use the £218 to pay off the outstanding line rental on the old iPhone 4.

This will involve quite a lot of heartache speaking to their call centre who will be horrified. I wonder what they’re going to say when I explain that I’m not actually leaving, that I’ve already got a new contract and I just need to kill the existing one? Perhaps they will be content.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

When users will find out for certain is also subject to debate; a March launch has been suggested for the iPhone by a number of blogs, who have also suggested it for the iPad 3. Hexus, however, has claimed that Apple could make a rare announcement at February’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

via Apple’s larger iPhone 5 ‘coming in March’ – Telegraph.

Generally speaking — and famously — Apple never bother with conferences unless it’s got “Mac” or “Apple” written on it.

I don’t see them breaking the habit and exhibiting at MWC any time soon.

However, I do think that it would be very, very smart if Apple made an announcement either the week before or during Mobile World Congress — especially if it was iPhone-related.

Apple already did this to an extent with CES — however, the iPhone and the mobile industry are a seriously different kettle of fish.

If Apple really wanted to upset the existing world order (and the millions upon millions of Euros being invested during Mobile World Congress), they should call a “Let’s talk about iPhone” press conference for the first Monday of MWC-week.

Goodness me.

Can you imagine?

Just speculating brings me out in goosebumps.

The world’s consumer media (mainstream and bloggers) will be flying into Barcelona on Sunday evening to record their “here’s a new Android” segment for 30 minutes on Monday morning, before flying out same-day. [Of course, the trade media will be there for the duration].

Can you imagine the shock if Apple made the media choose? Either you cover our keynote about the new iPhone in San Francisco. Or you go to that also-ran in Barcelona.

To be clear, I’m certainly not labelling MWC thus! That was me putting fighting words in Apple’s mouth.

Sparks would fly though.

And there’d be no choice. The media would flock to San Francisco. The anchors, the editors, the pundits — they’d all be in California and MWC would either be ignored or

The ramifications for the industry would be profound. Of course the mobile industry now exists in Apple’s shadow. But not officially. Not, really. And certainly not at MWC. In Barcelona, the operators can freely strut their stuff and the other platforms can have a bit of time in the media sun. Apple is always in the back of everyone’s mind at MWC, but it’s possible to suspend reality for at least a few minutes.

And it’s in this limited reality that the rest of the industry gets to pretend that it’s still relevant, that things are still the same as they were pre-iPhone. That nothing has really changed.

Look at the keynotes at MWC over the last few years since the iPhone’s announcement. iPhone and Apple has been largely irrelevant — the industry’s still under the impression it’s in control.

A serious tub-thumping press conference from Apple timed to remove all attention from MWC would illustrate the new world order nicely.

I’m a fan of this kind of hard ball because it’s one of the only measures that might prompt the rest of the mobile marketplace — the operators in particular — to actually get off their arses and start innovating properly.

Anyway.

Perhaps Apple will be too polite and give-way.

Have a watch of the video:

Simply fantastic.

We are really not that far away from being able to do the equivalent of Star Trek’s “COMPUTER: LIGHTS” commands. This real working example (covered in Mashable) uses some Creston AMS-AIP home automation equipment with an intermediary proxy server to handle the connectivity to Siri.

How long before Apple release a fully approved, fully managed home automation/API product/service?

How long before folk will be buying houses and asking if it’s Siri-compatible?

The interesting reality? Yes.

In fact — and I make no apologies for this — I don’t really care.

I’ll have it. Next.

Just how good is Apple, if I can say that?

It’s a given that I’ll purchase one. Possibly two.

This approach does make a mockery of all this hardware buying nonsense though. At what point can I just subscribe to Apple so I can get rid of messing about having to actually queue up or chase around for a unit? I’d sooner pay Apple £399/12 = £33.25 per month so that when the new shiny one is launched, I get it at my door.

Whether Apple release an iPad 3 (i.e. much revised) or simply do a quick evolution update, the matter is settled for me.

And it’s settled for you too, right?

You don’t really have a choice.

I was being pitched last week by a supplier to a company I’m advising. The chap bought out a first generation iPad.

I almost had to turn away.

Oh no.

Ohhhh no.

“GEEZ,” I thought, “Look how THICK that is? Look how heavy it feels in his hand!”

That’s the business equivalent of bringing out your 2002-era Compaq laptop. It’s simply not doable.

You cannot be seen with a first generation iPad anymore. You know this. I know this. Apple most certainly knows this.

You have to give it to them. Even if the iPad ’3′ is simply the iPad 2 with a better screen and, say, Siri, then yeah… millions are going to have to buy them — almost automatically.

The $399 price point is such that they’re very much accessible for anyone with a credit card and the desire or the “need” (i.e. the desire).

If you’re working in the End User/Desktop Services team of a major company, get ready to service the myriad of requests for updates. There’s a valid business reason — i.e. reputation — as to why your chaps and ladies will start to demand iPad 3s. Some will think this ridiculous. But the majority, well, we’re already under the Apple Fashion Spell.

If you don’t think there’s an Apple Fashion Spell, then you’re either still using a Nokia N95 as your mobile multimedia computer of choice along with a 486DX (with math-co-processor on board) desktop, claiming that they “do the job just fine”.

The rest of us are sitting staring at our iPhone 4S devices wondering what the fluck Apple was thinking delivering a device that LOOKS exactly the same as an iPhone 4. How the hell are we meant to differentiate between the Vicky Pollards with their OLD iPhone 4 handsets? That is Apple Fashion Spell pain.

So bring on the iPad 3 whenever it arrives. March? April? Whatever. I’ll take two please.

Meanwhile, can someone else do a bit of innovation and original thinking rather than just make shite copies of iPads that are rubbish? Thanks.

Sent from my iPad.

It is the dawning of the age of cloudquarius. Acer, in addition to a set of ultrabooks, just announced something it’s calling AcerCloud. This service, like iCloud, brings all of your content onto all of your devices, allowing you to “create, acquire and consume on different devices.”

via AcerCloud Is Acer’s Answer To The Media Cloud | TechCrunch.

It’s the first new year’s eve since the launch of iMessage. Will Apple’s servers hold up? Can they teach the MNOs a thing or two about scaling? History suggests not but I guess we’ll find out!

Jay responded:

That would be a no! It’s midnight here in Hong Kong, and trying to send *any text* with iMessage enabled results in “Message send failure” – turning off iMessage, and the mobile operator handles it just fine.

So I guess even just the lookup of “is this an iMessage person” was failing… ouch!

My son was due out of bed at about 530am (teething at the moment) so I didn’t bother doing the whole New Year thing. I was in bed by 10pm I think. Life as a father with a toddler, eh? So I didn’t get to see if iMessage performed nicely during the midnight rush. How did you find things? It raises interesting questions about Apple’s ability to truly scale to significant volume. One imagines that Hong Kong wasn’t doing THAT many iMessages, surely?

Jonathan Ive is rumored to have an Apple-branded HDTV hanging out in his office. According to a USA Today source who worked at Apple, Apple’s head of design is sitting on a 50-inch iTV that is likely to hit the market later this year.

via Rumor: Jonathan Ive Has a 50-inch Apple HDTV in His Office | TechnoBuffalo.

Did you catch this story doing the rounds and picked up by The Telegraph today? A Canadian chap used his iPad as a passport to get into and out of the country:

Martin Reisch said on Tuesday a slightly annoyed US border officer let him cross into the United States from Quebec after he presented a scanned copy of his passport on his Apple iPad.

Mr Reisch was a half hour from the border when he decided to try to gain entry rather than turn back and make a two-hour trek back home to Montreal to fetch his passport.

He told the officer he was heading to the US to drop off Christmas gifts for his friend’s kids. He said that true story, the scanned passport and his driver’s licence helped him get through last week.

via Man enters US without passport – thanks to his iPad – Telegraph.

You can bet that somewhere there’s a National Security Director having kittens at this news.

However I’m pleased for the chap — I’m pleased his technology was able to help him out. Since he had his driver’s license to confirm his ID and since (I’m sure) the immigration officer was able to a quick lookup on the passport number to verify, all was good.

I doubt the Americans — or any Government — will want to encourage this sort of behaviour. Surely* this kind of issue is bound to occur all over the world every day?

How long must we do the silly dance with the immigration officers when we’re moving from country to country.

I find it rather silly that I have to stand in line nowadays when I visit the States given the amount of verification that takes place. I recently had to renew my ESTA application for a trip. It went through in miliseconds but they wanted every single piece of information possible to verify my ID. That *MUST* be presented on screen (or on some big ‘orrible massive computer) when I turn up at the immigration desk and present my passport.

When will we get a Passport app for the iPad? Bring it on.

[*And don't call me Shirley -- for any fans of the movie, Airplane]

Finally — just in case you find yourself at SFO minus your passport but with other forms of semi useful ID, make sure you’ve got a high-res scan of your passport in either Evernote or DropBox…

And yeah, I look shocking in that passport photo. So bad that when I was leaving Germany a while ago, the immigration officer helpfully told me he thought I looked like an Axe Murderer. And folk say the Germans don’t have a sense of humour!

I have to say I’m sorely tempted to try out XCom Global’s latest offering. They can now offer you unlimited data via MiFi (or USB stick) for a thoroughly reasonable $14.95 per day across a phenomenal 195 countries (up from 67 previously).

There’s no charge for the equipment and delivery is (generally free if you order 10 days prior to departure).

MiFis are $14.95/day and USB sticks are $12.95/day.

It’s a really, really smart idea.

As an illustration (and assuming you’re British), if you went to the US from the 20th to 27th of January (that’s a rental period of 8 days), XCom Global would charge you $14.95 per day bringing the total costs to $119.60.

Now.

Let’s have a wee think.

$119 is £76. You’d already be spending £5 per day on the likes of Vodafone to get 25mb usage. That’s £40 for the trip so far. So for an extra £36, you could use XCom’s service and actually use ‘unlimited’ data rather than having to be very careful about your activities.

Or, if you’re going to Mobile World Congress and you’d like unlimited data on a MiFi unit there for the duration of the show, you’d pay XCom Global just $59.80 for the privilege — a thoroughly reasonable £38. Ben and I spent more than this arsing around in the Vodafone Spain shop in Barcelona last year.

I don’t think there’s a better alternative. You could obviously get a local SIM — but that’s wholly inconvenient on quite a few counts. NONE of the SIMs I bought from the Vodafone Spain shop worked for more than 5 minutes because the guy in the shop didn’t quite understand what we said when we POINTED at the UNLIMITED DATA PREPAY offer. I burnt through my €20 credit in about 5 minutes. If you don’t want that hassle then I can’t see why you wouldn’t check out the likes of XCOM Global.

Another viewpoint: Your operator will probably offer you a fairly decent European roaming deal — £5 or £2 per day for 20-25mb of usage. This might be fine if you’re on holiday but if you’re at Mobile World Congress, the chances are you’ll have some high roaming requirements.

Yeah. More and more I’m thinking this might be a highly sensible choice for many readers.

What I would like to see is some kind of permanent offer, e.g. buy the MiFi from us for $200 and then when you need to use the service, just pay $15 per day. Something like that? I’d like one device that I could keep in my pocket and use wherever I was — a little bit like ABroadband (but without the per-megabyte fees).

Other things to consider with XCOM Global —  you’ll probably want to think about insurance. If you lose the device, you’ll need to cough up a rather shocking $800. That is very painful. If you’re paying their $3.95 insurance the loss charge is $160. Don’t lose it, bottom line.

XCom Global won’t be suitable for every use case but I think it’s got serious merits. There’s a lot more information on their site.

Update: Here’s a contribution from reader Ilicco who’s currently (at time of writing) on vacation in Byron Bay, Australia — and roaming (as per his comment below) at phenomenally good rates.

I’m pretty particular about having a decent set of earphones around. I do certainly appreciate the super-expensive, super-quality ones, but there’s a time and a place for those. I’m particularly interested in good quality ‘normal’ earphones. Earphones for the morning rush-hour commute, for example, where you’re being pulled from pillar to post by the crowds. Routine situations such as this aren’t necessarily the place for your £300 earphones. I had a pair of mine severely damaged by some guy rushing off the tube carriage at the last minute and taking half of my earphone-set with him. He just gave me an apologetic look and rushed off as the doors closed, leaving me to pick up the debris on the floor.

So when the chaps at mobile accessory specialists Wireless Ground emailed to see if I’d like to take a look at a pair of NX80 Noisehush Stereo headset, I said yup!

They retail at a wholly reasonable — and in fact, rather unbelievable $19.95 or £12.70 (that’s against a standard RRP of $69 or £44).

I say unbelievable because, well, there are two really good points about this headset:

1. Everyone assumes that you are wearing some crazy super-super expensive earphones because of the red cord. It’s very reminicent of those Dr Dre headphones you see around the place.

2. The cord is a revelation. I don’t know what they’ve done with it but it’s really REALLY thin and the plastic or rubber they’ve used is brilliant at avoiding tangles. This is not to be under-rated. I wonder how many readers out there have got some ‘ok’ earphones that they have to unpack and unwind for minutes every single time they get on the train? You don’t have that problem with the NX80s.

Now then I’m no audio genius so I shouldn’t comment on the frequency or bass response. I really only have the following definitions that I use — bad, good, excellent. I would place the NoiseHush in the good segment. Definitely good, and arguably excellent depending on your quality appreciation. However, do remember the price point here.

There’s also an inline microphone and call-answer button. The microphone does a good job of filtering out external noise — but then again, remember the price point.

If you’re thinking about getting hold of a good pair of secondary earphones for the commute, then do consider these. You can make some serious mistakes at the $20/£20 price point as I have in the past with Vodafone (incidentally, the ones I bought at their store were also £12 — I wished I’d known about these Noisehush ones then!)

If you’re in the market, then Wireless Ground will ship you these for $19.95 plus $9.95 international shipping so $29 in total or £18.

Here’s what he’s looking for:

Ewan,

Happy New Year to you. I hope you had a good one.

Do you have of know of a bracket that will fix a small video camera on an arm to an ipad? I want to film the use of our new app. I want to film not just what’s on the ipad screen but the ‘user view’ i.e. close enough that you see what’s on the screen but also the whole ipad and the immediate area around it.

If I could mount the video camera at fixed distance from the ipad then I would only need to hold the ipad itself while filming. The alternative is filming with a device in each hand (which I’ve tried and am terrible at) or have someone filming over my shoulder which isn’t great either.

Any ideas?

The alternative is some kind of gaffer tape solution!

Regards
Paul

Now then — have you come across anything like this?

As I commented in my initial post on the matter back in October, Photo stream was a total screw-up. A joyous concept that arrived half-baked. Or, not even that — it was still frozen, waiting for the oven. Being unable to selectively delete photos from your device photo stream made it either unusable or highly frustrating for most right-thinking users.

I commented as such on my post.

Predictably, I received a barrage of shocked Apple people who defended the 5.0 implementation, pointing out that my feelings and instincts were completely wrong.

Suck it.

I’m right. I knew it. Apple either didn’t put the resources into the first version or decided to let the community do the testing and evolution for them.

Either way the next release should fix the primary problems. This is great news.

Technobolt has the full details on what’s coming with 5.1. Here’s the bit about Photo Stream:

Photos taken using iOS 5.1 can be deleted from Photo Stream on your device and will be removed automatically from Photo Stream on your other iOS 5.1 devices. Older photos can be manually deleted from your iOS 5.1 devices.

5.1 is in beta right now and should be with us soon. Bring it on.

On the face of it, there’s a reasonable argument — over to the Telegraph post:

The force must find £50 million worth of savings from its overall budget by 2015 and has already cut energy bills by 10 per cent.

I presume that someone has done the calculations — I wonder just how much money this policy would save? What is the cost of charging an iPhone for an hour? It must cost a few pence. This will add up if you take into account daily usage across the year — and thousands of people doing it?

At all the different offices I’ve worked at over the years, I’ve never once been told to ‘charge my personal devices at home’. Occasionally where it was warranted, I’ve asked permission, only to get a ‘well, duh, of course’ response every time. Even going to a friend’s house, I don’t think I’d even think twice about the *cost* of charging. I’d ask permission but I’d only be doing that out of politeness.

Being able to charge your phone (for free) is, I think, a basic requirement for everyone. It’s perhaps not a ‘human right’ — but it’s a seriously important one, especially in today’s connected environment and especially when safety (or, at least, the illusion of safety) is linked to that connectivity. And, even more so if you’ve got a recent smartphone that comes with wholly unsuitable battery performance.

I’ve no idea how much this stuff costs but let’s do a worked example on cost. Assume it costs £0.05 to charge your phone. Multiply that by 20 business days a month and that’s £1.00 per month. Or £12 per year.

I wonder if I’d be prepared to see a quid-a-month docked from my pay packet to cover my personal electricity costs?

Possibly. I’d certainly prefer the option.

But then how far do you go? You see I expect personal charging to be ‘thrown in’ as part of the deal. Well, normally, I don’t even think about it. So, should I also have to contribute £20 per month to ensure clean toilets? Or parking?

Parking’s a bit of a tray area isn’t it? I know some employers who do factor this into a pay package. Or who offer incentives for employees *not* to drive, to a) keep parking spaces available and b) add a nice paragraph to their Corporate Social Responsibility section in their annual report.

Thinking about it, I don’t know if many companies I’ve worked at actually had a ‘electricity for personal uses’ policy. I never bothered to check. Nobody has ever screamed at me for using an extra power socket. No one has demanded money for it. No one has screamed about how much money they’re losing in extra unnecessary costs.

I’m happy to be educated in this regard. Generally speaking I’ve only ever worked for large corporates (who factor the electrical cost into business-as-usual expenditure) or small outfits who’d never question it.

Does your company prohibit you from using electricity for charging your phone?

And have I got things all wrong? Is it more than 5p to charge a phone? Have I missed something?

It looks to me like the only thing Sussex Police are doing with this policy is seriously winding up their employees. How are they going to enforce it?

One possible solution: Take a one time capital expenditure hit and buy every employee a Proporta-style pocket charger (examples at Amazon) with instructions to charge it up at home. That might be equitable!

Update: I was just looking at Amazon some more — maybe what everyone at Sussex needs is a £3.45 wind-up pocket charger:

Over to the team at BlackBerry Europe:

The inaugural BlackBerry® DevCon Europe 2012 takes place on February 7th and 8th in Amsterdam, and we want you to be there. By attending, you’ll be among the first to witness the birth of the next generation in application development, BlackBerry 10.

Whether you’re new to developing for the BlackBerry platform, or you’re an experienced app master, take up this offer and you’ll be able to attend at half the cost to learn all there is to know about developing for 70 million-strong BlackBerry community.

To get your 50% discount, visit online registration now, using this unique code before December 24th: DBRM03

Free PlayBook for all attendees By attending BlackBerry DevCon Europe 2012, you’ll also receive a free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

To find out more about the event sessions, and how you could help shape the future of BlackBerry apps, visit http://www.blackberrydevcon.com/europe/content/sessions/topics.

All things being equal, I’m definitely going to be there (there’s a baby on the way at the end of February so I’m having to play things rather fluid).

Just a reminder — this 50% offer is only valid until tomorrow so you must be quick if you’re intending coming along.

I sat down with Ronnie at the o2 store in Richmond-Upon-Thames on Tuesday afternoon.

When I arrived into the store a few moments beforehand and said I wanted to lease an iPhone 4S, his colleague recommended him.

“Ronnie knows all about leasing, you should be speaking to him,” said the sales assistant.

Ronnie arrived, shook my hand, introduced himself and we sat down and he logged into his sales terminal. Both of us were definitely ready to do business.

We went through the various identification points. Mother’s maiden name. Postcode. Digits from the PIN and so on.

“Yes, you’re definitely due an upgrade,” said Ronnie, glancing at his screen.

“Do you have iPhones in stock?” I asked.

He nodded, “Just the 64GB today.”

Brilliant.

“I’d like to lease that one,” I replied.

And then we hit a roadblock.

Ronnie explained that the leasing deal was only applicable to the 16GB and 32GB iPhones.

Uh oh.

“Well, I’d really like the 64GB version,” I explained, “I travel often so it’s useful to have that extra space for music, video and apps.”

Ronnie indicated I could get the 64GB version on contract (i.e. normally) no problem at all. I could walk out the shop with it 5 minutes later.

I went through the rigmarole of explaining Mobile Industry Review and that the reason I wanted to ‘lease’ was, a) because the concept fundamentally appeals and b) because I want to tell people I’m doing it — I want to experience it. This is what I do a lot at Mobile Industry Review. I stick my head in the fryer and see what happens so that I can write about it.

(Plus, I don’t want to look like an analyst — you know, one of those seriously knowledgeable chaps you see on panels at events who knows everything in theory but has only ever actually used a BlackBerry.)

Alas we reached an impasse, Ronnie and I.

I can only assume that the o2 marketing chaps couldn’t make the lease figures work for a 64GB.

I thanked Ronnie for his time and exited the shop.

Now I need to consider what to do with the £35 I’m paying o2 every month on-going. I’m way out of commitment on that line so I either need to close it or get another phone. I think, unfortunately, I’m angling for just closing it. I’m not sure if I actually need that line any more.

Anyway, thank you for your patience Ronnie!

“Popular, eh?” I said to the chap serving me.

He nodded before observing that they’re selling almost 2 iPhones an hour at the moment.

Goodness me.

I have to say, every single mobile phone shop in Richmond (from the operators to the independent retailers) has got at least one massive window dedicated to the iPhone 4S. It’s going to be a good Christmas for Apple, I suspect.

Did you hear about o2′s new leasing programme for iPhones? It caught my attention because it’s almost something I’ve been banging on for quite a while.

My favourite operator innovation concept is that I just pay a flat fee per month and receive whatever device I want. The idea being that I finally divorce myself from the hardware. I don’t want to have to own anything. I want someone else to take the hardware responsibility. Just like I don’t own any servers any more. My businesses certainly use servers — mostly from Rackspace — but we don’t own them, maintain them, or have any responsibility for them whatsoever. I just buy the service. Rackspace deal with hard drive failures. [Or, actually, in most respects, everything is virtualised now so my company is never exposed to that issue any more.]

I’d like to do similar with my mobile phone hardware. I don’t want to have to keep on contracting for specific hardware that becomes out of date very quickly. I don’t want to have to arse about shopping around, negotiating and dicking about with contracts, up-front-payments, insurance, all that jazz. I just want it done. In one single fee, per month.

Interestingly, this is almost what o2 has introduced (full details on this page).

Here’s how it works:

The lease agreement is 12 months.

There is no hardware cost upfront so the phone is ‘free’.

Full insurance is included.

As a standard, you get 750 minutes, unlimited texts, 500mb data and unlimited wifi every month. (You can upgrade to 1GB/month for an extra £4.)

The phone is not yours. You do not own it. You’re obviously just leasing it. So at the end of the 12-month period, you must return it in ‘satisfactory condition’ or you ‘may have to pay substantial damages.’ Fair point. But remember insurance is included so if you drop the screen, they’ll sort it. It’s their handset, after all, not yours.

Now then that all sounds fairly reasonable so far, yes?

You’re probably going to take a step back from the screen when we get to pricing.

The 16GB iPhone 4S is £55/month. The 32GB is £65/month. And I presume the 64GB is ‘more’. It’s not listed on the screen though.

I think most readers will be reacting with shock and horror at 55 pounds per month.

But actually let’s remember:

1. This is for 12-months
2. It includes insurance (which is normally £12/month) or thereabouts

£55 x 12 months is £660.

The iPhone 4S 16GB retails at £499 from Apple unlocked, which leaves a balance of £161.

Now remove the £12/month insurance (£12 x 12 months = £144).

The balance is now £16. So the line rental is effectively £1.33 per month. If you follow my slightly warped viewpoint.

I know — I KNOW — I don’t actually own the phone. And across the year, I’ll have paid for the phone. And then 12-months later, I’ll have nothing to show for it. True. True.

But.

I don’t want the phone. I don’t want to have to try and flog it 12 months later when there’s a new iPhone (5) out.

I just want the experience.

I think it’s like buying and running a car: It’s expensive. It just is. It’s guaranteed to lose you money. You can, if you invest a TON of effort and time, minimise those loses a little — but it’ll still cost you money.

If you lease, it’s all up front. You’ve set your losses at a particular level. You’ve gone into it eyes open. There are no additional costs, everything is taken care of.

I think that’s what attracts me to the idea of leasing.

What’s the alternative? Well, sticking with o2, I can buy an iPhone 4S 16GB for £189.99 on a 12-month contract of £41/month. That gets me 900 minutes and unlimited texts (so slightly more mins than the 750 lease deal). That costs me: £189.99 + 12x £41 = £681.99.

It’s a valuable phone so I want insurance. 12x £12 = £144. Total cost across the contract? £825.99.

On fact value, that looks a lot more expensive than leasing.

BUT of course, after 12 months, I’d still *own* the phone if I bought it via standard contract. So I could theoretically sell the phone for at least £150, possibly £180. Maybe £200. If you assume I could flog the handset for £200, then actually, the costs are more or less the same.

Still. I like the idea of somebody else (effectively) managing my hardware. So I’m off to the o2 shop later today…

I let it ring out.

I didn’t care.

And for the first time ever, I’ve finally arrived into the mindset of: You’re completely irrelevant.

Now then, I still use the landline for calling my parents — although, I say that, really… no. I don’t. I just think I do.

The more I think about it I hardly every make a call on it.

And I definitely, definitely do not ever receive calls on the landline. Nobody knows the number.

Well, again, let me correct myself: Nobody important to me knows the number. Despite making sure it was Ex-Directory when we activated it here in Ascot about 3 months ago, we receive the odd rubbish call from someone wanting to do a survey (where you answer yes, yes, yes and on that basis, they try and flog you something).

I’m seriously considering switching the phone’s ringer off — if that’s possible.

I used to keep the landline for conference calls and for proper phone calls but nowadays Skype (and my BT Infinity connection) is highly reliable and far better quality.

The only reason we have a landline is because there’s no choice. You need one if you want an internet connection. At least, you did when I ordered my line a little while ago. I wonder how long it will be before we can actually avoid ordering a landline at all?

What’s your policy on landlines?