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! ]

MEF Executive Director Rimma Perelmuter

In the interview we discuss:

• MEF’s 2011 Global Consumer Survey and how it is driving both MEF members decision making and MEF policy.
• The strong security and privacy focus by consumers globally.
• The value in MEF’s original research for its membership.
• The development of MEF’s global commerce matrix and its work with industry regulators globally.

MEF Global Chair Andrew Bud

In the interview we discuss:

• The key themes of MEF Americas 2011 keynotes: localisation, SMS, ‘the unbanked’ and mobile commerce.
• How trust, privacy and respect are common global themes irrespective of the maturity of an individual market.
• How MEF can be effective in representing all the participants of the ‘mobile channel’ and can knowledge-share between regions.
• The challenges and opportunities of mobile payments and associated issues of privacy and security

Read more about Nokia’s developer support at http://www.developer.nokia.com/

We recorded four interviews, the highlights of which are below:

Nokia supports developers in ‘being in the business of apps’

Live Tiles offer a direct channel to consumers without opening an app

Nokia’s breadth of devices enable developers to address a wider market

Nokia store offers the biggest opportunity for local developers to monetize apps

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:

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.

Whilst much of the discussion at MEF Americas 2011 concerned mobile apps and the usual challenges for developers of addressing multiple platforms, there was an interesting panel session which reminded me that SMS is completely cross platform and available to all ‘out of the box’. As obvious as this sounds, I’d missed the implication which John Orlando of Sixth Sense Media outlines in this video – that the long-term future for SMS (as person to person messaging moves to social networks) is ‘application to person’ messaging.

John’s focus is primarily marketing, but the point stands in a wider context too. I’ve written about this and cited some examples of effective ‘application to me’ SMS use over the last month in a post at Tribal Labs: SMS: The ultimate cross-platform mobile app.

Whilst at MEF Americas 2011 I was amazed to hear the statistic that around 60 million US citizens are ‘unbanked’… that is ‘without a bank account’. I was aware that many in developing economies chose not to or were unable to access banking services, but author Gary Schwartz explained it was also a widespread – and under reported –  issue in the US.

Some – a minority he suggested – choose to avoid the banking system for political reasons but for the remainder the inability to perform cash-less transactions was a source of misery as payments required them to visit service providers or to pay higher charges (such as for utility bills). Gary explained that increasingly mobile devices were being seen as a way to store value and a potential way for even those without bank accounts to perform electronic transactions.

In the video Gary summarises the panel discussion and highlights some broader changes mobile is having on the way consumers interact and buy with mobile. SMS and mobile web – he argues – should be the ‘dominant’ channels because they are so widely used (and loved) by consumers.

Wireless Worker is at MEF Americas 2011 and will be covering the 2 day industry event which covers North & Latin America’s mobile content and commerce ecosystems live from Miami.

Our coverage:

•  Neil Stiles, president of Variety Group says “You can’t charge more for content just by delivering it to an iPhone” (audio) and Beware the risk of “exchanging analogue dollars for digital dimes” (video summary).

Day 1 covered:

• Creating Hyper Local App Economies by Marco Argenti, SVP, Developer & Marketplace, Nokia
• Enabling Desire: Content and Its Link to Commerce by Tom Daly, The Coca-Cola Company
• Panel: Mobile Routes to Market – Planning Your Long-term Strategy
• Panel: Opportunities & Complexities of the Evolving Apps Ecosystem
• Panel:Catalysts for Maximising Consumer Engagement on Connected Devices
• Panel: Towards a Connected Future: Building Your Content Strategy in a Multi-Screen World

Day 2 covered:

• Keynote: m-Commerce and Alternative Financial Services to the Underbanked – Big Need, Big Opportunity and Ready Now
• Q&A Session: What is the Wireless Carrier’s New Role?
• Panel: Moving Plastic into the Cloud: Prepaid, Affinity and Wallets
• Panel: Competing Payment Models & How to Choose the Right One
• Panel: Privacy Issues and the Imperative for Maintaining Consumer Trust
• Panel: Growing the Latam Market – Opportunities & Challenges
• Research Presentation: Mobile Shopping & Commerce: Understanding Barriers to Further Adoption of Mobile Usage
• Panel: The Path to Purchase – How Brands and Retailers Can Influence Shopping Behaviour

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.

Neil Stiles – president of the Variety Group, the leading entertainment industry news organisation  - knows ‘content’… he both sells news and produces the definitive coverage of the film, music and TV industries.

Speaking to me at MEF Americas 2011 in Miami his take on delivering to mobile devices is blunt:

It’s a really nice idea to think that if you do something on an iPhone with current content  you can have an up-charge. The publishing and music businesses went through that ‘brain-fart’ as well and it doesn’t work. Your core business declines at such as rate the news business doesn’t make up for it.

He’s sure there are ways to add new life to – for example – television content on a mobile device, but it’s adding links to purchasing items on-screen (in a TV show for example) that he sees as a more exciting opportunity than charging extra for the show to be made ‘mobile’. Small ‘toe in the water’ experiements won’t cut it he argues… media companies need to be bold, recognise the trends and have confidence in the value of quality content.

Hear the full interview in this supplementary 361 Degrees episode:

[ Direct MP3 download (8MB)  /  Subscribe by iTunes, Zune or RSS ]

Image credit: Variety.com

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.

Posted via email from MIR Live

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:

Stream Communications announces the launch of freeflow, a new extra fast 3G service and SIM for iPad and Smart Tablet users.

Users of freeflow will experience web page download rates over Stream’s 3G network up to 50% faster than could be experienced from a typical ‘consumer’ 3G SIM.  In addition, because of the way Stream manages the connection between the tablet PC and the mobile network, users will experience overall faster downloads up to 80% of their total connected browsing time.

Stream Communications further augmented its existing mobile infrastructure, originally developed for ultra-reliable machine to machine communications, to meet the specific needs of iPad and Android tablet users in the UK.  Anyone with an iPad or tablet PC running a freeflow 3G SIM will be able to experience a vastly improved experience, both in terms of reliability and download speed.

Nigel Chadwick, founding Director of Stream Communications said: “Users of iPads and Android tablet PCs, particularly business users and entrepreneurs, value the reliability, knowing that they will be connected wherever they are, and that faster download will enable them to focus on their core business whilst on the move.  Consumer 3G services rarely deliver this level of reliability, but Stream’s freeflowservice can – our customers benefit from a vastly improved experience both in terms of speed and connection up-time.”

“Stream’s bespoke infrastructure enables tablet users to improve download times vastly – in many cases being up to 50% faster.  freeflow reduces the frustration felt, particularly by business users, who want to be connected more consistently  but frequently experience issues around 3G connectivity and download speed.  Stream’s unique advanced network management and infrastructure means minimised downtime and significantly faster downloads.  Customers trialling the service liken freeflow to using WiFi not 3G.”

Stream’s freeflow service will fully launch to coincide with the World Mobile Congress event in Barcelona, late February.

Posted via email from MIR Live

Here’s what Kantar has to say:

Apple’s iPhone 4S launch has helped the company regain global momentum with the US driving growth, according to new data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. In the latest 12 weeks of sales*, Apple’s share was at 44.9% while Android took 44.8% of the US market. Apple also increased its share of the British smartphone market from 22.0% a year ago to 34.0%.

Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director, explains: “Apple has continued its strong sales run in the US, UK and Australia over the Christmas period.  Overall, Apple sales are now growing at a faster rate than Android across the nine countries we cover.”

Windows 7 is yet to break past a 2% share in any country despite the media attention gained by the new Nokia Lumia range. The Nokia Lumia 800 finished quarter four just outside of the top 10 smartphones sold in Great Britain.

Dominic continues: “BlackBerry remains the brand of choice in the smartphone gifting market, 57% of BlackBerrys were purchased as gifts in quarter four.  This rose to 76% during December and a whopping 55% of recipients were under 16, indicating BlackBerry’s hold on the UK youth market.”

Looking at Latin America, it is clear that Android is starting to make a big impact.  Although the smartphone market is still in its infancy, Android took a 28% share in Brazil and 20% in Mexico.

Dominic Sunnebo comments: “Brazil and Mexico have a combined population of over 300 million, meaning that the mobile opportunity is huge.  By staking an early claim on the smartphone market in these countries, Android is laying important groundwork for future sales from the increasingly affluent middle classes.  Over the next few years, Asian manufacturers such as Huawei and ZTE are likely to focus smartphone sales on these regions. Their ability to offer prices under $100 will be crucial to their success.”

In Great Britain, smartphones made up 70.7% of sales over the 12 weeks, meaning that 48.9% of the British population now own a smartphone.

When considering a brands performance, it is important to bear in mind that all countries covered in the survey are experiencing strong smartphone growth, meaning a share decline does not necessarily correspond to a drop in actual sales.

* 12 w/e 25 Dec 2011

And here are the actual statistic breakdowns. Click through to a larger image:

Sitting on the train wearing one is entirely unacceptable.

By all means use one — but IN the office. Or, even better still, when someone is on the phone wanting to speak to you.

I know its illogical. It just winds me up.

Posted via email from MIR Live

I strongly encourage you to come along for a few drinks — it’s going to be a super-relaxed evening. I’ve had a look at the guest list and I am confident we’ll have some brilliant conversation and some excellent networking taking place!

It’s all taking at Zebrano Bar on Greek Street, Soho — so if you’d like to come, please do RSVP right-away with Fiona at Hotwire and tell her I sent you (here’s her email).

It’s been much discussed but now apparently it is shortly about to arrive: WiFi when you are 200ft underground waiting for the tube. Provided it’s good quality, I’m a fan… What about you? Will you be making use of this?

Posted via email from MIR Live

Here’s the overview from the UKTI team:

On 23^rd January UKTI is holding its pre-Mobile World Congress media event.  Essentially, 20 UK companies will be showing off their innovation in advance of the show.  The companies are diverse: from infrastructure to apps and from hardware to services.  They all have two things in common: they are British and have fantastic mobile innovation.

All media, bloggers and freelance writers with an interest in mobile can attend.  To do so they just need to let us know on chris@xl-comms.com.  For the media it is a chance to get a load of stories in advance of MWC and from companies that they would probably not get time to meet at the show.  For the companies, they have the chance to raise their profile with the media – often the thing they need most.

The event is at 1 Victoria Street in London and media can attend from 1pm to 3pm.

Posted via email from MIR Live

We’re moving inexorably towards February and MWC. If you’re heading to Barcelona, one of the important things you’ll need to give some thought to is what to do in the evenings. Although you may initially feel like going back to your hotel and collapsing, that’s not an option during MWC-week. There’s so much to do — especially and perhaps most importantly, networking!

So take note: OpenMarket, one of the planet’s leading providers of messaging and mobile transaction services, has announced it’s party. They’ve sensibly chosen the Tuesday night — that’s historically a good night for parties. Everyone’s arrived, the crazy press conferences are out of the way and folk should be reasonably relaxed and ready to network.

They’ve booked C3 Bar just nearby Placa Catalunya and Las Ramblas (to get your bearings).

They’re hosting the event with the magnificent team at Mobile Entertainment so if you’d like to RSVP, get the details here. But be very quick indeed!

Expect to be rubbing shoulders with the industry’s top folks:

The combined reach of OpenMarket and Mobile Entertainment will ensure that everyone from ­ games, music, apps, social media, advertising, m-commerce and more ­ will be there.

It will be an unmissable opportunity to catch up with partners, suppliers, clients and friends in the middle of mobile’s biggest week.

[ Direct MP3 download - 31MB]

This week the team re-cap a round-table discussion we were invited to, discussing the challenges and possible solutions for handset manufacturers in the future:

• Ewan notes Apple’s increasing ‘mind-share dominance’ which exists quite separate to their market share.
• Rafe longs for beautiful hardware and innovation in material sciences.
• Ben notes it’s the networks preventing people from painlessly operating several handsets, switching according to occasion.

This is our last episode of 2011. Thanks for listening! We’ll be back in January.

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