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.