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Monday, March 27, 2006

Mobile business applications "moving up the agenda".




Computing report on the benefits to business of high-speed mobile. In a previous article, Palm president Ed Colligan discusses how smartphones are poised to find their business calling.

by Richard @ 11:24

Friday, March 24, 2006

Going mobile: getting more done, providing better service.




Case study: accounting firm BDO Stoy Hayward have rolled out 450 BlackBerrys and over 1,000 smartphones to enable their UK staff to work out of the office. "Our employees spend a significant amount of time at client sites, which usually means they cannot access our corporate network. Mobile technology gives them the flexibility to work their own way, get more done, provide a better service and have more time to dedicate to their private lives".



Reported in Computing.

by Richard @ 19:28

Monday, March 20, 2006

UK and US text behaviour.




M:Metrics have found that "21.8 percent of British mobile subscribers (8.9 million) voted in a TV or radio poll in a month during the quarter ended January 2006, compared with 12.1 percent of German (5 million) and 7 percent of U.S. (12.3 million), mobile subscribers".



Although the US figure seems low, The Economist reports that "Americans have finally embraced texting" (March 4, 2006, p. 75). In December 2002 the global average messages sent per subscriber was 30, but for the US it was just over 7. This has risen to 38 in June 2005, higher than Germany, Italy and France, and only just behind the UK. The reasons for the change are given as:


  • increase penetration of the youth market;

  • the growth of GSM as a standard in the US;

  • interconnect between networks has improved; and

  • the popularity of reality TV.




The Economist also notes (March 11, 2006, p. 67) that, unlike Europe, the US market still has room for subscribe growth as only around 70% of the population has a mobile phone.



Another interesting figure from the M:Metrics: 25.9% of the UK population used picture messaging in Jan 2006.


by Richard @ 09:57

Monday, March 13, 2006

Gartner: 2005 handset sales up 21% to 816m.




Mobile Tech News reports on the Gartner survey of worldwide handset sales figures for 2005:


  1. Nokia 265,614,800 (32.5%)

  2. Motorola 144,920,400 (17.7%)

  3. Samsung 103,753,600 (12.7%)

  4. LG 54,924,600 (6.7%)

  5. Sony Ericsson 51,773,800 (6.3%)

  6. Siemens 28,590,600 (3.5%)

  7. Others 166,985,100 (20.6%)




"The industry experienced record sales due to continued strong growth in emerging markets, where falling prices for cellular connectivity (phones and subscriptions) resulted in higher-than-expected sales. In more mature markets, such as Western Europe and North America, replacement sales were driven by users that gave into the charm of highly fashionable devices".

by Richard @ 08:51

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Market for Microsoft Mobile remains poor.




The Register takes a look at Microsoft's mobile story. Although Windows Mobile sales are poor, Microsoft argue that the potential is great, if they leverage their desktop user base. "Leveraging the existing customer base and insinuating itself more deeply into the operators' service provisioning is not however going to be enough. Not all companies think it's a good idea to try to deliver the complete at-work experience to its employees while they're on the move...".

by Jono @ 00:18

Wednesday, March 01, 2006


3G "rarely used".




Despite the take up of 3G handsets,
Computing report on a YouGov survey that found "73 percent of people with 3G phones rarely use 3G services, and over a quarter do not use them at all." Operators agree that 3G services need to be made easier to use.

by Jono @ 05:34