Oracle apps on Nokia handsets.
A range of Oracle's applications, including , Sales for Handhelds and Mobile Field Service and Siebel Wireless have been certified for use on Nokia's E61 and E62 handsets. "The new solutions will enable mobile workers to use one device to access all critical business applications, as well as voice communications, while out of the office."
The 10g Database Lite is also available for Symbian.
Source: ZDNet, Nokia Press Release.
Mobile mapping.
A survey of 1,000 users by In-Stat "finds that existing and potential 3G customers are much more interested in high-quality mapping and navigation services" compared to video. Certainly, there's been an increase in the number of quality mapping applications available.
ComputerWeekly reports on Nokia's acquisition of Gate5, a mobile mapping and routing company. "Nokia introduced the Nokia N95 multimedia computer with integrated GPS and navigation functionality last month, and its maps and navigation application is based on the gate5 software platform."
Mobile advertising.
Yahoo! are beta-ing sponsored results on their mobile web search. As reported in Computer Weekly: "Consumers will be able to click on the sponsored search results to go to the advertisers' mobile website or a landing page to get more information about the advertisers' offerings, including the ability to call the advertiser."
The International Herald Tribune reports on Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying that Google have "a system to deliver text-based ads in the United States to cell phones and other mobile devices" that is "in the works". In Japan this system is already making Google more money that ads on desktop machines.
According to
eMarketer, mobile advertising and marketing spending will be at US$602m by 2009.
Huge handset and ringtone sales cannot last.
Globally, converged mobile devices sales climbed in 2006, to reach 19.3m units. "The growing availability of email solutions that can support a variety of platforms is really driving demand for converged mobile devices [...] In particular, IDC has seen a steady increase in demand for enterprise-based devices for mobile workers."
But analysts Informa expect growth of mobile handset sales to slow from their 20%+ year-on-year rates after first breaking the one billion devices per-year barrier in 2007. "The analysts also expect less low-end phones to be sold by 2011. Basic phones made up 28.3 per cent of total sales in 2005. This will fall to 10.3 per cent by 2011. By 2011, 55.3 per cent of handsets sold will be high-feature."
In media sales, music consultancy MusicAlly say that 2006 will see the first fall in ringtone sales. "Customers have grown tired of signing up for what they thought was a single download, but finding themselves facing hidden subscription charges". The increase of devices capable of storing more music means "customers can transfer tunes from their computers to their mobiles and use their own music collection as ringtones, rather than buying specific snippets."
And while some say "MMS has not really found its place in the market", market research from the Yankee Group is predicting revenue from MMS in the US will approach that of SMS: of the revenue from messaging, 33% will be SMS, 29% MMS, 24% email and 15% instant messaging.
Sources:
Wibree: companion for Bluetooth.
Bluetooth is optimized for voice transfer, notes Jani Tierala of the Nokia Research Center in Helsinki. However, some applications need the opposite: small data transfer at infrequent intervals. This is why Nokia is introducing an alternative to Bluetooth, called Wibree. The standard, being developed by an informal group of companies, will be cheap and have low power requirements, suitable for small devices (jewelry, watches, toys, sensors) but will have a range of 10 meters with 1mbps transfer rates. The lower-power requirements are particularly interesting as the technology is expected to have very low power drain when on, but idle.
The technology is looking for a formal association so that a specification can be completed at some point in 2007.
Reported in eWeek, Computer Weekly, Computing, The Register.
Mobile user generated content.
The Guardian
: "Mobile companies have been watching the rapid growth of networking and video-sharing websites such as MySpace and YouTube. They have realised that content created by users themselves might be just what they need to persuade their customers to do more with their phones than make calls and send text messages".
Mobile connections now at 2.5 billion.
As noted in The Register, the estimated number of mobile connections in the world is now 2.5 billion (up from two billion 12 months ago).
The estimate is from Wireless Intelligence, who comment: "The cellular industry took 20 years to reach one billion connections, three years to reach two billion connections and is on target to reach its third billion in a period of just over two years. " Much of the growth comes from the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China).
The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily reviewed in advance by anyone but the author, and neither Spiral Arm Ltd nor any other party necessarily agrees with them.