T-Mobile To Make Carrier Billing An Option For Online Purchases

It is a debate among operators whether to go for carrier billing on online purchases, many of them are hesitant that customers doesn't want to see a big bill end of the month. T-mobile is currently in experimentation mode as they are about to get acquired by AT&T. They have freedom to explore various options at this point without affecting ATT brand. There are certain regulatory limits on the amount that can go to carrier billing. We can know more details like percentage of cut t-mobile gets, no.of customers used and any associated risks, when they announce their retails partners.

Key Takeaway: T-mobile has become an experimental outlet for AT&T for now, though it is very unlikely that this initiative will shell more revenue. But it is certainly very useful to observe and adopt it to other markets.

Smartphones Dominate U.S. Mobile Purchases

The inflection point occurred rather sooner in US. Apple sold around 18M iphones during first 6 months of this year and android claims half million activations a day. The report also suggests that the android growth is flattened while apple driving the smart phone growth. Overall, Apple and Google made more US users go for smart phone.

Key takeaway: The smart phones are going to dominate in other markets starting with Western Europe.It is time to understand the ways to improve ARPU.

cloud based mobile OS from Blaast and Alibaba

Cloud based OS is conceptually great but it has certain limitations including network reliability and offline storage. Google chrome did not see any bright light even after 2-3 years of work in net books market. I am wondering what make it successful on smart phones? I believe that, these new cloud OS can co-exist with resident OS but cannot replace the native OS. Over the period of time this can be reality.

Key takeaway: Cloud based OS can co-exist with native OS but they cannot replace a native OS in near term.

Average U.S. Smartphone Data Usage Up 89%

This may not surprise us; In fact the growth of data consumption may remain at the same pace for next couple of years. The fact that the cost of data going down to 46% is worrisome. At&t and Verizon ditched their unlimited plans this will help the top 10% to pay more for their data consumption. So far the consumers are paying for data, this model may not be sustainable in long run, We need to influence the application/service providers to share some of costs along with the consumer. There is great need of innovation in new business models.

Key takeaway: Smart phone data growth will continue, we need to find new business models apart from charging customers for data.

Security on android - Lookout

It is evident that smart phone are prone to security threat and especially with open platforms like android provider no barriers to hackers. The market is not quite ready to pay for security solutions on smart phones. On the other hand, enterprises started recognizing the vulnerability. McAfee launched new product suites targeting mobile devices targeting the enterprise base. Juniper research predicted that this security threat will create $3.6 billion software opportunity. Storing data in private cloud, wiping the device remotely, controlling the data access to apps and safe browsing are some highlighted features from Lookout.

Visa Still Weighing Its Mobile Payments Options

Visa is in an exploratory phase with their own initiatives and partnerships with companies like monitise and acquiring Fundamo to cover the emerging markets. It is very clear that it requires support from big financial networks like master card and visa. Google made a deal with MasterCard for Google wallet offering and left the door open for others to join. ISIS realized that they need work with partners and actively seeking support from major networks. Visa is still in wait and see approach on decide weather to co-operate or compete. They still think they have enough time to explore before making any deals with partners.

AT&T/Panasonic Automotive Systems Join Forces to Test Connectivity Concepts

U.S Dept of Transportation reported an average of 46 hours of commute time, connected car could be huge opportunity for operators in US and across the world. The automotive OEMs have long innovation cycles, so they rely on operators and 3rd party solution providers to come-up with more impactful infotainment solutions. People are more connected than ever, and they don’t want the drive time to be a blackout period. We can exploring over the top projection based infotainment and cloud based solutions for automotive OEMs. There are some regulatory and safety concerns daunting the infotainment industry to move forward. I am very positive that, we see connected driving by 2015 in US.

YouTube in Network Deal Talks With Operators, Manufacturers

It is evident that web companies putting immense data on cellular networks with the expense of operator investments. There is huge push from European operators and governments to balance the situation in various ways. As a first aid, YouTube willing to investigate various techniques including reduction in content size without loosing quality and caching techniques. In a long run this approach may not work. Ultimately, the cost of data should include as part of service offering. The content providers already aware of this situation but they are waiting for push and viable models. The web companies are not used to the model of paying for data, it takes some time for the industry to settle, but that’s the only way to balance the wireless ecosystem. Surprisingly, The US carriers are very silent on this.

Sony Play station Vita with ATT

Game industry convened in LA for annual E3 conference. Nintendo introduced their Wii U controller with an LCD screen. Wii U is not an independent game console, where as Sony announced their independent gaming console competing with DS series. With massive game tittles available from app store ranging from 99 cents, Sony still thinks there is good market for independent game consoles. I am not hardcore gamer to describe more details about Vita, but it particularly interesting to see that Sony made a deal with ATT for 3G network. With the OLED screen,front facing camera and micro phone, Sony wants to hedge their bets on social gaming experience. The details about the plans are not know at this point. Overall, the gaming industry is come close to add long waited built in wireless networks to the game consoles.

Apples new patent - disable camera capture

Microsoft kinect might have inspired the Apple engineers with respective this patent where kinect uses infrared light to get the depth of the users. The underlying technology is simple and cost effective, in simple words there will be a ir receiver on phone side, ir emitter on concert venue, when user try to capture a picture, the receiver gets the information and disables the functionality to capture the image. The consumers may not like this usecase but the other use case automatic tour guide is very interesting. Apple may not integrate this technology for next couple of revisions.

ATT confirmed shared data plan

With the increased numbers of devices like phones, tablets, net books and PCs, It will be natural evolution for operators to offer shared data plans. There are chances that it will almost become family plan. The consumers are not ready to pay monthly fee other than smart phone so this will eventually shell some more money to the operators. Even though T-mobile did not announce anything like share data plan, but their recent family data plan can be close kin. Once the 4g networks are ready we can see this happening in US.

Google's NFC trail in SF and NY

Google introduced their nexus S device with NFC capabilities a while ago, its time to make use of those devices for trail in two major markets San Francisco and New York. The size of the trial is very small with limited retail outlets participating, but it provides a test ground for Google to test payments and beyond. This will be first trial in US with NFC handset, so the industry is very keen on looking at the prospects. US major carriers initiative ISIS planned to do a trial in Utah with great support from public transit authorities. This trial would be more to test the technology aspects than consumer facing experience. Sprints mobile wallet solution from cardinal commerce may extend the NFC capabilities. Lets hope the trial revives the sprits of mobile payment enthusiasts.

Intel blames Nokia for ill partnership

The blame game starts when things do not work properly, this is no different. But the fact is that the proposed partnership indeed is very strategic at that time, i believe it is the execution where both the parties failed. There are mistakes like Intel pushing for Moblin when there is solid mameo platform with Nokia, the integration of mameo and moblin to meego took long time, which gave ample time to android to dominate the market. Intel was in a lead role, where Nokia is more co-operative. I think it will be same outcome even Intel chooses other partner.

Tabbedout and Micros partnership

Tabbedout is mobilizing the current Micros’s PoS devices with mobile extensions. The end value proposition is that you don’t have to hand-out your credit card to bar staff as well as mix social bells where you update various network about your where about. As there are many existing PoS available with many bars and restaurant chains, the business owner need not to invest in new technology.

For Operators in europe, we know that they cannot work without payment network like Master card , Visa ..etc. operators can partner with Verifone or similar partner in Europe to extend their PoS reach to mobile devices by offering similar service without waiting for NFC. they can get some small percentage of transactional revenue and may find some solutions in social commerce Arena.

HP veer on AT&T

HP announced their Veer device during the dev conference in San Francisco during March. I believe, HP tried to differentiate their device compared to all bigger smart phones. It is almost in credit card size, but it can handle all the apps and services without a flick. I don’t feel like it’s a small device when I use apps like maps, or face book. I was impressed with the hardware. But, I am not sure the target segment for this device, I believe it will be mostly used by professional segment who are into technology. Lets hope, HP gets the deserved attention in much crowded handset market.

ISIS turned into mobile wallet

The U.S operators were highly ambitious in terms of setting up their own payment network by competing with traditional payment networks like master card and Visa. Now, they realized that it might be challenging if they have to bring the required scale. Hence they turned into mobile wallet solution. It may be bitter truth that the payments ecosystem may not shell any transaction revenue to operators. Its worth to investigate value added services on top of payments like mining the transaction history or collecting fee from provisioning the cards. At the same time we should not forget that the inherent threat from Apple and Google in the payments space.

Adapteva's break though accelerator chip

Today, the smart phone or tablets are designed to handle limited computing and offload it to server-based infrastructure when necessary. Adapteva's 64-core accelerator chip is technology break though in low-power high computing chips. Even the size of Adapteva's 64-core chip is twice the size of ARM chipset. They proved that accelerator chip is reality without consuming much power or the space. But the real-challenge would be to convince OEMs and the ecosystem with the need for more computing power on the mobile devices.

T-Mobile Suspends Bobsled service

T-Mobile's Bobsled, VOIP solution to make calls, and leave voice messages between Facebook users got released last week. T-Mobile claims the service is suspended due to some design issues and most people may think that the service is offered by Facebook. The hidden reason might be the joint agreement between the Skype and Facebook where Skype offering similar service. Lets hope, T-Mobile's strategy to extend its brand beyond that of mobile operator to multi-platform voice service provider will be successful.

Motorola Mobility survival at risk

Motorola did a patchy release of their Xoom tablet. They released the device without flash on top of it they have asked customers to ship the device back to Motorola to get LTE upgrade, which does not make sense. Its exactly what Apple does not do, they guarantee the customer experience. The cost of the android-based tablets is often expensive compared to iPads. Motorola doesn't have much differentiation compared to other small OEMs. All these days, Motorola got huge support from Verizon, now that they got iDevices, Verizon is focusing more Apple products which makes Motorola more worrisome. HTC can be a bigger threat to Motorola in US market.

Summary: Unless Motorola shows differentiation, their survival might be at risk

RadioMe- Tuning to social networks

RadioMe trying to address the audience in true mobility situations where people can get network updates via audio. Social networks now became part of everyday life and people want to get the updates no matter what their current context is. Apparently, there are some hidden challenges like pronunciation, reading out the links and the biggest of all, how to prioritize the updates when there are too many of them. Lets hope RadioMe over come these challenges to provide on the go social experience.

Apple location tracker file

The Guardian's exposure of Apple's location tracker file caused a stir in US, and congressman wrote a detailed letter asking more information from Apple. iDevice comes with a feature to turn On/Off the location feature under general settings. When On, any application can use the location info. The real concern is about syncing the location data to computers. Another concern is that the file is not encrypted, so any one can access this data. Apple may claim that this data might used to understand and improve the customer behavior but there might be a commercial roadmap to monetize this data. Lets wait to hear from Apple.

Apple iPhone 5 to Roll Out This September

The rumors are good for Apple, As annual apple's dev conference is in June, The industry is looking forward to their new product lines. The speculation on iPhone5 might be true as its time for new gadget. Faster processor, High-quality camera and NFC capabilities are highly anticipated features in iPhone5. Apple is doing wait and see approach on payments initiatives. 4inch display is also on list of rumors but apple is unlikely to increase the size during next revision. Apple may reach the saturation in US market on their phone product lines after the release of iphone 5.

T-Mobile Officially Announces G-Slate

After Motorola's patchy release of honeycomb based xoom tablet, T-mobile announced the 3D tablet G Slate manufactured by LG. The hardware spec look similar to the xoom with Tegra dual core processor. There are two camera's to capture the 3D pictures and comes with a 3D glasses. I like 3D content, but not user generated 3D content.

summary: like it or not, the 3D tablets are here.

ISIS announced a pilot in Utah

This was the first announcement from ISIS after AT&T, T-mobile and Verizon announced the mobile payments initiative during Nov 2010. There was agreement in place with state transport authority and ISIS is working with local commerce body to reach to the retail business owners. Unlike metros, I am not sure why they have salt lake city for the trail, it might be easier to partner but they have to give a way NFC enabled handsets and may need to educate the users in terms of security. Lets hope the pilot give boost to the mobile payments industry.

Google joins NFC forum

Google joining NFC forum as principle member shows its commitment towards NFC. Ending the support for QR codes indicates that Google wants to move fast in embracing the NFC technology instead of QR codes. On the other hand, Apple is not associated with NFC forum, which might develop their own implementation; I hope there will not be any interoperability issues. Overall, there is a positive atmosphere in US for bringing the technology to market backed by telecom and financial institutions, some of the valley technologists do not believe that NFC is better than todays technology.

windows phone 7 with NFC

With recent Google announcement of working with Mastercard and Citibank, the tech giant Microsoft hints the availability of NFC technology in their upcoming OS version code named Mango. Unlike Google and Apple, Microsoft is taking the enabler role in mobile payments than actively seeking the solution combining the retailers. Overall, U.S market may see pretty interesting usages of NFC ranging from payments to car keys in next 2 years.

Sprint-HTC glass free 3D phone

Glass free 3D experience is better on mobile devices compared to TV sets due to the viewing angle but so far I was never impressed with glass free 3D experience even though my eye can see little more depth in object. Sprint touts this device as a media-sharing device between phone and other electronics in home with DLNA. At this point HTC is committed to bring new innovations(first 4G phone to 3D phone) to the market with the help of Sprint which increases HTC brand awareness as most innovative company. Overall, the market is not quite ready for 3D phone but HTC wants to bag the "first" advantage in US market.

Banking via mobile device jumps 54 percent

People are once concerned about accessing financial information on handheld devices, but according to the comsocre numbers more people turning into mobile banking. The banks implemented basic security measures like encoding but they are still vulnerable to bigger threats. Due to increase screen sizes, availability data connection and interesting solutions like check deposits (chase), money transfers make more people opting for mobile banking. Unfortunately, the current ecosystem does not favor operators in making any additional revenues from value added services like this.

Facebook, Mobile Apps Increasingly Important to Businesses- AT&T reports

Even though the survey consists of 50 people, the results might be similar even with big population. Mobile and Social became two important aspects of reaching out to people for any business. Unlike big corps with more ad dollars, It more important for SMB' as they need to be discovered when the there is opportunity of business. The ubiquitous nature of mobile phone brings the information and services on demand. 41% of the business have a face book page shows the impact of social networks on business. Overall, SMB is growth segment with respective to mobility now, which can be saturated in next few years.

Google and Verifone for NFC trial

Google is looking into payments space since 2008, their current Google checkout system is not yielding any positive results, and hence they wants to try the payments space with NFC. They released the Nexus S with built in NFC technology for trial purpose. They also attempted to acquire few start-ups like Boku in the space. Apparently Google wants to join the electronic payment leader Verifone whose terminals will accept the payments from NFC device. San Francisco and New York are ideal location to conduct limited scale trial. Overall, The big giants like Apple, Google and financial companies like Visa and paypal wants to grab a piece of pie in the market.

Sprint buying T-mobile??

It was a rumor for a while that Deutsche Telekom AG wants sells their USA subsidiary T-mobile USA and sprint would be the potential buyer. According to the recent report from Wall Street and Bloomberg, DT already started the sell-off negotiations with Sprint. The top2 operators Verizon, AT&T are aggressively grabbing the subscribers from Sprint and T-mobile. If the deal happens, the combined T-mobile and Sprint have enough muscle power to compete with the top2. At the same time, the deal would be very complex as Sprint may fight for major share. Overall, we may see some consolidation happening in US by 2015.

There is an app for check-out - Bizzy

Valley found ways of better monetizing the location information. The success of Foursquare and Gowala paved ways for other similar start-ups. The new entrant to the market Bizzy, found that users feedback about a particular place is as interesting as letting friends know where you are. Bizzy simple yet intuitive expression mechanism allows user to provide via three expressions. User can also write more details if interested. Bizzy analyzes the information from huge data sets they collect, and monetizes by sharing the info with business. With the availability of network and easy interfaces on mobile phones with location capabilities, The location based start-ups mixed with social capabilities are thriving.

Android - Number One in U.S. Smartphone Market Share

Android surpassing the other mobile OS may not be surprising, but the time it took to beat the other OS might be an industry wide surprise. Android who came late in the game after the Apple manage attract the OEMs with free OS, and developers with open approach. The only sore eye at this point for Google is the profitability; Google is yet to monetize the huge ecosystem they created. I am shocked to see that, Motorola does have only 10% market share when compared to 12% of HTC. Verizon did a big push for Motorola with droid campaign, where as HTC got limited TV exposure through Sprint. Overall, Google reached the scale it wants, its time to monetize. Here is the OEM market share reported by Neilson.

Galaxy Tab slashed to $300

I can see two primary reasons for Verizon's price drop 1) Verizon wants promote their 4G/LTE devices, even though they have some 3G devices in shelves. Motorola's Xoom is the first tablet push in the LTE space. 2) Galaxy tab is currently based on smartphone android OS Gingerbread, The xoom comes with latest android tablet OS called honeycomb. On the other hand, Samsung is planning to introduce the 10 inch galaxy tab probably as a successor to xoom.

Square Drops Transaction Fee

I recently ordered the square accessory for my iPhone. The experience of charging credit card is a breeze, it is very simple to use and receipt was sent right away via email, the money i charged got transferred to my back account same night. Square simplified the traditional credit card terminal business model to very simple mobile device. The 2.75% transaction fee without swipe may lure any SMB towards migrating to this solution. Square not only attacks the rivals SMB payment leaders like Intuit and VeriFone but slowly paving the way towards personal payments directly competing with PayPal.

HP web OS Veer pre3 and touch pad announced

I got the invite to HP's event yesterday. They announced three new devices based on Web OS platform . They also announced the new ENYO webOS framework for developers to target any screen by writing once. At first look the devices are impressive, specially the credit card sized veer attracted lots of crowd. The touchPad tablet is similar to iPad but it is no different from other tablets out there in the market. HP plans to release the devices during next summer; HP also worked with top tier app publishers to insure the apps are readily available on their new devices. As iPad2 and Motorola xoom tablets hitting the market by summer, we can only hope HP's tablet survives the competition.

Blackberry Radio app

Blackberry Radio concept looks very neat, as it tries to aggregate and simplify the process of discovering radio stations based on location and music genre. The same app provides the opportunity for user to snack the content and upgrade to premium channels and it seamlessly integrates with media experiences. Purchasing a song in Amazon Mp3 store while listening to radio is an attractive feature. It also provides an opportunity to listen to your community stations no matter where you are in the world. Blackberry radio will be expanded to other countries after the beta in US.

iPhone5 with advanced tech

The rumored iPhone5/iPad2 might have few hardware modifications, probably more memory, Qualcomm chipset, NFC and they might throw camera to iPad. But with recent acquisitions, iPhone5 might leap forward in terms of technology. Apple might embed NFC chip to capture person-to-person transactions, coupons and retail payments. Apple may add personal assistant technology powered by siri where it can keep apple head to head with Google in local search. Apple also focusing on moving to the iTunes to Cloud, with the acquisition of lala.com, Apple can deliver music streaming services. Not but least, apple can use facial recognition technology which they acquired from Polar Rose either as a developer API as well as using them in photo tagging. These are some highlighted speculations, and this mission is going to be delivered without Steve Jobs. Overall, Apple acquisition strategy may keep them ahead of their competitors.

BilltoMobile Expands Carrier Billing Options for Verizon Customers

BilltoMobile is very attractive offering to US mobile operators, as it manages the part of negotiating deals with the merchants to offer carrier billing. Unlike, premium SMS models, BilltoMobile directly integrated with billing and authentication sub systems, which reduce direct cost to merchants. BilltoMobile's partnership agreement with Boku and Zong gives more number of retailers offering carrier billing with mutiple options for the end user. The only concern is, the multi stage value chain (boku to billtomobile to verizon) may increase to end user cost of service.

Ford explores Talking Cars concept

Last few years, automotive industry became active in communication technology integration. Manufacturers like Toyota, Hyundai started working on competitive products to fords infotainment technology called SYNC. Ford is looking for new differentiating features. Talking cars may be novel idea in terms of increasing safety. Ford exploring a hybrid technology combined with GPS and Wifi signals. This type of initiatives may require industry wide adoption, at the same time ford needs some differentiation. Lets hope “Talking cars” can be a reality by 2015.

AT&T to launch cell phone trade-in program

Handset trade-in program do exist for a while. Nokia partnered with a company named FlipSwap to do cell-phone trading. This type of program is an enhanced version of Cell phone recycling programs. Trade-in is some what cultural concept in US. It might give little push to consumers to upgrade their phone hence the plan. Offering $10 to $50 to make the users to upgrade their contract 2 more years is well worth the investment.

Google sets its top 2011 priorities on mobile

The three major strategic initiatives outlined by Google CEO are 1) LTE development 2) Mobile Money and 3) increase availability of inexpensive smart phones. I am not exactly sure about the new applications Google wants to bring on top of LTE networks apart from video delivery, the rest of the objectives are straightforward. With respective "Mobile Money", Google and Apple are actively looking to acquire some start-ups in the space. Apple tries to snatch Boku from Google mouth, on the other hand Google started experimenting NFC internally with their new Nexus S Smartphone. Google’s focus on emerging markets might be little challenging, as most of the phones are not sold through operators in emerging markets. Overall, 2011 can be a year where Mobile money can take center stage in western markets.