Spiral Arm News

Instant messaging.

Computing (6 April 2006, pp. 41-44) reports on the business use of instant messaging. As many as 70% of Intel's 80,000 employees using IM, and as a result Intel expects to save US$25m over the next three years due to productivity savings. The immediacy of it, combined with a written record, and comparison to the over-use and spam problems associated with email, make IM a useful system.

The Woodland Trust in the UK, also a big user of IM, cite the presence feature as being especially useful. Neil Laver, head of real-time collaboration at Microsoft, takes the idea of presence further: "Presence is the fundamental—and IM is an application sitting on top of that".

In the mobile world some believe that IM will replace SMS. An article in ZDNet quotes Paolo Simoes of Portuguese carrier TMN as saying: "IMS-enabled IM/SIP messaging on convergent devices will be the predominant mobile messaging technology of the future, replacing all others." The view is echoed by others. The Register, however, raises concerns over interoperability with desktop IM clients, even in light of the news that 15 mobile operators have agreed to work on an interoperable, charged, IM system. The rollout of the service is expected this year.

Mobile ticketing.

The Eden Project, a tourist attraction in the UK, is offering mobile ticketing. Customers phone in to purchase tickets, and receive a picture message bar code. Phone that cannot accept picture messages receive a link to download the barcode, or a reference number via text message.

Reported in Computing, 3 August 2006, p. 6.

2,000 man hours a day saved by mobile data collection.

Fruit pickers are paid GBP5 an hour by S&P Produce. By introducing mobile technology the company has reduced queuing time for fruit pickers, saving at least 40 minutes for each picker per day, but possibly as much as 60 minutes. With 2,000 workers that makes a saving of 2,000 hours, or GBP10,000 per day.

"Each team of 60 fruit pickers is issued with a mobile device that scans unique codes on the picker's identity card and the fruit collection trays, and sends the data to the server over GPRS". This reduces the time each worker queues at a weighing station.

"The accuracy and speed of access to the data such as automated timesheets also means fare fewer queries and errors", says André Simon, S&A IT director.

Reported in Computing, 17 August 2006, p. 8.

MMS: revenue at US$4.7 billion.

Picture messaging is a flop, according to the Economist article, "Lack of text appeal" (August 5, 2006, p. 56). The flop is estimated to be worth US$4.7b in 2005 according to Pyramid Research, growing to US$9.4b by 2010. "Less than expected, but still not be be sniffed at--except that texting brought in US$49.4 billion last year..."

The comparison to SMS usage is highlighted with a graph showing messages sent per subscriber for selected operators. The peak for picture messages is just over 6, and for text messaging it's over 300. The reason for the disparity could be down to image quality, difficulty in usage, slow transfer rate, and cost. Operators have made progress on improving connectivity between networks, but have moved on to promoting music downloads and mobile TV.

The article goes on to anticipate an MMS replacement: "And as internet standards permeate further into mobile phones, people may start sending photos to and fro using e-mail instead. In Japan and South Korea, they already have."

One advantage MMS does have over e-mail is there's a built in charging mechanism for businesses, something that is still very hard to do with e-mail.

Symbian cuts price, aims for feature phones.

ZDNet reports on Symbian's growth into mid-market handsets. "We want to take our apps and software into what is currently called the feature phone market," Symbian chief executive Nigel Clifford told delegates at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona this year. The argument is that "as mass-market phones develop they will increasingly need a more powerful operating system such as Symbian's".

Symbian claim to have between 60-70% of the smartphone market, having shipped almost 100m units. The company reached profitability in 2005 for the first time, on a revenue of GBP33.6m for the quarter. But things have not gone quite as expected. As David Wood, executive VP of research at Symbian, puts it: "The basic idea of Symbian was that [non-Symbian] built-in operating systems wouldn't be able to scale with more and more technology. That's basically correct. Basic operating systems struggle. But they've managed to stay alive long than we expected, as people found ingenious ways to extend the life of these operating systems, despite the complexity."

The feature phone market makes sense, as smartphone sales and PDA sales become sluggish. According to IDC sales of converged devices rose, but were short of expectations. Andy Brown, analyst with IDC, comments: '"For the majority of end users, feature creep on phones seems to be enough. Although you get much more functionality with a smart phone, they are bigger, and consumers don't seem to want to take advantage of the capabilities," he said, adding that "feature phones are also easier to sell".'

In related news, The Register reports on a price drop for Symbian licensees. "Symbian is clearly expecting the OS to move into the mid-range 'feature phone' market, which accounts for around 200m handsets per year, with its 'single chip'-capable OS, based on a new, real-time kernel.

The Register explains that a single core handset is important for manufacturers as it "allows the OEM to cut the cost of materials considerably, or cram more features on for the same BoM cost, or both". Something Microsoft is 12-18 months away from having: "Windows Mobile kit is now available in abundance, but it isn't exactly cheap. And the price differential set against more technically advanced rivals looks set to punish Microsoft OEMs for some time".

Sources:

• ZDNet: Symbian vows to win mid-market battle.


• The Register: Symbian: smartphone not dead.


• The Register: PDA sales in freefall.


• The Register: Symbian explains price cuts.


• The Register: Microsoft 'year away' from single-core phone OS.

The PC at 25: mobile to finish the job.

This month marks the 25th birthday of the IBM PC. The Economist comments, in an article on "The dream of the personal computer", that "it is the mobile phone that now seems likely to carry the dream of the 'personal computer' to its conclusion".

The PCs great achievements include increased compatibility, reduced costs and wider ownership. Yet, "mobile phones are cheaper, simpler and more reliable that PCs, and market forces [...] are already putting them in the hands of even the world's poorest people. Initiatives to spread the PCs in the developing world, in contrast, rely on top-down funding from governments or aid agencies, rather than the bottom-up adoption by consumers."

The articles goes on to note some of the uses the mobile phone has been put to:

• Zambia: merchants using phones for banking.


• Senegal: farmers monitor prices.


• South Africa: patient records updated by health workers.