North America – Breaking into a new frontier -December 9th

By Martin Wilde

Perhaps you recall a time not so long ago when business phones, then dubbed “smart,” were considered the consumer phone’s ugly cousin? When the idea of mobile Linux was sneered at, 4G was written off as a casualty of the global economic crisis, and no one had ever heard of an iPhone, Android, app store, eBook or netbook.
Fast-forward to the present when you can’t read twenty words on an industry blog without at least one of these terms popping up. Today, “smartphones” have become ubiquitous across the cellular landscape, and are in dire need of a new definition. What does it mean when my teenage kid wants a Blackberry? Should I be happy or call a shrink? Open Source and mobile Linux are fast becoming standard due to such organizations as the Open Handset Alliance, the Symbian Foundation, the LiMo foundation, along with the full support of new and established companies in the form of Google and Nokia. 4G services are being commercialized as we speak in such technological beachheads as Pittsburgh and Atlanta. Everything in my life is connected to the internet – my cellphone, my home phone, my TV, my car, my eBook reader, my refrigerator. There’s an “app” for everything, whatever that means, and now I have to worry about whether I live in a red, blue or yellow coverage area. What in the world is going on? Have we all lost our minds?

What a time to be in the mobile industry business! The above attempt at humor belies the tremendous explosion of both existing and new mobile technologies we have experienced around the world in just the last 2-3 years. And the marketplace shows no sign of slowing down.
That is good news for a world-leading mobile solutions and services company like Teleca, and especially good news for North America, one of the leading global markets for both the evolution of mobile handsets and for new emerging devices. As the industry we know begins to move beyond mobile handsets and into the broader segment of mobile enabled devices and end-user applications, Teleca has responded to the challenge by re-organizing the North America team around a new vertical strategy driven by our commitment to our existing customers and a view towards future market opportunity. From manufacturers, carriers and chipset vendors to converged devices and applications, Teleca provides best-in-class mobile software development, system-integration, customization and testing services to all these market segments, helping our customers be more successful and expand their global penetration.
In North America, and indeed across the entire company, Teleca combines strategic understanding and market expertise with an absolute commitment to our clients’ growth to help them reach their full potential.

Welcome the new frontier of mobile. Welcome to Teleca!

New kids on the block -November 13th

By Andrew Till
What a short time a week is in the mobile world. This week saw not one but two new announcements in area of mobile platforms and development. Firstly Samsung announced its new Bada mobile platform (http://www.bada.com/samsung-launches-open-mobile-platform/) designed for smartphones. Judging from the dedicated website and developer focused activities, development days, developer challenges and a new application store are all planned, this is a platform that Samsung is serious about pushing. While not all details are as yet fully clear, for example it does not state if the platform is Linux based or using some other kernel, it is clear that Samsung will be pushing Bada as a key platform to delivery both compelling user experiences and also perhaps more notability an integrated service experience.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world Google was busy making interesting noises about Google “Go”. A new mobile development language designed for the 21st century. While details remain scare it does seem to be a move by Google to improve the overall efficiency of application development and to leverage perhaps two of the most popular languages in Python and JavaScript along with promising enhanced support for key features such as garbage collection and SMP. While Go is relatively new in town given the effort Google is putting in to all things mobile it has to be taken seriously as a key future environment for application development. For more details on Go visit http://golang.org/

So another week and once again assumptions we may take for granted are being challenged. Will these initiative be successful only time will tell but once again as we approach the end of the week I look at the past 5 days and wonder what other industry possess such high levels dynamic change or opportunity.

SEE Symbian Exposition -The last or first? October 3rd

By Magnus Ingelsten
Being at the Symbian show 2009 was a frustrating experience. How come? Well, being a believer in Symbian with its maturity, wealth of applications, great and proven business features, and, although Symbian having gone through a challenging time, (Not only adapted to a whole new business model, but also went through the mother of all business transformations with a new ownership and new organization) still retaining a large developer community and eco system.
We also continue to see the most advanced handsets being launched on the Symbian OS. But at the same time we have seen the show being slashed to less than half its size compared to its peak 2007, which has had an impact on the excitement level generated by the show and the overall impact it makes on someone attending.
While the number of licensees are now down to "a few", listening to one of the main stage discussions on the future of Symbian, much praise was given by SEMC, Fujitsu, Nokia and DoCoMo on the future potential for Symbian as the OSS of choice.
However, the spirit amongst the attendees was great at this years SEE, the hopes were high, and the determination was there. The right subjects were brought up, but was the main question really answered: How can Symbian attract more licensees and retain it´s leadership position for multimedia devices?
-The challenge is of course to convert the eco system. To make everybody partly changing their businessmodel and become comfortable with contributing assets to the foundation. And to be fair this is not just a question that Symbian needs to answer but many other OSS platforms as well.
Next year SEE moves to Berlin in the middle of November and being "replaced" by the OSIM that moves to London at the end of October.

So will OSIM be a replacement, and will the SEE be a developers event for the die hard fans only? Will OSIM cover all aspects of opens source objectively or will there be a need for the specialized platforms event on Symbian in this scale? We are many considering this thought right now. See you next year in London and/or Berlin…

Techday- a really good idea. October 20th

By Magnus Ingelsten
We at Teleca have started a series of Technology Days. Just run a couple of them on two interesting subjects. LBS (Location Based Services) was the subject of a Techday in Bochum at our Teleca office, and another on Android at the Thistle, in central London. What is awesome is when you get a quality audience. Great level of people, high competence, dynamic characters and so interested they bother to come and visit us about it. Moreover, they (both peers, competitors as well as others in the value chain) engage in heated debates on whether positioning services are cloud service or clients, who is owning the media screen in the car or on a media device. Or if multi-media content and apps should be distributed OTA or via Wlan…. Next Teleca Techday is on Android and venue is at San Francisco November 3rd. Maybe we see you there?

Teleca and Dashwire partner to deliver best-in-class mobile-web services for operators and handset makers

By Anette Gregow
Yesterday Teleca annonced a marketing agreement with Dashwire (http://www.dashwire.com/) to deliver best-in-class mobile-web services for operators and handset makers. Dashwire is an industry leader in connected services that simplify backup and transfer of information, content and services between mobile devices and the cloud. Under the agreement, Teleca will team with Dashwire to help customize, integrate, test, and verify solutions that mobile operators and device makers create on top of the DASHWORKS platform from Dashwire, and integrate into their mobile devices. We are excited through the partnership with Dashwire leverage our expertise and off-shore sites to enable our customers to quickly roll-out customized E2E services!

Find out more here: http://www.teleca.com/Home/news_room.aspx

Spend spend spend .. time and money -October 15th

By Magnus Ingelsten
Well, much is at stake these days. No need to remind about economic hardship in the global market. Although the west is week, China is relieving the pressure on the global economy by increased car sales in mid 2009, + 48% compared to last year! And the cell phone user base is growing with about 10 million users every month!! In spring China crossed the 50% cellular penetration mark. ..

So, belonging to the western economy, did you all have the relaxation that we needed during your summer holiday without having to worry? Did you do fun things! Bought the stuff you like such as a new cool phone or a nice new cabriolet. Yes, spend money and time on fun experiences, on happy moments with your friends and family, then we all will come back to a better, richer tomorrow and the rise of better global economy.

To relax at holidays you should leave your work PC behind, keep your phone off, get the voice messages only occasional-if at all... But what about the new phone you bought? Use it for writing your diary of fun experiences, getting the latest barbecue recipes, or checking the currency being down at the Croatian archipelago prior to using the phone to navigate there, and play a game of Sudoku now and then. Relax to recharge. Happy holidays! By the way, isn´t it time stop calling it “a phone” as telephony is probably the application least used these days! Why no call it Webby .. or Apply (oops too close to..) or just Player .. or …… eh?

Long live rich Games!

By Jari Saarhelo
Hey, following up last week blog, but to suggest a different point of view!
There probably wouldn`t be 3D HW accelerators on home PCs without games. The launch of a blockbuster game creates a peak in game console sales. New HW features are used in games as soon as the feature is available. Not so in games for mobile phones. A high volume seller can be 345th remake of a popular 70s/80s arcade game implemented with a “lowest common denominator” design.

The worst device supported dictates the game feature set and complexity. I bet it is not because the consumers insist on poor games, but because most of the systems on the market do not have the basic enablers needed for rich gaming to happen:

- Easy, fast and cost efficient game distribution to the device
- Large enough game asset size to accommodate the graphics & audio
- Gaming friendly device form factor (read: landscape display and gaming keys)
- Reasonable SW platform for creating and deploying the games (read: binary compatibility + fast access to HW)
- Enough firepower in device HW to make rich gaming happen
- Gaming ecosystem: publishers investing enough in game development, enough consumers buying games

Looking back, most of these things simply weren´t there. You can´t make a rich game on a platform that has fast HW, but very small media. You can´t publish a rich game for a device with only a small consumer base. However, most of the enablers are starting to be in place in the smart phone segment. Binary compatibility remains a challenge, but that is bound to improve – how can you otherwise compete with application business of Apple Store?

I bet that we will see a blockbuster rich mobile phone game within the next year. There will be a significant peak in the sales of the devices supporting the game … And the world of mobile gaming is changed for good … Goodbye Tetris!