Deploying successful services -January 25th

By Jari Saarhelo
The Mobile Internet is booming and will experience double digit growth during the next few years. This growth is driven by a marked shift towards using services, such as social networking, on Smartphone and other mobile devices as well as on the Desktop. The smartphone has become a service platform, where soon 50% of user activity is not voice nor text related.

Achieving high enough service penetration is one of the key challenges in offering a service globally. Ideally, a service should:

- Be deployable on as many devices as possible
- Deliver WoW user experience
- Be easily updatable a only a couple of clicks
- Be customized to match regional tastes
- Have a low incremental cost to support new devices

In practice, there is a need to balance these factors against each other to find an affordable solution delivering maximum benefits in an acceptable timeframe. Web (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML) based service for example are deployable on all the devices supporting a standard web browser, but the user experience will be limited.

Despite the growth of smartphones with webkit support most devices out there still have poor browser support. Going native will enable a huge improvement in the user experience and the ability to create unique experiences, but the development cost will typically be higher and additional skills will be needed. Which way to go will of course be dependent on the focus of the service and the user experience that needs to be delivered. However, which ever path you choose the era on of Mobile Internet services is clearly dawning.

We have recently released a white paper on Advanced Mobile Services (http://www.teleca.com/Home/solutions/end-to-end_solutions.aspx), if you want to read more on this topic.

Shameless plug –January 19th

By Andrew Till

Want a cool new application? Ever wished that with a single touch you could switch between silent and vibration mode. Well now you can with the new Teleca “Ringer Mode Toggler” for Android.

This useful application allows you to toggle between ringer modes.
Now it’s possible to turn on or off silent mode or vibrate mode with just one touch.
Download, use, enjoy. From the Android Market.

What do you think – Shameless plug !

I love the smell of convergence -January 12th

By Najeeb Khan

Our industry has been suffering convergence fever and tablets are now being prescribed to relieve the symptoms. The terms UMPC & MID seem to have been dumped as manufacturers prepare a plethora of tablets, slates and eReaders to launch at consumers during 2010.

Small-screen-browsing has improved immeasurably in recent years thanks to devices such as the iPhone, Android phones and Nokia’s N900 and the wide spread adoption of webkit as a common rendering engine.

This experience, whilst portable and convenient, is still not quite as rich as a full PC-based experience for a variety of reasons with screen-real-estate being the most glaringly obvious one.

But this new generation of connected appliances will spawn ecosystems beyond the internet browsing, emailing and social networking that modern smartphones have recently been praised for:

• Traditional publishers of printed content such as Newscorp, TimeWarner, Hearst, Meredith and Conde Nast, seeking ways to monetise their content in the age of convergence, have formed a joint venture to publish their content called Next Issue Media aimed at creating a standard for formatting and charging for rich-media-content.
  
• Film and TV producers and broadcasters are increasingly making their content available for the PC, and other connected devices. Services such as Hulu in the USA and BBC iPlayer in the UK are already extremely popular. Some of these services already support small-screen-devices but a plethora of new, larger screen, portable devices dedicated to media consumption will no doubt stimulate renewed activity in harnessing the portable video revenue that is undoubtedly out there.
  
• Portable gaming could potentially begin to compete with, and will certainly enhance, the experience available in the living room, location based services could offer you that much more simultaneously and instantaneously related to your location, mobile advertising could be that much more impactful and one-to-one selling/teaching/counselling could be more personal.

The new generation of portable, instant on, easy-to-use connected appliances will take the drag of computing. Traditional PCs/laptops, will of course still have their place but will likely take a back seat to this new generation of lifestyle companions.

Perhaps 2010 will be remembered as the year that began the revolution in portable lifestyle companions.

2010-the year of passionate handsets

By Magnus Ingelsten
In spring 2007 the iPhone was launched and so much has been written about its success. It have had the whole mobile industry asking itself several key questions; How to explain its success? What is the recipe? Can it be repeated?

An immense success among consumers. What makes people fall in love with it? I have tried to find a parallel. Such as buying a car? Not really… For most it is just a practical means of transportation, unless you are a petrol head like myself.

However, is it like going on a date? While for some it may be a practical means of finding someone you get on well with, for most it’s about finding someone that you’re attracted to on many levels and is a process that is driven by the heart rather than the head.

To select a handset these days, if you do not consider low cost in relation to the operator and handset as your first priority, is like being on a date! You may meet someone that is very clever, possesses good looks, the right balance of professional skills and leisure/fun time… but there are quite a few of them around. But to find someone that really speaks to you and tickles your senses, someone that you really want to get to know and who creates the feeling within you that is called lust is harder to come by.
And someone that is not pretending to be something they’re not – in essence being authentic and sincere. As well as someone being open for new ideas, impressions and develops with the relationship. See where I am going?

So what are the right keywords and ingredients for the recipe? Well here is what I think you need to materialize your own perfect handset:

1 spoon of Youthfulness
1 big cup of Brand
1 cup of Intelligence
1 large spoon Simplicity
½ spoon Quality
1 spoon Authenticity
1 cup of Freshness
1 big bowl of Looks-to-kill-for
1 gallon Lust
-Make sure it is based on an open OS, spiced with music, movies and cool apps.

This recipe is free for all to use and we hope that together with Teleca, vendors will introduce new devices, created with passion and lust, for 2010.

A happy new year to all of you!