T-Mobile ain’t very happy with Nokia’s strategy offering more and more own services. Last summer Nokia announced Ovi, a paid internet portal for music downloads and navigation. So Nokia breaks into a part of the value-added chain, which T-Mobile occupied until yet. T-Mobile boss Hamid Akhavan emphasized that Nokia’s solo attempt will lead to conflicts. Source: http://www.heise.de
Vodafone deepens partnership with RIM
Vodafone announced to deepen the partnership with Research in Motion (RIM). Within this partnership Vodafone wants to develop own consumer services for the Blackberry platform. Until now they mostly eyed business customers. Unlike in Europe, Blackberry enjoys great popularity by average consumers in the US. Source: http://www.heise.de
Nokia navigates pedestrians
Last week Nokia introduced Walk, a pedestrian navigation software. Downloads are now available from Nokia Beta Labs, but the software is still in Beta. Source: http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/maps
Ericsson will be FIFA partner
In 2009 and 2010 FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association)
will use Ericsson’s technical infrastructure for the distribution of mobile multimedia services. The center of the agreement is the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Ericsson will provide content management and service delivery platforms for transferring FIFA products (such as informations services, TV and video) to mobile devices. Source: http://www.heise.de
T-Mobile cuts prices for mobile internet abroad
Last week T-Mobile announced 2 - still volume based - new tariffs which apply for all 27 EU-States:
- 1 MB data traffic for 2 EUR
- 50 MB day package for 15 EUR
It will be irrelevant, in which foreign network a T-Mobile customer has signed in. Well, mobile surfing gets cheaper in Europe, but it is still very expensive. The new T-Mobile Roaming tariffs will become available in mid-2008. Source: http://www.heise.de
MSN Direct
Last week at the Mobile World Congress Microsoft introduced a new mobile client called MSN Direct. It is a free application and runs on Windows Mobile 6 powered smart phones. With MSN Direct you can assemble your own news service, such as top news stories, weather, stock reports, sports or entertainment news. The content from the MSN portal updates automatically and is displayed on the phone’s idle screen. Source: http://phone.msndirect.com
T-Mobile integrates Yahoo’s Onesearch and IM
Starting at the end of March all web enabled T-Mobile devices will exclusively support Yahoo’s mobile search service Onesearch. Users will have access to news, weather, flickr as well as related pages for mobile clients.
This year T-Mobile also wants to introduce mobile Instant Messaging and will therefore support Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, ICQ and AIM (AOL Instant Messenger). Up to now T-Mobile prohibits the usage of Instant Messaging services with its Web’n’Walk tariffs. Source: http://www.zdnet.de
Ericsson develops mobile multimedia platform
Ericsson has unveiled a new hardware platform for mobile devices in order to help manufacturers develop multimedia devices with multitasking capabilities.
“The U500 is a powerful multimedia platform with performance, graphics and usability, more resembling a mobile computer than today’s mobile phones,” said Robert Puskaric, head of Ericsson’s mobile platforms business. “With the U500 platform Ericsson will keep its world leading position within the multimedia mass market for years to come”.
The U500 platform integrates three ARM11 CPUs (high performance microprocessors) as well as hardware accelerators. The Ericsson U500 will launch early 2009 and can offer highly advanced features like support for WVGA displays (800x480 pixels), high-quality camcorder, 12-megapixel camera, high-resolution video for mobile TV and superior audio performance. Sources: http://news.softpedia.com, http://www.mobilewhack.com, http://www.zdnet.de
Nokia starts mobile advertising network
Nokia starts with Nokia Media Network its own advertising network for mobile websites. The company not only markets its own mobile services, but also from other (70) provider, such as AccuWeather, Discovery, Hearst, Reuters and Sprint.
Nokia promises its clients click rates at an average of 10% in some areas.
The company relies on the Enpocket technology, which the company bought in October 2007. Enpocket’s analysis helps optimizing campaigns in order to increase click and conversion rates. Source: http://www.golem.de
AOL announces Open Mobile Platform
Last week AOL announced the ”Open Mobile Platform”, which can be used to develop applications for a wide variety of mobile phone and smart phone platforms. The platform will support platform systems like Brew, Blackberry, Linux, Symbian, Windows Mobile as well as mobile phones with Java. The integration of AOL services will be possible, too.
Developers can create application using a XML-based markup language, a client to be installed on the device and an application server. The platform is to be released as Open Source Software in summer 2008. Source: http://www.golem.de