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dd: Bill Gates: Cellphone will beat iPod
Microsoft chairman tells German newspaper that Apple's nifty little gizmo can't sustain itself.
May 12, 2005: 3:24 PM EDT
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Microsoft founder Bill Gates sees mobile phones overtaking MP3s as the top choice of portable music players, and views the raging popularity of Apple's iPod player as unsustainable, he told a German newspaper.
"As good as Apple may be, I don't believe the success of the iPod is sustainable in the long run," he said in an interview published in Thursday's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
"You can make parallels with computers: Apple was very strong in this field before, with its Macintosh and its graphics user interface -- like the iPod today -- and then lost its position," Gates said.
Apple (Research) has around two thirds of the global market for MP3 music players, which store thousands of songs on pocket-sized disk drives or smaller flash memory chips, and sold more than 5 million iPods in the last quarter.
But it faces increasing competition not only from the likes of Sony, whose iconic Walkman dominated the personal audio market for two decades, but also from mobile-phone companies integrating MP3 players into handsets.
Partly in response to pressure from Apple, Microsoft (up $0.11 to $25.02, Research) is now positioning itself to be a key player in the growing market for digital movies, pictures and music and grow beyond its core Windows operating system business.
It is working with partners such as Samsung to provide its Windows Mobile smartphone software to 40 handset makers.
"If you were to ask me which mobile device will take top place for listening to music, I'd bet on the mobile phone for sure," Gates told the newspaper.
In the United States, however, Microsoft smartphones have been overshadowed by Research In Motion's BlackBerry wireless e-mail device, which has sold 3 million so far.
Gates said that Microsoft's rival Windows Mobile 5.0 -- which will let e-mails pop up on a user's phone as soon as they arrive, and which is expected to be running phones on the market in the next few months -- would be cheaper.
"The BlackBerry is great but we're bringing a new approach," he said. "With BlackBerry you need to link to a separate server, and that costs extra. With us, the e-mail function will already be part of the server software."
"Therefore I'd venture the prediction that Microsoft will make wireless e-mail ubiquitous."
He admitted, however, that Microsoft had made mistakes in the past, for example with the first version of its XBox games console.
"The consumer is always unpredictable. In principle, you can only throw products onto the market and then learn from your mistakes," he said.
And the 49-year-old Microsoft chairman said he would not remain with the company for ever.
"I think that when someone is 60 years old he should better leave it to someone else to follow trends in technology. But until then there's still a lot to do," he said.
----------------------------------
http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/12/technology/personaltech/gates_cellphones.reut/
dd: Apple to lead WiMax explosion?
By Macworld staff
Talks between Apple and Intel regarding processors may have nothing to do with future Macs, analysts agree.
Along with its x86 processors, Intel also makes a variety of chips for different uses. One of these, the IOP 331 is already used within Apple's Xserve RAID. Intel also makes, or will make, chips to drive WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) and wireless USB products.
MacObserver reports that analyst John Yunker of Byte Level Research, believes the two firms are discussing one of these other chips, chips to drive WiMax.
A self-confessed Apple fan, he said: "(Apple) sells sole-service solutions, and likes to be a few steps ahead of everyone else. Apple could build WiMax into computers, or have a WiMax transmitter that plugs in, and there could be a WiMax plug-in for the TV. It could be a two-piece solution, similar to AirPort Express."
Apple is widely credited with helping kick-start the market for wireless computing, when it introduced the original AirPort in 1999, stealing yet another industry first.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=11731&Page=1&pagePos=6
dd: Google CEO vows one right answer for every search and universal reach "we'll get them all, even the ones in the trees"
... he tells Charlie Rose
By June 04, 2005Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher
It might be unfair of me to pull that quote from Eric Schmidt's Charlie Rose interview Friday, but it was there so what could I do?
It was an interesting interview even though Mr Rose did not understand much of the answers, or, many of the questions.
The questions were predictable and interesting answers were left unexplored, or even cut off in mid sentence as Mr Rose flailed and ultimately failed, to engage Mr Schmidt in a debate on any decent hot topic issue.
Still, there were some very good nuggets:
Google is the greatest calling--working for world peace through search
Everybody searching Google should only have to get one answer and that answer should always be right. It is very important that Google succeed in only giving one right answer. There is no better calling in life said Mr Schmidt.
Search is a force for peace and a better world. Google will reveal how everybody lives and thinks and speaks and looks and that is beneficial to world peace. Societies get along better when they know/see/hear more about each other Mr Schmidt said.
The Google recruitment pitch
Mr Schmidt says Google recruits by appealing to people who want to make big changes in the world and convince them that they should do it with Google. Why? Because Google has the scale in computing and organization.
And because of its size, Google represents the largest opportunity they will ever have in their lifetimes.
(Whew, ...that is one tough pitch to argue against.)
Google the innovation machine?
Mr Schmidt repeatedly spoke about innovation, and in a real way not like Microsoft, which peppers (and salts) the term innovation into near every public sentence uttered.
The competitive game is about who can innovate the fastest, who can build innovative teams the fastest. Money will do you no good. You have to know what is the most efficient sized team and process.
Google focuses 70 per cent on its core business, 20 per cent in adjacent businesses and 10 per cent on new ideas. Sergey's math skills "proved" this split to be most effective business strategy, Mr Schmidt explained.
We already knew its engineers spend about 20 per cent of their time working on new ideas, any ideas. Those that survive a review process are able to work on their new idea project full time, then they can start to recruit friends, (thus building self-organising teams—a key element of what we call the newrules enterprise).
Mobile phone becoming more important than PC
Vast areas of the world have no internet because there is no electricity. That's why mobile phones will be critical in extending Google's reach beyond the electric grid, such as in the Amazon, Mr Schmidt said. And that's the context of the headline quote, "We'll get them all, even the ones in the trees."
If a shipment of lava lamps arrives at your company
You have just been acquired. Welcome to the Googleplex, your mission is to make the world a better place by publishing all of the world's information (or as much as you can beg, borrow or . . . persuade?).
Mr Schmidt said the lava lamps help introduce people to the Google way.
I just saved you an hour.
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2005/06/google_ceo_vows_1.php
dd: Intel Expects To Ship 30 Million Cell Phone Processors This Year
(sorry if already posted)
The chipmaker plans to introduce its second-generation processor for cell phones in the second half of this year.
By Darrell Dunn, InformationWeek
June 3, 2005
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=164300154
Intel has devoted years of effort and tons of money trying to make its mark in the cell phone market, without a great deal of success. But the chipmaker says it has turned the corner in its effort to become a supplier of processors to the cellular phone market, projecting it will ship nearly 30 million units this year.
Intel will introduce its second-generation processor for cell phones in the second half of this year, said Sean Maloney, executive VP and general manager of the mobile platforms group, at the company's wireless and mobility conference in San Francisco this week. The company expects to ship around 30 million processors to the cell phone market this year, and exit the year on a run-rate "significantly" greater than 30 million a year.
Maloney said the Intel was late to market with its first-generation cell phone processor, code-named Manitoba, which also failed to meet performance expectations. Intel was able to gain valuable experience in the market, however, and the second-generation processor, code-named Hermon, is expected to fare considerably better, he says.
"This was a totally new business," Maloney said. "We had a new design and developed a new architecture, which was a huge undertaking."
Will Strauss, an analyst with Forward Concepts, estimates that Intel has spent between $4 billion and $5 billion trying to establish itself in the cell-phone processor market, which includes several acquisitions.
The opportunities are significant. The segment probably represents the largest single market for processors, with about 680 million cell phones shipped in 2004. Texas Instruments has dominated the cell phone processor market, with a market share of 50% or more. TI has had a close association with long-time cell phone market leader Nokia. With the cell phone market expected to grow to around 1 billion units over the next few years, gaining even a 15% share of the market would represent 150 million new processor sales for Intel.
ot: vines3, sweeet, and agreed....was there a few years back off a stop on a cruise and enjoyed it all, but forgot most of it except for a neet bar on the beach and a tour over to the French side I think...I anm sure it had nothing to do wiht the rum runners they were serving everyone profusely on the cruise ship before we hit port..lol
In any event, have a safe and happy R&R week ahead!
Regards,
SOG
ot: World's Most Luxurious Beaches http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/beach_1.html
http://www.forbes.com/2005/06/01/cx_sb_0602featslide.html?partner=yahoo
ot comment and dd: in case no one noticed, lol, the race is on with no finish in sight imo
Wireless Solutions: Digital TV for Handsets http://focus.ti.com/general/docs/wtbu/wtbugencontent.tsp?templateId=6123&navigationId=12424&...
bonus old dd: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS BRINGS LIVE DIGITAL TV TO YOUR CELL PHONE
The Industry's First Digital TV on a Single Chip, "Hollywood" Will Bring Broadcast Viewing and Reception to Mobile Phones
http://focus.ti.com/docs/pr/pressrelease.jhtml?prelId=sc04226
dd:Sydus and Virgin Radio have launched the world's first 3G radio player - so now, you can listen to our stations via the phone in your pocket wherever there's a mobile signal: from central London to Glasgow and from New York to Sydney - whatever network you're on
http://www.virginradio.co.uk/thestation/mobile/
ot: ss9173
Not sure, I will have to try to keep a journal on how, part art I suppose and part experience, and part technological advances....I have been dding as a means of survival early on before the net to try and learn about companies I had interviews with when I would get downsized and found myself on the street looking for "an edge" over the next of 1000 candidates for a position....also it is a hobby and means to find work via interview going back to when I'd spend a weekend researching micofish at librtarys b4 the net to get an edge or info on a company....I have dd'd for my entire life I guess and I really havent given it thought until you asked, i'll see in the next few months if I can try to undertand just what it is I do....I also have dd'd for competitive analysis with various companies I have worked wiht, I suppose I find this fun and have always had a compouter anywhere I went so I could just "log on" when I had a thought...I still am not sure....
And thanks you and success622 for the compliments, I just hope it helps us all and I suppose that is what motivates me...
ot and good DD: I keep thinking of Ampex, interesting as they continue, they are still listed on the otc bb and have recently applied in May btw for naz re-listing, but not trying to draw any comparisons, but Neomedia sure has their ducks lined up imo with their crossing of the t's and dotting of the i's imo and we sit here and enjoy playing "connect the dots"..lol
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050602.gttwtroll02/BNStory/specialSmallBusiness...
Thursday, June 2, 2005 Updated at 8:44 AM EDT
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
E-mail Mathew Ingram Read Bio Latest Columns
When is a troll not a troll? When it's a business trying to assert its rights in an evolving technology market.
That may not sound like much of a riddle -- unless you follow the intellectual property industry. While the troll from the children's tale lived under a bridge and forced travellers to pay him in order to cross, so-called "patent trolls" send legal letters warning companies that their products are infringing on patents, and asking for millions of dollars in licensing fees.
The person widely credited with coining the term is Peter Detkin, former assistant general counsel at Intel Corp. He used the term to describe a company that unsuccessfully sued Intel for about $8-billion (U.S.) in licensing fees, based on a patent it bought for $50,000. (He actually called Chicago-based TechSearch "patent extortionists," but changed it to troll after the company sued him for libel.)
Ironically, Mr. Detkin now works for Intellectual Ventures LLC, a company co-founded by former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold that has been spending millions to buy up patents. Mr. Myhrvold told a U.S. House sub-committee hearing into patent reform that he started the company to help inventors commercialize their ideas, but some industry insiders say they are afraid that it will become a troll.
Advertisements
Some describe what Intellectual Ventures and other firms do as patent "mining," in that they try to find overlooked patents that might apply to current technologies.
So when does a company with rights to a technology become a troll? That's something no one can seem to agree on. Some businesses complain they are being victimized by patent trolls, while the patent holders in question maintain they are simply protecting their legal rights to a technology.
Struggling companies with valuable patents have become acquisition targets, as has the intellectual property of failed tech firms, and patent lawyers are keeping busy.
The tech sector has seen a number of high-profile patent infringement cases recently, with giants such as Microsoft Corp. and eBay Inc. fighting cases launched by smaller technology companies. Research In Motion Ltd. was sued by U.S.-based NTP Inc., and RIM settled by agreeing to pay $450-million. At one point in the NTP/RIM case, a lawyer for the Canadian company dismissed the U.S. patent holder as nothing more than "a file drawer" in a lawyer's office -- in other words, a troll -- because NTP doesn't make or sell anything, and never has. It is simply a holding company that owns patents.
"The controversy that's out there right now is the definition of the term patent troll," said Jennifer Markey, a senior vice-president with Ottawa-based Semiconductor Insights Inc., which advises technology companies on how to protect and enhance their intellectual property. "No one wants to be known as a troll," she says.
But, Ms. Markey adds, "there has always been aggressive patent licensing."
In 1895, a U.S. lawyer named George Selden filed a patent for a "road engine" and then managed to get virtually every automobile maker to pay him a fee -- all except for Henry Ford, who fought the claim and won.
Jerome Lemelson filed hundreds of technology patents in the 1950s, then launched claims decades later. His "machine vision" patent was filed in 1956 but not approved for more than 30 years, at which point he sued companies that made barcode scanners and other similar technologies, winning hundreds of millions of dollars in legal judgments. Was Mr. Lemelson (who died in 1997) a patent troll or just someone asserting his legal rights as an inventor? The jury may still be out on that one, but in a ruling last year, a court struck down his machine vision infringement case, saying the inventor had waited too long to press his claims against the companies involved.
Muddying the issue of trolls even further, some major companies are turning their patents into a revenue stream. A prime example is International Business Machines Corp., which makes close to $1.5-billion a year just licensing its patents. Others, Mr. Myhrvold says, only use their patents on a defensive basis, which "is a polite way to say that they use [them] to maintain their dominant market position."
The technology downturn may have fuelled the practice, Ms. Markey says, because companies whose businesses weren't doing well turned to their patents as a source of revenue.
"It kind of created a patent arms race," she says.
One example of how the "patent mining" process can turn around a company's fortunes is Ampex Corp., which developed technology for audio and video recording in the 1940s. But as technology progressed, its business went downhill and the stock fell to pennies a share.
Then Ampex noticed that its patents could be applied to newer products such as DVD players and digital cameras. It has settled with Sanyo, Canon and Sony for a total of $75-million and has other claims outstanding. Its share price shot from $3 in October to $56.75 in February of this year, and is currently trading in the $30 range.
Mosaid Technologies Inc. of Ottawa and U.S.-based Rambus Inc. have spent the past couple of years suing other memory makers for infringing on their technology, with mixed success. Rambus won a settlement with Infineon and has lawsuits against Hynix and Micron, while Mosaid has settled with both Samsung and Hynix but has had less success against Infineon.
While Mosaid is seen by many as pursuing legitimate claims, Rambus has come under fire. Critics say it was a member of the group that arrived at a standard for memory, but never mentioned that it held patents related to the standard.
"Would you call Mosaid a troll?" Ms. Markey asks. "They developed the technology. Shouldn't they get the benefit of that technology?"
bonus dd 1: Ampex related>>>> May 10, 2005 04:00 PM US Eastern Timezone
Ampex Corporation Reports First Quarter 2005 Financial Results http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050510005...
bonus dd 2 ampex related: May 02, 2005 09:01 AM US Eastern Timezone
Ampex Corporation Files Listing Application with Nasdaq National Market http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050502005...
DD; Neomedia Patents 101 For Newbies And bonus Rrefresher For newbies/Oldies:
http://www.paperclick.com/patents.jsp
NeoMedia Technologies has a suite of seven issued patents covering core concepts behind our techniques for linking the physical world to the electronic world. These patents cover various linkage methods including
Barcodes
RF/ID
Mag Stripe
Voice
Other machine readable and keyed entry identifiers
The official NeoMedia patents can be viewed on the US Patent and Trademark Office web site by using the following links:
Number Title
5,933,829 Automatic Access of Electronic Information Through Secure Machine-Readable Codes on Printed Documents
5,978,773 System and Method for Using an Ordinary Article of Commerce to Access a Remote Computer
6,108,656 Automatic Access of Electronic Information Through Machine-Readable Codes on Printed Documents
6,199,048 System and Method for Automatic Access of a Remote Computer over a Network
6,430,554 Interactive System for Investigating Products on a Network
6,434,561 Method and Systems for Accessing Electronic Resources via Machine-Readable Data on Intelligent Documents
6,542,933 System and Method of Using Machine-Readable or Human-Readable Linkage Codes for Accessing Networked Data Resources
6,651,053 Interactive System for Investigating Products on a Network
6,675,165 Method for Linking a Billboard or Signage to Information on a Global Computer Network through Manual Information Input or a Global Positioning System
6,766,363 System and Method of Linking Items in Audio, Visual, and Printed Media to Related Information Stored on an Electronic Network using a Mobile Device
6,865,608 Method and System for Simplified Access to Internet Content on a Wireless Network
NeoMedia Technologies Adds to IP Portfolio by Acquiring Search-Oriented Patents for Mobile Marketing
http://www.neom.com/press_releases/2005/20050412.jsp
Paperclick Applications:...and thousands more applications are waiting to be discovered...if you can think of it, we can link it.... http://www.paperclick.com/applications.jsp
Paperclick products and solutions overview:
http://www.paperclick.com/psOverview.jsp
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=6572899
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=6572929
dd:Start-up on track to fill gaps in GPS
By Dean Takahashi
Mercury News
Posted on Mon, May. 09, 2005
Even if you're lost, Rosum will find you. That's the promise of the Redwood City start-up that has figured out how to use television signals to track your whereabouts.
Rosum's technology complements the satellite-based global positioning system. The decades-old GPS, originally built for military purposes, can get a fix on gadgets equipped with GPS receivers -- as long as you're out in the open. But GPS doesn't work well in skyscraper-filled urban canyons and it doesn't work at all inside buildings.
But TV signals penetrate through buildings, and Rosum uses them to track people where GPS can't. The first device using Rosum's technology is in the prototype stage. Navigation products using it will make their debut next year, according to Rosum Chief Executive Skip Speaks.
``There are immense black holes in the GPS system, and we can fill the gap,'' says John Metzler, Rosum's director of business development.
Rosum, which counts among its investors In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, promises a vast improvement in location-tracking services and gadgets. That could help everyone from the military to dispatchers tracking delivery trucks. It could even be used to track parolees like Martha Stewart when they go indoors, or locate someone making a 911 emergency call on an Internet phone.
``If you are tracking a van going up the 101, it goes dark in the financial district,'' says Metzler. ``With us, you can have the security of knowing where the van is, and if the driver has stopped to get doughnuts.''
Adds Speaks, the former head of Kyocera's wireless phone business, ``Ultimately, we'd like to drive the technology into every cell phone.''
But privacy advocates raise a red flag about how Rosum's technology could be used to locate and track people without their consent.
Kurt Opsahl, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, said Rosum apparently will operate a location server that will be able to record the movement history of any device being tracked. If the Rosum technology eventually is built into cell phones or other popular gadgets, the government could subpoena Rosum's customers to track anyone's movements.
``This is another step toward a surveillance society,'' said Opsahl. ``They could get your traffic patterns. This is fairly sensitive information.''
Speaks says it will be up to Rosum's customers to decide how to implement the technology and balance privacy concerns. He says anyone tracking a specific person without that individual's approval must obtain a court order.
``We will give up some of our privacy for enhanced security,'' he says.
He notes, for instance, that a Rosum network could be set up to monitor the locations of soldiers, police or firefighters as they go into dangerous buildings. If they need to be rescued, it would be easier to locate them with the Rosum technology.
Commercial use of GPS satellites began in 1991 but James Spilker, one of the original architects of the GPS satellite, knew its weakness well.
Spilker, the founder of Stanford Telecommunications, launched Rosum in 2000 with Stanford University engineering Professor Matthew Rabinowtiz. They realized a synchronization feature in digital and analog television signals could be used for other purposes than to lock the vertical hold for older TVs.
The engineers created a radio receiver chip that could zero in on the TV signal and get the synchronization information. Using precision timing, they figure out how far a TV signal travels before it is picked up by a device equipped with Rosum chips. Next, they compare the measurements against other data that they collect with their own listening stations and then finally calculate the device's position. The Rosum engineers call this process ``multilateration,'' which is akin to navigational triangulation.
To set up this system, customers have to put Rosum's radio chips and the modules that house them into their equipment. These modules, about as big as a matchbook, cost about $40 to make, but could become cheaper and smaller over time with high-volume production. One of the main computational tasks of these devices do is to filter out the wrong signals, such as ghost images that have been reflected off of an object.
``That's the part that took a lot of Stanford Ph.D.s,'' Speaks says.
Rosum's vice president of engineering, Greg Flammel, says tests of the technology show it can track someone in the basement floor of the San Francisco Public Library. It also found a person in the heart of San Francisco's financial district.
Flammel says TV signals are 10,000 times stronger than GPS signals. That means tracking through TV signals is much easier and quicker than via satellite.
Mark research firm Frost & Sullivan estimates the market for GPS equipment -- now at $445 million -- will double in the next six years.
There also are strategic uses for Rosum's technology. President Bush signed a directive in December requiring the government to find an alternative to GPS in case the system is compromised. Speaks says Rosum's positioning technology could serve as the GPS backup system.
Among the investors in Rosum, which has raised $16 million, is In-Q-Tel, Charles River Ventures, Allegis Capital, Motorola Ventures, Steamboat Ventures and KTB Ventures. Rosum says it has won nine patents and has applied for dozens more.
Rosum, which has only 27 employees, has a partnership with Sunnyvale-based Trimble Navigation to make a fleet-tracking device that would use both GPS and the Rosum TV-tracking system. Trimble expects to launch that product next year.
``The tests we've done show it works even in the basements of big buildings,'' said Dennis Workman, a vice president of component technologies at Trimble.
Rosum is best used with a GPS system, mainly because TV signals don't reach into places such as the Nevada desert or the middle of the ocean. The technology also isn't useful for tracking someone vertically. So it can locate a person in an office tower but can't determine what floor they're on unless the building is ringed with a set of Rosum antennas.
``We aren't going for the commodity markets at first,'' says Speaks. ``But you have to ask, what things do you really want to locate? What is it worth to have a 911 call that you can track regardless of what kind of phone initiates it?''
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/11601658.htm
dd:Half of Cell Phones Will Be RFID-Enabled by 2009
How new technologies are modifying our way of life
lundi 19 juillet 2004
Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends
Three months ago, Nokia introduced the first RFID phone kit (check "RFID Coming to a Cell Phone Near You" for more). Now, in "Developing RFID-Enabled Phones," RFID Journal says a new report from ABI Research predicts that within 5 years, 50% of cell phones will include RFID chips to use Near Field Communication (NFC), a two-way technology. Here is how you'll use it. While walking down the street, you'll see a poster for a movie you want to see. By pointing your phone at the poster, you will be connected to a website, buy the ticket and be charged through the credit card information stored in your smart phone. Of course, other usages might severely affect your privacy. But as the technology is already being tested, I guess we'll have to deal with it.
Here is the introduction of the article.
Some major cell phone manufacturers are preparing the release communication devices incorporating RFID technology that they hope will change the way consumers buy products, services and use their credit cards. According to a new report from ABI Research ["Near-Field Communications"], within a few years, users of cell phones and other handheld devices will use near field communication (NFC) to access services and buy products simply by holding their own device close to another one.
Here is how the technology works.
NFC technology uses short-range RFID transmissions that provide easy and secure communications between various devices. That means that, for example, making a reservation could be as simple as holding your phone close (less than 20 centimeters) to a poster or advertising billboard. Without ever dialing a number or speaking to anyone on the phone, you’d be able to purchase concert tickets, book hotel rooms and make other types of reservations and have these transactions charged to a credit card using account information stored in the handheld device or phone.
These transactions can be done without user configuration. In other words, the RFID tag inside the device will automatically connect, via the cellular connection or through NFC-enabled Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to the appropriate Web site so you can learn about the product or service, transfer content such as audio or video files, or carry out a commercial transaction.
"NFC is interesting because it is a peer-to-peer communication protocol [a communication model in which devices link directly to each other, without the intervention of any intermediary device or system], enabling two [RFID] cards to talk, while also simultaneously being an active and passive RFID solution," says Erik Michielsen, a director at ABI Research, which is based in Oyster Bay, N.Y.
Since all devices are equipped with built-in RFID readers, two-way communication is possible Depending on the type of NFC device, data transfer rates will be 106, 212, or 424 kbps. To make this work, an NFC chip embedded in a phone can act as an RFID reader when the phone is on and a passive smart label or RFID tag when the phone is off. NFC chips can hold 64 to 128 bits of memory Data, which would be likely to include an identification number initially, would be encrypted before it is transmitted.
Who's working on this technology?
Manufacturers of the NFC chips would include the same companies that currently make RFID tags, labels or chips, including Philips, TI, Infineon, Sony, ASK and Inside Contactless. ABI Research sees NFC-enabled cell phones as the initial driver in the market. Consumers can expect the first NFC-equipped handsets to come on the market in 2005. By 2009, ABI estimates that up to 50 percent of the cell phones is use will be NFC-enabled.
And as I said above, NFC is currently being tested.
According to Michielsen, Visa and Universal Music each have already done trials of NFC-enabled cell phones with Philips. In addition, Visa and Nokia recently completed a trial together involving NFC-enabled cell phones in Finland. These trials focused on payment and transaction security.
Finally, to check how RFID-enabled phones can be used today, here is a link to a Flash presentation showing the Nokia RFID phone kit used by a field office professional.
Sources: Claire Swedberg, RFID Journal, July 9, 2004; ABI Research and Nokia websites
1:00:35 PM Permalink Comments [0] Trackback [4]
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DD: Good Emmbedded Weekend browsing Related Links to Previous Post:
http://www.primidi.com/2005/05/28.html
The Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering at North Dakota State University
http://www.ndsu.edu/cnse/
dd:RFID Rocks for the U.S. Military
June 01, 2005
One of those experimental programs for the U.S. military is all the talk right now on blogs and other websites.
The Financial Times reports that the U.S. military is developing RFID sensors that will be installed in small fake rocks strewn around the battlefield and other areas. The Financial Times article is subscription only, but here is a short snippet from the article:
The devices, which would be no larger than a golf ball, could be ready for use in about 18 months. They use tiny silicon chips and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology that is so sensitive that it can detect the sound of a human footfall at 20ft to 30ft. The project is being carried out by scientists at North Dakota State University, which has licensed nano-technology processes from Alien Technology, a California-based commercial manufacturer of RFID tags for supermarkets.
It is an example of the increasing desire for the US military to co-operate with civilian industry and academic institutions in the development of battlefield technology that will reduce the risks to soldiers' lives. Greg McCarthy, associate vice president at the university's Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering, said: "The military wants better sensing capability. People are being killed because someone's sneaking up on a tent and blowing them up."
A reader sent me the link initially from O'Reilly Radar, the weblog of the CEO of the O'Reilly Network. In his post, Tim O'Reilly muses about the imaginative and futuristic nature of this plan
You can find additional details at Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends.
It will be interesting to see if this is ever deployed or whether it remains in the realm of the experimental. Personally it sounds rather unfeasible to me. Too much ground to cover and too cumbersome to carry.
http://www.rfid-weblog.com/archives/ubiquitous_computing.php
DD: Intel gives mobile market another tryadvertisementRelated information E-mail this article Print-friendly version
All Financial Times NewsIntel on Thursday announced its latest attempt to break into the mobile phone market, with the release of a handset in Europe featuring its processor.
The UK-based operator O2 will launch a camera and music phone next week featuring a re-engineered version of Intel's first-generation Manitoba processor, which had signally failed to attract handset makers and service providers since its introduction in 2003.
Recent investing newsChina Faces Political Backlash Over Trade Rumsfeld flags concerns over China military Pentagon admits jailers abused Koran Stocks Sink at Close of Disappointing Week Apple Launches iPod Recycling Program
Intel has been unable to penetrate a market dominated by Texas Instruments, with its expertise in PC processors challenged by the smaller power requirements and form factors of phones.
But Sean Maloney, head of Intel's Mobility Group, presenting to journalists and analysts, said Intel's application processors for phones were ramping up and gaining acceptance in the industry.
"We feel we are finally getting traction, we are getting significant volume designs," he said.
Asked why its efforts to break into the phone market since 2000 had "stunk", Mr Maloney replied: "It's a totally new business for us, designing and developing a new architecture is a big deal, it takes a while."
He added that Intel was on track to release the second generation of its processor later this year.
Intel would not reveal the handset maker behind the new phone, but said it had worked with the manufacturer before
The company also provided an update on its efforts to push a new wireless standard known as Wimax, which it said was complementary to 3G, offering broadband connectivity over wide areas.
Mr Maloney said the company was hitting its milestones and its first Wimax chip, codenamed Rosedale, was rolling out to customers. Sixty-eight carrier trials were taking place in 2005 of Wimax, which requires a new infrastructure.
"We have to work with people to build global networks, these are non-trivial tasks," he said.
Intel also announced a verification programme for 3G similar to one it ran to promote the spread of wi-fi for notebook computers. It also announced a new service where notebooks could now be integrated with the Tivo To Go service, allowing TV programmes to be transferred wirelessly to laptops from the popular digital video recorder.
(IF POSTED PREVIOUSLY, I APOLOGIZE, MULTITASKING HERE AND SCANNING, READING AND DIGESTING WHILE I catch up fwiw, have a good day...SOG)
dd: New-gen wireless technology could shake up cell-phone services
By John R. Quain
Jun 2, 2005, 19:00 GMT
(UPI) -- A new generation of wireless technology could shake up cell-phone services.
The ink is barely dry on the official WiMAX specification for high-speed wireless Internet service, yet several manufacturers are already looking ahead to rolling out the next generation in wireless broadband service: Mobile WiMAX.
Also known as 802.16e, Mobile WiMAX would allow consumers to roam between wireless hot spots without interruption, just as mobile-phone users travel between cells without dropping calls. In South Korea, plans are well under way to offer WiMAX roaming, dubbed WiBro, which should provide a glimpse of possible future U.S. applications.
\"We should have the world`s first Mobile WiMAX service up and running by April of next year,\" says Dr. Hung Song, a Samsung vice president. Samsung has been working on an end-to-end Mobile WiMAX solution for service providers.
Song expects to see a finalized 802.16e standard by the second half of next year. Initially, there will be compatible Mobile WiMAX cell phones and PC Cards for laptops, with speeds topping out at around 15 megabits per second.
Such data rates could help promote services that tax the limits of current high-speed cell-phone services, such as video on demand, music on demand, and mobile blogs. Proponents also see Mobile WiMAX as offering services currently beyond the capabilities of 3G networks, such as high-quality live TV broadcasting and telematics applications with live traffic reports in cars. A Mobile WiMAX car system, for example, could alert a driver about traf- fic congestion ahead while a song downloads to the car`s music player and the kids watch a streaming movie.
South Korea will likely be first with Mobile WiMAX services, because carriers in that country are cooperating, thanks to government legislation, says Samsung`s Song. Roaming WiMAX could threaten established cellular services in the U.S., however, since the capability exists to offer VoIP services over the same wireless connections in the future.
DD: Convergence or collision?
The convergence of fixed and mobile communications networks is almost a reality. But service providers have yet to work out how it will be paid for.
http://www.infoconomy.com/pages/strategy-column/group106382.adp
Today's separation of fixed and mobile networks is a "glaring weakness" in the way enterprise communications systems are set up. As Jeremiah Caron, research director for enterprise telephony at market watchers Current Analysis explains: "The main problem is that the way mobile communications are managed within any enterprise is horrendous. It's a huge financial black hole and nobody really likes the way it's set up. Gaining control over those costs and making them predictable, even if they don't lower them dramatically, is a main aim for any IT department. But it's a very complex process."
Control can only be achieved, say industry watchers, by converging communications media onto one network, giving users one number and perhaps only one handset. That handset must then be capable of switching seamlessly from mobile networks outside the office to wireless LAN inside the office.
The idea of converged networks is not new, says Michael Knott, a managing partner at consultants Accenture, but it is regaining interest as proponents switch "from a technology pitch to a user-centric platform for delivering services that people want."
Convergence presents opportunities for fixed operators to become a 'one-stop shop' and counter the effect of fixed-mobile substitution says Knott; for mobile operators to diversify into new products and with new partners; and for product and equipment vendors to supply new devices and infrastructure to exploit the full potential of convergence of communications.
But it also presents challenges. These vendors will need to change their business models and balance cooperation on standards with competition for each others' share of service revenues.
Lucent Technologies, which develops communications technology for operators, envisages a converged world based entirely on IP (Internet protocol), backed up by the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), which allows operators to offer new rich-media services and applications and so gain new revenues to replace those lost as wireless voice and data become increasingly commodity services.
David Poticny, European president of Lucent, says that for a converged network to be viable it has to meet certain quality thresholds before the technology will be adopted by enterprises: users are activated on the service in less than 10 minutes; the device can be used within 30 seconds of being picked up; if a data connection is lost it should automatically pick up where it left off when the signal returns; and the device should always be connected.
"There isn't a single winner technology, it will be a combination [of devices and networks]," he says, but convergence "will be driven by ease of use and ubiquity."
Although several technology suppliers provide products and services that enable enterprises to converge their networks in an ad-hoc fashion (see box), considerable work is required from telcos and network operators to make a converged infrastructure cheap and ubiquitous. Ease of use is just as important on the network management side as for the end user.
Ad-hoc convergence:
what organisations can do today.
A survey by analyst group Quocirca and mobile service provider O2 found that many people use their mobile phones while at their desk: 11% with high frequency and 44% with medium frequency. UK telecoms regulator Ofcom supports this, suggesting that 30% of mobile calls are made within reach of a fixed-line phone. Many of those calls will be made to co-workers in the same office.
This indicates the growing attachment mobile users have to their personal handsets. Ofcom's statistics also show that mobile's share of switched voice calls has increased from less than 5% in 1994 to around 30% in 2004. Vodafone hopes to extend this trend still further with a business service aimed to substitute fixed for mobile calls. When the mobile giant moved 3,250 employees into its new global headquarters in Newbury, Berkshire, it scrapped its private branch exchange (PBX) network in favour of using only mobile phones, networked to a virtual PBX. The service even includes a mini intranet of internal contacts, accessed via text message. It now plans to offer a similar service to small businesses and mobile enterprise departments.
While that may suit organisations with a remote and constantly mobile workforce, it cannot bring the benefits of full convergence: integrating voice into desktop applications such as customer relationship management software, simplified conference calls or making communications presence aware.
But even without having fixed and mobile voice calls running across the same network, companies can try to converge what they do have as best they can with another software-based approach. 'Unified communications' platforms, such as Siemens' HiPath OpenScape, Alcatel's Omnitouch and Microsoft's Live Communications Server, sit on top of today's heterogeneous corporate networks to provide advanced collaboration services.
Martin Northend, head of convergence platforms at Siemens Communications, says OpenScape recaptures the fluidity of communication that has been lost as workers become more distributed, by providing a more granular presence function that shows an individual's availability by media as well as by status. "The concept of OpenScape is that it's a communications environment that accepts the fact that you might have five phone numbers and three emails. And the reality is that this is going to be around for some time yet," he says. "You could have a compound icon for one team, so whenever more than half of the team is available, it instantly establishes a voice or data conference with them. If you can do it over IP it provides you with a graphical interface and, if not, a voice-based interface."
In an attempt to conceal the complexity of the current state of wireless communications, some companies have turned to service aggregators. This software, provided by companies such as O2 and iPass, sits on a laptop and controls access to WiFi hotspots, corporate wireless LANs or 3G networks by choosing the most appropriate connection for the user, without any need for fiddly manual configuration. A 3G data card might be perfect for working from a local customer site, but roaming costs could make using it in a foreign airport much more expensive than the local WiFi network. As well as controlling costs, aggregators also bring security advantages, allowing policies to be enforced before allowing devices to connect to corporate networks.
These ideas are small steps towards the simplicity of services, devices and sessions that users need if communications are to be converged, ensuring that the underlying complexity and heterogeneity is hidden from the user.
Unless businesses opt for a converged network, they have to look at overlaying WiFi, says Pierre Trudeau, founder and CTO of wireless network equipment vendor Colubris. But 'tunnelling' a secure link to the edge switch from a WiFi access point means that the network cannot see inside the tunnel; security and quality of service (QoS) functions then become difficult to manage. "There are two parallel systems to maintain, meaning one more potential bottleneck or single point of failure. The first goal is to leverage 100% of the wired infrastructure to provide a better experience to the user and make it easier to manage by allowing WiFi to be part of the corporate backbone," he says.
Sharing the spoils
Outside the corporate campus, carrier-grade wireless IP voice networks are required to ensure QoS and manage traffic. "Underlying all this somewhere is a network with an operating expenditure," says Dave Keegan, head of 'office on the move' at mobile operator O2. But so far none of the parties involved have agreed on a business model to share out these costs.
Charging becomes more of an issue as voice over wireless LAN jostles with GSM and perhaps even new wireless access technologies such as WiMax. Industry insiders predict a move towards broadband-style flat rate charging, but this will initially vary depending on the kind of wireless connection being used.
But Peter Linder, CTO of wireline at Ericsson, denies that this will erode operator revenues: "We pay a pound for a thousand litres of tap water at home. But if you add bubbles and a slight taste, you can sell it as mineral water for a pound for half a litre."
He says adding a few ingredients and marketing will prevent flat rates from imposing a ceiling on revenue growth. "As soon as you start exploiting the QoS mechanism it will add or conserve the unique characteristics of each service."
But Current Analysis's Caron is less confident the problem can be so easily solved. "The big issue is the complete lack of conversation between private network infrastructure suppliers and the mobile operators." He says that the ideal of the unified network is being pushed by infrastructure vendors such as Ericsson, Avaya and Siemens but the mobile operators have hardly been involved in working out contracts because they have not yet found a way to sell 'bottled tap water'. "They still have to figure out a way to keep mobile minutes at an acceptable level to justify the cost of the mobile infrastructure."
Internet telephony platform Skype is one company that is trying a new business model. While basic PC-to-PC calls are free, Skype is gaining currency as an enterprise-ready service by charging for additional functions, such as calling landlines and mobiles, voicemail and conference calling.
These costing concerns have held up development of the end-user technology that supports converged communications. Critics suspect the major mobile device manufacturers are too cosy with operators to hurry out a combined cellular and voice-over-WiFi device, although many such phones are in development. It is also in device manufacturers' interests for users to have one phone for private use and one for business, rather than a single handset that can filter calls using presence functions.
Phones and gateways that allow calls to interface with the rest of the network exist today, made by Hitachi, Spectralink, Motorola and Nokia. But these have not been developed as rapidly as some would have hoped. Mobile companies can point to UMA (unlicensed mobile access), a standard promising to improve call hand-off between GSM/GPRS and WiFi, as proof that they are working towards convergence. But as the industry moves towards IP-based communications in the wireless as well as wireline world, the window of opportunity for this initiative is closing rapidly.
"UMA is just about putting GSM traffic over the Internet," says Colubris's Trudeau. "It is a consumer type service and it doesn't leverage WiFi to the full extent. Enterprises won't like it because it doesn't leverage their IP PBX." By attempting to converge wireless voice only, the mobile operators are pushing in the wrong direction.
As such it has been Research in Motion which, having already started a fire under mobile email with its BlackBerry device, could yet do the same for voice over IP over a wireless LAN, thanks to a partnership with switch maker 3Com. As businesses need a RIM server to use BlackBerrys, the company is better placed to provide the integration with enterprise networks that aids convergence. Nevertheless, indications are that mainstream devices will not be able to provide seamless mobility until at least the end of 2006.
Head-on collision
In the US, it is mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) that are pushing convergence as a means to increase their market share. But in Europe, the dominance of the old 'dinosaur' telcos has prevented third parties from edging their way into the market. BT's re-entry to the mobile market as a MVNO using the Vodafone network could break that trend. But its much-hyped 'Bluephone' fixed-mobile offering, expected by June 2005, uses Bluetooth in its first incarnation - hardly the most seamless convergence tool. A WiFi version will follow, but Bluephone remains targeted at small business and home users rather than as a full enterprise offering that ties into the PBX.
At the heart of all this is the issue of who will "own" converged communications, when it arrives. "There is definitely a lot of positioning and jockeying for brand ownership," says Rob Bamforth, an analyst with market watchers Quocirca. Large telcos such as BT, device manufacturers such as Nokia and software companies such as Microsoft would all like to be the brand most closely associated with the communications tool, he says, "but there is only so much space in the palm of the hand".
Eliminating the line between private networks and those of fixed and mobile operators is crucial to convergence but each wishes to draw their boundary deeper into the others' territories. "The word convergence is not always appropriate," says Bamforth. "It implies something neat. More appropriate would be collision: you get damage. In the fixed-mobile convergence space, people are generally talking about substitution one way or the other."
In the near term, he says, things are likely to get worse before they get better. "We're going through a stage where the potential of VoIP for innovation means that we will see more alternatives," says Bamforth. "You can call it complexity and confusion, or choice, depending on your viewpoint."
Experts at Lucent's Bell Labs R&D unit say that wireless today just cannot compete with fixed line networks, but point to the introduction of high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) - the high-speed future incarnation of 3G mobile networks - as the starting point for true fixed-mobile convergence at an operator level. Along with IMS, mobile operator O2 is trialling HSPDA on the Isle of Mann, and it - along with other operators - hopes to offer a commercial service in 2006. While GPRS and 3G are too slow for IP voice calls, putting VoIP over HSDPA, with its download speed of up to 14Mbps, works better than today's GSM wireless voice networks. Only then will that wireless VoIP be able to seamlessly integrate with fixed-line IP telephony.
ot: Was away for a few days fwiw
And tried for first time stock quotes on mobile phone (bet you can't guess which one I looked up lol), cool stuff and definitely want the latest and greatest everything available for mobile phone package when my contract is up early next year...
Anyway, nice to see us close at .53 I think, and what else is there to say, but hope I can pick up a few more end of next week if I can free up a lil cash)
Will catch up on DD but being a way was good for the soul, thought lots and imo the next quarter will be very very exciting for us jmho...hows that for Scientific analysis, lol
Anyway, take care and this is getting exciting, we aint holding in low to mid .50's for nothing, MM's are (like others said here)imo holding it here for a reason......May all our dreams come true...
Time for a cold cerveza...
...and thanks to all for the great DD and commments...Besides my family, lol, it is nice to have this board to come home to and look forward to reading/catching up to after a grueling week on the road fwiw...
SOG
DD & OT: More cell phone subscribers than people?
(SOG ot comment fwiw:it seemd like just a few weeks ago one would have to "dig Reaaaaaaaly hard" for dd, now it is everywhere one turns imo for the Mobile Phenom, more validation in my/SOG's opinion that the rapid growth phase of this paradigm shift is about to start in a big way, and here's hoping neom will be there to catch part of that big wave....something like that.....patience is a virtue...wish I had more time to DD lately but will not have much for a while so GLTA and thanks for the DD)
Netherlands survey counts SIM cards
MSNBC.com
Reuters
Updated: 4:02 p.m. ET May 31, 2005
AMSTERDAM - The number of cell phone subscribers surpassed the number of citizens in the Netherlands in the first quarter this year, a survey showed on Tuesday.
Mobile phone operators in the Netherlands added 356,000 net connections, lifting the total to 16.4 million customers at the end of March, or 100.4 percent of the population, Dutch research group Telecompaper said.
The survey counted the number of subscribers, measured by SIM cards that are put inside a mobile phone to connect it to a network, and did not measure how many individuals owned a handset.
"A lot of people have two or even more SIM cards," said analyst Ed Achterberg.
Some people own several mobile phones to separate private and business calls. In addition, aggressive price plans due to ferocious competition have young people hunting for better deals.
SIM cards have recently been handed out as part of package deals with broadband Internet subscriptions, regardless of whether people wanted them or not.
And the cards are often used by machines as well as people.
In Denmark, with a population of 5.5 million, 150,000 SIM cards are used in machines such as alarm systems and wind turbines that use the cellphone network to report problems.
The real penetration of individuals owning cellphones in the Netherlands is estimated to be around 75 or 80 percent.
Other European countries with mobile subscriptions around 100 percent are Israel (105 percent), Sweden (104), Finland (98 percent), Denmark (95) and Estonia (95), but not all operators make the same distinction between active and non-active subscribers.
In Britain, operators only count those subscribers that have used their phone in the last three months, which has cut SIM card penetration but boosted average revenue per user.
"It's a bit of a scam. Phones with pre-paid contracts are heavily subsidized. A lot of SIM cards in them are never activated," said telecoms consultant John Strand in Copenhagen.
The subsidies on mobile phones, which carriers can only earn back through call charges, are on the way out, as competition from very low cost operators increases, Telecompaper said.
"Operators seem less committed to subsidize the acquisition of prepay customers," Achterberg said, adding this has already slowed down customer acquisition growth in the first quarter.
© Reuters 2005. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
© 2005 MSNBC.com
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8048255/
ot comment & Virgin dd: I am looking forward to the Virgin outcome personally, and of course all the other good things that seem to be coming together...hard to say which I look more forward to, lol, but I may try to scrape up another 3000 shares so I can sleep well at night...Have to see if I can free up a few more bucks in the next few weeks and by then we may be on our way so we'll see if I'll even have a chance at these blue light special rates imo...ps...back from a much needed few days of rr & wish I could have that lifestyle more, lol, so relaxing not having to worry about work...here's hoping for a great summer here with our gem so we all can live out our profitable investment fantasies!!!!
Anyway, in and out here and cant catch up with the gazillion posts sop if this was posted already, I apologiize:
DD1.)http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/May2005/31/c4971.html
Attention News Editors/See CNW Photo Network and Archive:
Virgin Mobile Launches in Atlantic Canada
Company Delivers a Simpler, Better Deal
HALIFAX, May 31 /CNW/ - Virgin Mobile introduced its no 'catch' mobile
phone service to Atlantic Canadians today, offering customers great anytime
rates, no hidden fees and no contracts to sign. The company will shake up the
mobile market in Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, P.E.I., and Nova
Scotia, and deliver a simpler, better deal to over 1.5 million Atlantic
Canadians who currently don't have a mobile phone.
"Over 650,000 Atlantic Canadians are locked into long-term contracts, are
paying hidden fees or extra charges," said Richard Branson, Virgin Group
Chairman and Virgin Mobile Canada founder. "Customers are losing out and
they're paying more than they need to for their mobile phone services. Virgin
Mobile will continue the success it's already experiencing across Canada into
the Atlantic provinces by bringing some much-needed simplicity to the market,"
added Branson.
"We're excited to launch Virgin Mobile in Atlantic Canada where we know
customers are ready for a simpler, better deal," said Andrew Black, President
and CEO of Virgin Mobile Canada. "The percentage of Atlantic Canadians with
mobile phones is the lowest in the country at just over 30 per cent, and
there's the least amount of competition in the east coast compared to the rest
of Canada, which makes this a perfect market for Virgin Mobile."
The Facts:
Where to get us
Virgin Mobile has made buying and using a Virgin Mobile phone easy for
customers at its custom-made V Zones where people can grab a Virgin Mobile
phone and go. Phones will be available at HMV, Future Shop, Indigo-Chapters,
Student Phones, Wal-Mart, Zellers, and customers can get turned on through
customer service (1-888-999-2321) and online (www.virgin.com/mobile). Top up
cards will be available at more than 2,000 stores across Atlantic Canada,
including Ultramar, and Irving, and customers can also top up online, through
Virgin Mobile customer service or directly from their mobile phone.
The Phones
Virgin Mobile phones are sold with no contracts to sign, so customers
don't have to tie themselves into long-term commitments and high-priced plans.
Three sexy little phone models are available at affordable prices from leading
manufacturers Nokia and Audiovox-- the Nokia 6015i at $99; the Audiovox 8615
flip phone at $159 and the Audiovox 8910 camera phone at $219.
Pricing
Virgin Mobile's rates start low and get even lower. Calls cost just
25 cents a minute for the first five minutes each day, then just 15 cents a
minute. The credit customers purchase lasts for 120 days before expiry - the
longest in the market.
Virgin Mobile customers can get even better value with a $25 monthly
pass: only 20 cents a minute for the first five minutes of calls each day and
then just 10 cents a minute.
"We offer a mobile service where customers buy a phone and pay only for
the calls they make. With Virgin Mobile, Atlantic Canadians will get a service
with great anytime rates; no end of month bill surprises, and no hidden fees
such as 911, System Access, voicemail or call waiting; no contracts, and no
catches," added Black.
The company charges a low rate of 10 cents to send a text message to any
mobile customer, and just introduced the lowest standard text rate in the
industry of five cents between Virgin Mobile Canada customers.
The Cool Stuff - VXL
Virgin Mobile has created its own customized menu and some fun and sexy
extras such as: Musictones (download the real tune by the artist), Rescue Ring
(program your phone to save you during a bad date), Skins (customize your menu
to be a "playa", "it girl" or go "au naturel"), Celebrity Dirt, Your Psychic,
Date Generator and loads of games and ringtones. These can be found in the VXL
section of Virgin Mobile's menu. Customers only pay 10 cents for unlimited
access to VXL for the entire day, a one-time content fee for any extras they
purchase, and no additional per Kb download fee.
"Customers have told us that they're sick of the techno-babble and simply
want cool services. Our phones are about more than talking and listening. We
give customers a whole new experience, from our easy-to-follow menu to our
unique VXL service," said Black.
What is Virgin Mobile Canada?
Launched in Ontario, Quebec, B.C. and Alberta in March 2005, Virgin
Mobile Canada is a partnership with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and
Bell Mobility, bringing together one of the world's most respected brands with
Canada's leader in communications.
Virgin Mobile will operate as a mobile virtual network operator or MVNO,
which has proven to be a successful business approach for Virgin Mobile in
other markets around the world. Virgin Mobile was first launched in the United
Kingdom in November 1999, in Australia in 2000, the U.S. in July 2002, and
Canada in 2005, and together the companies have attracted more than
8.5 million customers worldwide.
/NOTE TO PHOTO EDITORS: A photo accompanying this release will be
available on the CNW Photo Network and archived at
http://photos.newswire.ca. Additional archived images are also available
on the CNW Photo Archive website at http://photos.newswire.ca. Images are
free to accredited members of the media/
For further information: Paula Lash; paula.lash@virginmobile.ca,
Virgin Mobile, (416) 655-5555; Suzanne MacCormack,
smaccormack.ccl@cclgroup.ca, Corporate Communications Limited,
(902) 493-3100
Bonus DD2.)
:Virgin Mobile shares boosted by upbeat outlook
Thu May 26, 2005 10:27 AM BST
By Gavin Haycock
LONDON (Reuters) - Mobile phone group Virgin Mobile, the company which has built its business on pay-as-you-go phone deals, said it expects strong revenue growth in the coming year, sending its shares up more than 5 percent.
The company, which is breaking into the more lucrative contract market and plans half-price introductory offers in May, posted a largely as-expected 27 percent rise in core annual earnings despite a fall in average revenues per user.
The company posted a 16.2 percent rise in service revenue to 457.3 million pounds in the year to the end of March, and said it expected similar growth in the year ahead amid tough competition and unease about weak consumer spending.
"We are confident in achieving strong growth in both prepay and contract, and as a result, we are expecting service revenue percentage growth in the mid-teens in FY 2005/06," said Virgin Mobile Chief Executive Tom Alexander.
The company said leading rivals were only delivering mid single digit percentage service revenue growth.
Alexander said Virgin's sales momentum had carried through into the new financial year with gross sales up about 22 percent since April on the previous year.
"We are seeing no slowdown in the early months of the financial year. This worry about the high street seems to be affecting some sectors, not so much mobile and definitely not Virgin Mobile," he told reporters in a conference call.
"The high street slowdown isn't affecting us. I think you will see that across the industry. Mobile is pretty resilient."
At morning trade, shares in Virgin Mobile, which have lagged the FTSE telecoms index by around 5 percent since the start of the year, were up 5.2 percent at 221 pence.
"The 05 numbers are broadly in line, but the 06 outlook is exceptional on the revenue line," Investec Securities analyst Christian Maher told Reuters.
"We've had a number of traditional operators warning, or being cautious, but this company is saying mid-teens service revenue growth which is materially above what the market is currently forecasting," said Maher who has a "buy" recommendation on Virgin Mobile shares.
Virgin Mobile said it had 4.03 million active customers -- those who had made a call or sent a text message in the past 90 days -- against 3.24 million a year ago.
Britain's fifth-largest mobile phone company, which owns no network but uses that of German-owned partner T-Mobile, said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose by 27.4 percent to 100.3 million pounds. It is paying a maiden dividend of 4.88 pence for the year.
Forecasts for core earnings had ranged from 97 million pounds to 115.5 million pounds, with an average of 99 million, according to a Reuters poll of nine analysts.
The company said prepaid average revenue per user in the year to end-March had fallen to 127 pounds from 147 a year ago.
Most of the fall in the second half of the year was due to the impact of the regulatory price cuts, Virgin Mobile said.
The drop in revenues per user came as churn, when customers switch operators, rose to 17.5 percent from 14 percent last year.
Virgin Mobile said it expects to deliver a progressive dividend return to shareholders, with an expected 50 percent payout ratio on pre-exceptional net income in the 2005/06 financial year, up from 40 percent in the year to end-March.
The company said underlying earnings per share for the year rose to 18.4 pence from 15 pence a year ago and net debt had fallen to 234.2 million pounds from 303.3 million last year.
ot: Clarification: E&J Gallo = B&J and so many others, point being they imo are the true marketing geniuses of the world........http://www.winebusiness.com/specialsection/2005/Top30Wineries.cfm?winery=1
RIP Ernest and Julio! and thanks for the experience, opened so many doors for me, and remember sitting in a VFW like club in Modesto and in pops Carlo Rossi, the real one just like on the jug wine label... , lol, talking about the Gallos and how he met the Admiral of the Navy IN DC while spilling wine on his tie, never forget that, he was a true american icon imo...and then I think they came out with Petro Vella wines as his son taking over the biz, a true shift from theire then at the time marketing strategy....
Point being: http://www.ogilvy.com/ taught me so m much and still amazed at how we live in a consumer driven society where many consumers are so naive as that Lores person mentioned....
Wiht that said, Thanks you to all the servicemen and women who allow me and others here to Excercise freedom of speech while protecting us from anyone kicking down the front door and taking us away...FREEDOM RINGS BABY!!!..lol
ps, look forward to grabbing a sausage and pepper sandwich on the Jersey Boardwalk this weekend when I ge tthere....
Happy Memorial day all!!
eot
SOG
ot, yes as did do many whom thought Frank Bartles & Ed Jaymes invented the Wine Cooler (which btw another ot but that ad campaign was created by http://www.ogilvy.com/ )
I remember this fwiw cuz it was my first job out of college working the streets of NYC and just caught my first Dead show at the garden then, lol...in any event, it was amazing to be part of that wine cooler craze and "the song remains the same" imo today, only Paperclick is Paperclick...S O mehting,g like that....o G
dd: Carriers Dally On Wi-Fi Phones
02:00 AM May. 27, 2005 PT
There was a time when high costs ensured that cell phones were only used by people out of the range of a fixed-line phone.
These days, however, with wireless calls averaging just a few cents a minute, mobile conversations occur nearly as often from the comfort of the home as from the road. For many, the only tethers to the wired world are the twin fears of dropped calls and running out of minutes.
See photoNow, mobile-phone manufacturers are looking to add another feature that could prompt customers to ditch their land lines. A new generation of handsets will allow people to make ultra-low-cost calls using their cellular handsets over wireless broadband networks.
Developers of software for so-called dual-mode phones, which can switch automatically between traditional cellular and wireless broadband networks for voice calls, are aggressively pushing the technology to carriers. So far, no U.S. carrier has announced plans to deploy a dual-mode Wi-Fi phone.
However, industry analysts say research indicates that there would be sizeable demand from cell-phone customers should such devices hit the market. A recent report by one firm, ABI Research, predicted that by the end of this decade there will be more than 100 million handsets in the world that can connect to either a cellular network or a Wi-Fi network for voice calls.
"Cost is a real factor in all of this. If you're in a Wi-Fi setting on a cell phone, it's fast and it's cheap," said Neil Strother, senior analyst at In-Stat, who doesn't expect the technology to gain a large following for another year or two. Among early adopters, however, Strother expects dual-mode phones will sell well. According to a survey of cell-phone users released in April, In-Stat found that more than 4 in 10 respondents were very or extremely interested in buying a wireless phone with built-in Wi-Fi for voice and data.
Presently, handsets for sale in the United States with Wi-Fi capability -- such as HP's H6315 and Siemens' SX66 PDA phones -- use the wireless broadband capability for data rather than voice. Although a person could theoretically download a program for making calls over the internet, users of Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones generally rely on the cellular network for voice communication.
Steven Shaw, director of marketing for Kineto Wireless, believes smartphones equipped to transmit both voice and data over Wi-Fi networks will draw more buyers than data-only handsets. Shaw's viewpoint is not without financial motivation, however, since Kineto's business involves selling technology for switching between cellular and Wi-Fi networks based on a standard called Unlicensed Mobile Access, or UMA.
"For this to take off, you have to have a pretty robust cellular market, but you also have to have a broadband market," Shaw said. He believes dual-mode services will likely succeed first in Europe, where cell-phone calls are more expensive than in the United States. However, he doesn't rule out the possibility of a U.S. carrier stepping up to the plate first.
But the largest domestic carriers have been hesitant to embrace the technology.
Cingular Wireless, which has been selling Siemens' Wi-Fi-enabled PDA since January, says it sees strong demand for data services using the wireless broadband capability. However, the carrier does not currently have a plan for rolling out Wi-Fi voice services.
Sprint spokesman Bill Elliott said the company is "heavily in the process of evaluating" the feasibility of phones that work on both Wi-Fi and its mobile voice network. However, the company is not engaged today in any trials of dual-mode Wi-Fi phones.
Verizon Wireless, meanwhile, has shied away from Wi-Fi phones, opting to focus instead on a proprietary service, BroadbandAccess, that lets users maintain a mobile, high-speed internet connection across an urban area.
"The mobility factor brings a lot more value to the end user than what Wi-Fi has to offer right now," said Ken Muche, a spokesman for Verizon. "You're not going to be tied down to a coffee shop or the lobby of a hotel."
Lack of enthusiasm from carriers hasn't stopped proponents of Wi-Fi phones from issuing optimistic projections.
Philip Solis, senior analyst at ABI Research, expects to see demand from businesses, especially retail and warehouse operations, for Wi-Fi-only phones that don't access a cellular network but can be used in a building with broadband access.
As for dual-mode Wi-Fi phones, Solis believes much of the interest will come from people who want to talk on their cell phones at home or the office without wasting more-expensive wireless minutes. Besides being cheaper, Wi-Fi calls won't be as prone to static or disconnection.
"Some people just can't get a good cell-phone connection in their house," Solis said. "If they could get a good, strong Wi-Fi connection, that would be great."
Under optimal conditions, cell-phone users wouldn't even notice when their call is being passed to a Wi-Fi network, said Biju Nair, general manager of the wireless product group at Pctel, which makes software for handling such switchovers.
"If you're riding a train to work, on the train you'll be using the cellular network. But as you get near your office, we'll switch you automatically to the Wi-Fi network," Nair said.
According to Shaw, adding Wi-Fi capability doesn't require much expense. He estimates it would cost a manufacturer only about $5 to add a Wi-Fi radio to a phone.
But the work doesn't end there. If they decide to move forward with the technology, carriers will have to invest substantial amounts to upgrade their networks to switch mobile calls to Wi-Fi networks, said Sprint's Elliott.
Seamless switching between Wi-Fi and cellular calls, he said, may sound compelling, but it is not the sort of undertaking for which a company can "think of the idea and have it out in a month."
location: http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,67638,00.html
dd:Intel announces launch of new multi-core processor Pentium D
05.27.2005, 12:36 AM
TOKYO (AFX) - Intel Corp today announced the launch of Intel's new dual-core processor Pentium D for use in desk-top PCs.
Pentium D follows the release of the Pentium processor Extreme Edition -- its first-ever multi-core processor unveiled in April.
Prices of Pentium D processors will range from 57,180 yen to 87,930 yen per unit.
'While the Extreme Edition is a high-end product, with the launch of Pentium D, we are making a major foray into the volume zone, as we prepare ourselves for the transition to the multi-core processor era,' Kazaumasa Yoshida, the president of Intel KK, the Japanese unit of Intel Corp, said.
Intel forecasts shipments of multi-core type processors will account for 85 pct of the processors it supplies for servers by the end of 2006, rising to 100 pct by the end of 2007.
The US chip giant also sees shipments of multi-core processors, including the Pentium D unit, making up 70 pct of all the processors it supplies for desk-top computers by the end of 2006. This is expected to rise further to over 90 pct by the end of 2007.
'To prepare for the ongoing transition (to multi-core processors), Intel now has 15 multi-core processors in the development pipeline,' Yoshida said.
The latest Pentium D processor allows users to handle multiple tasks, such as video editing and game play, simultaneously.
'We hope Japanese PC makers will start offering desk-top PCs incorporating our latest dual-core Pentium D processors from around autumn,' Yoshida said.
Yasuhiko.Seki@Xfn.com
ys/mb
ot: Stones Are Touring Again.....So wonderful imo
Anwyay, back to the dd:
http://www.media.mit.edu/research/ResearchPubWeb.pl?ID=39
moax1, same here, same here
Bonus DD:With Popcorn, DVD's and TiVo, Moviegoers Are Staying Home
more evidence of a paradigm shift imo.......Great quality dlp tv';s HD tv's, etc ....the real intrigue of all this imho is that like snoopy on the Met Life Blimp (I worked for Met Life at one point" and they were the first to corner Chucky Shultz when he was alive and say how much cash they would give him if they let snoopy go on a blimp above america so futeure kids would get Met Life products(gasping for breath)
DVD's....and High Res theaters in the home...imagine a high res mobile device that plugs into whatever...need sleep, nite nite
SOG
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/business/media/27movie.html?ei=5090&en=e1bdc89f93fcee1a&ex...
ot moax1
...but then again, next generation/version quite possibly we will be in bed with the crew over at redmond campus University...
...Or then again, we will be on the P&G Ohio Campuses....
I suppose time will tell...
Kindest regards,
SOG
ot moax1
Virgin and Neom...perrrrrrrfect togehter (remember that Thomas Kean ad a few years back 'bout Jeersey"????
I really am not sure, but think if not MSFT, then P&G, Then Virgin, then Dupont etc etc....
I am hopeful Sir Richard and I will be jetseting across the globe once I get hired by Neonm someday discussing how to increase sharehiolder value for the bazuillion paradigm paralysis stricken individulas that currently are trying to understand what this paradigm shift is (gasping for breath) is all about...;)
SOG
ot sog: A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
All Part Of The Paradigm Shift Hypothesis That is in full swing, corporations have to "ship" and "book sales on the books"..but CF and posse are positioning their next shot....so they are there...simple like that...all jmho
dd: Wimax related IN UK:
Nite Nite, last post for the morning/day/evening
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/networks/0,39020345,39175577,00.htm
SOG SIDE COMMENT: THis is why Last PR is So Important imo, we are Bridging the divide, something like that with our European Acceptance of those patens, etc.... http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/wireless/0,39020348,39163689,00.htm
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/wireless/0,39020348,39160181,00.htm
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/wireless/0,39020348,39172763,00.htm
DD 401: Bluetooth and WAP Push Based-Location Aware Mobile Advertising System
http://www.mediateam.oulu.fi/publications/pdf/496.pdf
dd: The Technology Vision for WiMAX
TIP O THE DAY:Did You Know?
"WiMAX" is a shorthand way of referring to the IEEE 802.16 specification promoted by the WiMAX Forum.
http://www.intel.com/standards/case/case_wimax.htm
ot SOG: Please Use Spell Check! eot
dd: Cellular Phones IN the US An INdependent Study 101
http://www.comunitazione.it/leggi.asp?id_art=699&id_area=9
ot, Verizon iS on Afriggin TEear AMazing, I alos think they bought AT&T's old Bedminster Sprawling Campus but cant find anything on it.....ps, from Jersey fwiw originally and remember that so well......don't count Verizon out jmho) as a f100 or one of the countless liscencees, etc
ot penny
no worries, you don't need no stinking teasers, you are on a an accumulation mission and are way ahead of being "teased"...lol
dd:Mobile Linux challenges Windows Mobile for cellphone dominance
Apr. 25, 2005
Taking a page from Microsoft's playbook, MontaVista today announced an embedded Linux platform aimed specifically at mobile phones. "Mobilinux" is based on a 2.6 kernel with real-time and power-management enhancements, and targets "feature-phones" as well as the higher-end devices targeted by Microsoft with its Windows Mobile for Smartphones offering.
MontaVista calls Mobilinux "the first optimized OS for mobile and wireless devices that can scale from smartphones to feature-phones," and hopes the OS's versatility will appeal to phone vendors interested in standardizing on a single OS environment across multiple segments of the phone market.
Zeroing in on feature-phones
Feature-phones -- camera-phones, multimedia-phones, game-phones, etc. -- are key to beating Microsoft and Symbian, MontaVista says. The company thinks the biggest opportunity in mobile phones lies in the middle ground between simple "voice phones" and complex "smartphones." The mid-tier feature-phone market includes camera phones, gaming phones, and phones that can play music or videos, but stops short of the high-end smartphone market, comprised of phones with powerful multitasking operating systems and computer-like filesystems.
"The typical consumer doesn't want a smartphone, because they're too complex," explains Jacob Lehrbaum, MontaVista's Product Manager for Mobile and Wireless Software. "Most users just want to make phone calls, or maybe have a few multimedia capabilities. But they want a phone that's a phone, rather than a PDA."
According to Lehrbaum, Microsoft and Symbian either can't or have not been able to wedge their operating systems into the more resource-constrained world of feature phone hardware. "Microsoft doesn't have the performance necessary or the features necessary to get there. Symbian has more of an opportunity, and has been working on some real-time technology that they've been talking about for 12 months now, but it hasn't been adopted, and there are no handsets on the market. They haven't proven they can do it," Lehrbaum said.
Microsoft's current mobile phone stack may not fit into feature phones; however, Intrinsyc in February previewed its own phone stack for feature phones based on the same Windows CE real-time operating system that underpins Microsoft's smartphone product.
MontaVista expects Mobilinux to appeal to phone vendors wishing to avoid the single vendor lock-in associated with Microsoft and, to some extent, with Symbian, 49 percent of which is owned by mobile phone marketshare leader Nokia. Mobilinux, in contrast, is based on open source technology that could in theory be supported or even adopted by other embedded vendors.
Unlike Symbian and Windows Mobile, Mobilinux provides a fully open framework for 3rd-party software components, MontaVista says
(Click for larger image)
Mobilinux 4.0
MontaVista chose to give Mobilinux a "4.0" version number, in its initial release, as a reflection of the product's origins in MontaVista's offering for battery-powered devices, Linux Consumer Electronics Edition (CEE) 3.1, and its less expensive, more general purpose offering, Professional Edition (Pro) 3.1, both of which have been used in mobile phone design wins. Mobilinux borrows CEE's power management technology, along with a phone-oriented subset of Pro's approximately 200 applications. Unlike the company's 3x-series distributions, however, Mobilinux includes a 2.6-series kernel with much better real-time performance, as well as a more modern C-library and compiler (glibc 2.3.3 and gcc 3.4.3), the company claims.
The real-time extensions in Mobilinux are based on technology from the "Open Source Real-time Linux Project" MontaVista launched last October. MontaVista claims Mobilinux can achieve worst-case preemption response times below 150 microseconds, and reach 100 microseconds with optimization for specific boards and drivers. By comparison, MontaVista's 2.4-series kernels have 5 millisecond performance, it says. Other commercial distributors, including LynuxWorks, have claimed significant real-time performance for their 2.6 kernels.
Cost savings
MontaVista says Mobilinux's basis in open source technology will save customers money. Additionally, the company says it will save cost by supporting single-chipset phone designs. Real-time determinism and the added performance afforded by modern compilers are central to Mobilinux's scalability, according to Lehrbaum, and will enable the embedded OS to move downmarket into phones that handle both voice and application processing on a single chipset, running a single OS, with a single bank of memory (and perhaps an external modem and DSP coprocessor).
So far, phones capable of running complex OSes like Linux, Symbian, and Microsoft have used a dual-chipset architecture. One CPU runs a real-time OS and handles voice processing, while another runs the complex OS and its applications. This dual-chipset approach has obvious drawbacks. Dual-chipset designs add a lot of cost, development overhead, and power usage. It's very costly to go that approach," Lehrbaum said.
Single-chipset designs are pervasive in low-end voice phones, as well as in mid-market "feature phones," including camera phones, gaming phones, and phones that play music or videos, an area representing the greatest immediate market opportunity, according to MontaVista.
Lehrbaum says mobile chipsets are shipping today that are capable of running Mobilinux in single-chipset mobile phone designs. "There are silicon options from TI, Philips, Freescale, and others. [For example], TI rolled out a product line back at 3GSM called OMAP Vox [story] which can be used as a single chipset solution."
Increased focus on mobile devices
Interestingly, Mobilinux 4.0 is MontaVista's first Linux product offering based on the 2.6-series Linux kernel -- a fact that shows just how aggressively the company is pursuing the mobile market. (The company has been slow to move to the 2.6 kernel.)
Lehrbaum declined to comment about when the 2.6 kernel would appear in MontaVista's other products, such as Consumer Electronics Edition (CEE), aimed at battery-powered devices, Carrier Grade Linux (CGE), aimed at telecom, and Professional Edition (Pro), its general-purpose product. However, he acknowledged that most of MontaVista's resources are currently being directed at the communications market. CEE, which was last updated more than a year ago, will continue to be available, but no release date has been set for a 2.6 version, Lehrbaum confirmed.
With CEE taking a back seat, Mobilinux will be the product that supports mobile devices such as portable media players, high-end cameras, gaming handhelds, and, of course, mobile phones. Non-mobile consumer devices such as IP set-top boxes, digital TVs, DVRs, and audio/video entertainment centers, on the other hand, will be covered by Pro, the least expensive MontaVista product. Lehrbaum implied that Pro would see a 2.6 update long before CEE.
Killer app?
MontaVista is clearly gambling that Linux will take off in the mobile phone space, and there are currently many indications that the company may on the right track. Linux, at least -- if not Mobilinux -- offers significant appeal to phone vendors. Although adoption has been slower than initially anticipated, the mobile industry's interest in Linux has been broader than many expected.
Linux's wide appeal, however, raises the question of competition not only from Microsoft and Symbian, but from other Linux vendors, including PalmSource, which recently announced that it will offer a Linux-based mobile phone platform.
Although MontaVista currently enjoys a commanding lead among Embedded Linux vendors in the mobile phone space, the race is not always to the swift. It takes more than great technology to win in the marketplace, especially against companies like Microsoft and mobile marketshare leader Nokia, which owns 49 percent of Symbian.
And, don't overlook commercial Embedded Linux's biggest competitor -- in-house Linux development teams, which download kernel.org source and develop their own software platforms.
Early successes
In spite of the open source basis of its products, MontaVista believes it has a leadership position where Linux phones are concerned. The company has 11 design wins (see photos, below), and over 2.5 million phones in the field, according to Lehrbaum.
Some MontaVista Linux mobile phone design wins
Left to right: Motorola A768, E680i, E680, A760, A780; NEC N901iC, N700i, N900il; Panasonic P700i, P901i
(Click each image for further details)
Additionally, MontaVista says it is working hard to build brand and a third party ecosystem around Mobilinux, through its Mobilinux Open Framework initiative launched in February.
"[Mobilinux] is certainly built around open source technology, much of it developed in cooperation with the open source community, or contributed directly to the community by MontaVista. However, it's an actual product offering. It's not like you could go out there and download it and then you could have Wind River Mobilinux," Lehrbaum stated.
More information about Mobilinux is available on the Mobilinux website.
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8395255492.html
dd:Microsoft ships new Windows for mobiles
By SIMON AVERY
Thursday, May 26, 2005 Updated at 8:59 AM EDT
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
Microsoft Corp. has begun shipping a new operating system that it hopes will vault the Windows standard beyond the desktop to the majority of mobile smart devices, displacing both Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod as consumers' favourite tech gadgets.
While the software giant has struggled for years to get a beachhead in the rapidly growing mobile market, it claims that its latest offering is more flexible and contains improved features that will give the company a leadership position.
Microsoft has already sent its Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system for handhelds and cellphones to hardware manufacturers, and says consumers should see the new Windows-powered devices on store shelves early this summer. Previously, the Redmond, Wash.-based company sold separate software for PDAs and smart phones. Windows Mobile 5.0 combines Microsoft's strategy into one product.
Scott Horn, senior director of the mobile and embedded devices group at Microsoft, says the software will give phone companies the ability to customize their offerings, allowing them, for example, to change screen colours or add options such as push-to-talk.
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Mobile 5.0 also includes new mobile applications, such as the ability to create and view PowerPoint presentations. In addition, by incorporating its Windows Media Player 10 multimedia viewing program, which includes Microsoft's digital rights management software, the company says users will be able to access subscription music download services, such as Napster.
In the past, many handheld equipment makers were leery about partnering with the software giant after seeing it control its relationships with PC makers. But that could be changing today. Microsoft is hoping that by giving phone companies, hardware manufacturers and users a more flexible operating system, it will see widespread adoption of its software.
Mr. Horn says the company has partnered with 40 device manufacturers and 68 phone carriers in 48 countries.
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050526.gtwmicrosoft26/BNStory/Technology/