Mobile Insight Vol: 9
Issue 355 February 26th 2007
More on Neomedia vs Abaxia battle
Having spread the rumour that French software house, Abaxia, was thinking of suing arch rival, Neomedia Technologies, over bar code technology,
Mobile Insight has been deluged with requests for more information.
Sadly, we haven't been able to get either side to comment as yet. But there is some light that we can shed on the matter.
There are definitely moves ahead to create a global standard for mobile bar-coding.
As Neomedia recently stated, "We are also making great strides to create a global standard for the wireless Web and have scheduled a high-level meeting in London this month [February] with some of the world's leading technology firms to begin to define and document this important standards-based initiative."
It also said, "We envision a future in which consumers routinely "qode it" when they want more information on a product or service."
The company obviously wants to establish its own brand – Qode- as the standard name for this kind of behaviour. Just as photocopying was once called 'Xeroxing'.
The fly in the ointment is that Abaxia and its existing customerbase, which includes several leading mobile operators, don't reckon that Neomedia can actually patent the technology in Europe.
In Europe you can't patent something which people have been doing for ages, just because you're the first to the patent office with an application form.
So what Mobile Insight suspects Abaxia's lawyers are doing is objecting to any kind of European patent being awarded to Neomedia.
Significantly Neomedia has decided that this bar-coding thingy is now its core
business and has admitted that, "All other business units (Micro Paint Repair,
12Snap, and Telecom Services) are either in the process of being sold, or will
be sold in the most profitable, timely and viable manner possible."
The full Inquirer story ... A little light on Neonedia vs Abaxia is shed
www.abaxia.com
www.qode.com
Digibee picks Ceva to take on Nokia
While the spotlight has been trained heavily on Vodafone's attempted entry into the Indian market via Hutch, Digibee is attempting to take the Indian handset market by storm
with help from Ceva.
DGB Microsystems - to give it its full name – claims to be India’s first mobile device design and manufacturing company and recently announced financing of $ 8.5 million from two VCs.
The company hopes to provide everything from real entry-level basic mono GSM and CDMA handsets right up to advanced 3G handsets whilst ensuring they are fully customised for the region's requirements.
In doing so it has decided to pick Ceva's single chip integrated baseband and applications processor – the X1620 – for its high end GSM/3G handsets and go for the TeakLite II DSP chip for the low cost models.
By selecting Ceva's DSP design and software, Digibee is hoping to significantly reduce its time to market. While it has offices in both the USA and China, the company's handset R&D and Indian marketing team are based in Bangalore and Chennai.
Component procurement and global manufacturing appear to be based in China.
Mobile Insight couldn't find any claims of the number of handsets shipped to date. Clearly, though, it is set on becoming India's answer to Nokia.
The full Inquirer story ...
To heck with Vodafone have a dekko at Digibee
www.dgbmicro.com
CSR loses cellular dependency
Bluetooth chip specialist, CSR, said less than 50 per cent of its business came from cellular in 2006. Yet it is still supplying almost one in every two top handsets.
Non-cellular products which feature CSR's Bluetooth technology include the Playstation 3, an MP3 player and a plasma TV from Samsung.
Indeed in 2006, 43 per cent of all qualified Bluetooth products were in the non-cellular sector - according to data listed on the official Bluetooth SIG website.
Data provided by IMS shows the overall Bluetooth market overall grew from 310 to 320 million units in 2005 to over 500 million units in 2006.
The company also reckons that GPS will contribute to its profits in 2007. It claims that integrating GPS into its Bluetooth silicon "will ultimately provide an embedded GPS solution for mobile handsets with a cost adder of less than $1."
The GPS capability came through its acquisition of Cambridge Positioning Systems and NordNav Technologies.
Headsets is another area where CSR says it is winning with 84 of all design wins in 2006. A reference design based on its BlueVOX QFN chip makes a $6 bill of materials for all the electronic bit possible when producing a Bluetooth headset, CSR says.
High end headsets also benefit from CSR's on-chip DSP architecture in its BlueCore5-Multimedia chip.
Still, CSR is attracting competition from both Texas Instruments and Broadcom, so expect the Bluetooth sector to hot up
The full Inquirer story ...
CSR no longer depends on cellular
www.csr.com
LogicaCMG telecoms becomes Acision
The telecoms bit of the consulting house, LogicaCMG, has been spun off into a new company acquired by VCs.
The new company is named Acision which we reckon is the result of a lack of available URLs which sound anything remotely like a telecoms company.
Anyway, the new company intends to build on its existing skills in the mobile messaging market. Its core business has been to supply SMSCs – the servers which handle SMS/text messaging traffic.
Acision also reckons it presently serves three out of every four videomail users.
Reading between the lines, it appears that LogicaCMG believes it will be able to sell more kit to mobile network operators by creating a new company which doesn't have such close ties to its remaining consultancy business.
The full Inquirer story ... LogicaCMG spins off telecoms bit
www.acision.com
Orange to offer TV tripleplay
Orange UK will launch a TV service across three mediums – television and PC as well as mobile – in Q3 2007, according to a report in the
Sunday Telegraph.
The paper quoted Orange's Homes Services head honcho, Eric Abensur, as saying, "When you buy content you should be able to watch that content wherever you want to, whether that is on your TV, on your PC, or on your mobile."
The move is seen as combating quad play offerings from the likes of Virgin Media, BT and BSkyB.
Meanwhile existing content provider, Rok TV, announced a major coup for mobile phone owning Chinese people. It screened CCTV's Spring Festival Evening which ran on the eve of the Chinese New Year.
The move meant that viewers of its RokTV and FreeBeTV services could watch around four and a half hours of Chinese content which previously hadn't been made readily available outside China.
Those who missed it will have a second chance on 5th March 2007.
Mobile Insight would warn handset owners that they should carefully check
on their data tariff before watching. It's imperative to have an
'all-you-can-eat' data tariff not one which is charged by the megabyte. It could
cost up to £45 to watch the show on a 'pay-as-you-go' tariff.
The full Inquirer story ... Orange to offer consolidated TV
www.orange.co.uk
Big win for Groupcall SMS service
Ex-Boomtown Rats singer, Bob Geldof - has scored a major victory in Scotland. His truancy text messaging system – Groupcall Messenger – will be installed in all of Falkirk's 65 schools and nurseries.
Messenger is capable of automatically sending out text, voice or email messages to the parents of pupils who are suspected of truancy.
The messages provide parents with instructions of how to respond if their child is reported as missing.
Geldof sees the system as a way of preventing children going off the rails because they don't get a decent education thanks to skiving off skool.
Groupcall – which Geldof co-founded and in which he is believed to have a major financial interest – already has numerous customers amongst education establishments.
However, Falkirk is the first education authority in the UK to commit to the long-term installation of the Groupcall system
The full Inquirer story ... Bob Geldof's Groupcall wins Scottish contract
www.groupcall.com
Snook leaves Monstermob after Zed acquisition
Hans Snook - the man responsible for building up Orange UK’s brand image – has left his current position as chairman of British mobile content provider, Monstermob.
That’s after LaNetro Zed completed a £34 million takeover of the company at a shareholder’s meeting. It’s also despite the promise of a higher, rival offer from Chinese company, Linktone.
Snook was pursued in his rapid exit out of the door by CEO and founder Niccolo De Masi, and finance director, David Marks.
Zed’s Javier Perez Dolset has said he will act as interim chief executive in the meantime.
Mobile Insight reported back in December that Spain’s LaNetro Zed had injected money into the business. It’s main troubles stemmed from its activities in China.
So you would have thought a tie up with Linktone would have made sense. Well, never mind because LaNetro Zed has operations in China too.
The full Inquirer story ... Snook exits Monstermob
www.monstermob.com
Smoking 6280 caught on video
Nokia UK is investigating an incident in which one of its 6280 handsets started pouring out smoke and partially melted.
The defective handset was videoed on a cameraphone by handset reseller, Advanced Mobile. The store reported the incident to
Mobile magazine, which promptly informed Nokia.
The publication reports that Nokia is thoroughly investigating the issue – particularly with regard to the origin of both the battery and the charger.
Mobile has published the smoking video on its web site.
Significantly, the handset's owner claimed that the handset was supplied directly to him by UK operator, 3.
The incident follows recent reports in which a Nokia handset was exonerated from causing a fire in the USA.
The full Inquirer story ... Nokia 6280 caught smoking on video
www.mobiletoday.co.uk [Mobile
mag]
Nokia makes cuts to workforce
Sneaking the news out during the cacophony that was 3GSM Barcelona, Nokia is to trim its workforce by 700 – of which around half will be in Finland.
Around 360 jobs will be lost in Nokia's Enterprise Solutions division while the R&D jobs will impact its Software Platforms unit in its Technology Platforms division.
They'll also be cuts in Nokia's own internal IT department. The company is seeking to redeploy many of those affected into other parts of the organisation.
Juha Äkräs, a senior vp with Nokia's Human Resources department, sought to put a nice spin on it. He claimed, "In 2006, close to 10,000 people rotated into new positions across the Nokia group."
That's an enormous number of spinners.
The full Inquirer story ...
Nokia culling IT and R&D workforce
Snippets
According to a report in the
Sydney Morning Herald, Telstra's Greg Winn claimed that the top mobile
handset producers will be coming out with devices that have similar
functionality to the iPhone such as a touchscreen. It's a blow for Apple since
Telstra does at least support 2.5G.
www.smh.com.au ...
Mobile Insight has learnt another reason for avoiding the iPhone.
Apparently it doesn't have a removable battery - a design fault which badly
affected the Psion Revo. Never mind. At least Cisco and Apple have buried the
hatchet over the iPhone name.
www.apple.com/iphone ...Forrester Research has put out figures which show
that the mobile phone sector accounted for less than one per cent of the total
European music market in 2006. This represents €9 million out of a total of €9.4
billion. However, it will grow to seven per cent (€0.7 billion) by 2011.
www.forrester.com
In Site of the Week (by Tony Dennis)
This week
Moistmob
The big news behind the launch of this
new WAP site, Moistmob, is that it will be 'hosted' by Tera Patrick. She's
described as the "first erotic supermodel to host a mobile portal." It's not
very clear exactly what tasks Tera has to carry out in order to 'host' the site
but at least her picture is up the top of the site. What's on offer via Moistmob
is very light blue and aimed at heterosexuals. Mobile Insight suspects
that another sister site called Knobmob will cater for homosexuals when it's
launched.
The site is run by Burst Mobile which is based in Leeds and uses Bango to handle
payments. When Mobile Insight accessed the site via 3, it was properly
protected from minors and required proof of age via a credit card or a phone
call.
http://wap.moistmob.tv
