Hello again from Barcelona. Today has been quite busy. I have had lots of great conversations with people stopping by the GIPS booth, as well as with other exhibitors. I also got a chance to see what all the handset providers are doing, and was frankly unimpressed.  Here are a few observations, as well as today’s highlights (and lowlights):

-          Yesterday, Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7, which from what I can tell is just the next generation, rebranded Window’s Mobile OS. The demo I saw today made the platform look much slicker and user-friendly than previous iterations of Windows Mobile, and the closer relationship between Microsoft and handset manufacturers should lead to better designed products. However, I don’t think there is anything earth-shattering about this news. I also couldn’t help but laugh when the person giving the demonstration proudly announced the first Windows Phones will be available this upcoming holiday season. Only James Cameron films create more hype longer before a launch date. All in all, the announcement looks like a desperate attempt by Microsoft to catch up to the rest of the smartphone market.

-          Speaking of trying to catch up, I saw a demo of the Samsung Wave, running the Bada OS. The phone looked pretty neat, but just seemed like it was trying to copy iPhone and especially Android. For instance, the location services app doesn’t appear to have anything already not offered by Google Maps.

-          The observation I made yesterday about the importance of apps was reinforced when I visited the App Planet pavilion- an entire exhibit hall which, as the name suggests, is dedicated to application developers and related technology. There were probably dozens of companies offering some sort of platform or tool that enables application development, which leads me to believe the entire market is oversaturated.

-          I saw the back of the Queen of Jordan’s head as she was whisked into an exhibition hall to promote a global education initiative. It is nice to hear that more is going on here than pure commerce.

-          No one at the Motorola booth was able to tell me if the company will offer a version of Droid that supports a GSM SIM card. As a Droid owner, it has been incredibly frustrating being without cell service while attending the largest mobile communications show in the world. I would be curious to know the thinking behind offering a phone that only utilizes CDMA. Is Verizon concerned that users will violate their exclusive agreement and take their phones to another provider? Does it cost more to include an additional radio than the revenue generated from international roaming charges? Whatever the reason, I hope they give customers the ability to actually communicate when they are outside the US.

-          Spaniards appear to be more afraid of water than cats are.  There was a light drizzle this morning, and people were huddled under building overhangs, presumably waiting for clear sky to make the short 2 minute walk between buildings. This jibes with the behavior I have witnessed at Spanish beaches, in which hundreds of people will stand just at the water’s edge, but go no deeper than their ankles, despite overwhelming heat.

-          The most entertaining booth at the show has to belong to Mobile King. I will let you guess why.

I spent a good 4 hours yesterday watching my favorite football team, the Minnesota Vikings, self destruct as only they can. During the frequent commercial breaks, I noticed the over abundance of ads for mobile carriers. There were the usual pudgy Owen Wilson AT&T ads dueling with the Verizon map commercials, along with a few Sprint and Metro PCS spots mixed in. This flurry of activity sparked me to wonder aloud, “How competitive is this market?”

The perception given by all the commercials is that the market is very competitive. Each firm is making its case for why it is the best choice- largest 3G network, fastest downloads, widest selection of phones, least restrictive calling plans, etc- and furiously trying to attract as many customers away from the other providers. Yet, I couldn’t help but think that, while they have offered more services, each successive cell phone plan I have purchased over the last 8 years has only been more expensive than the previous. If this market is that competitive, shouldn’t prices be falling?

If you believe the commercials, it appears as if they are. Verizon and AT&T announced reduced rates for their voice plans. Interestingly enough, they both settled at $69.99 a month, behavior which seems remarkably coordinated. However, as Marguerite Reardon pointed out for CNET, these new plans may actually be more expensive for many users, as they impose higher fees for web and data usage for owners of mid-range phones. 

This is an incredibly complex topic, which we have touched on in the past, but it seems like, at least until now, most carriers have tried to use subsidized phones as their main differentiator. By signing exclusive deals with manufacturers, and then offering phones for reduced upfront fees, operators are able to lure customers based on those phones’ features.  What many consumers may not realize, however, is that they are probably paying more in the long run than users of the same phones in other countries. Telecommunications tends to be a naturally oligopolistic market, and the U.S. mobile market is no exception. The high barrier to entry associated with owning large networks leads to only a small number of firms owning virtually the whole market. But what is most important (and what the FCC will probably be looking into) is if this arrangement is beneficial to consumers. I don’t have an answer to this question, but I do have a nagging feeling that I should be getting more for less.

Magic Jack has announced  a new version of its USB phone/computer connector that allows customers to make cheap phone calls with their cell phones. But hold on. For those who are saying “Yes, another mobile VoIP application”, this one is different. Instead of an application that uses a phone’s WiFi connection to make VoIP calls, the Magic Jack device is a femtocell that will connect a mobile phone to a user’s home broadband connection using the phone’s cellular radio.

Two questions instantly came to mind when I read this news. 1) Why is this better than a smartphone app that uses WiFi, and 2) why is this a cool “mobile” product if users are tied to their home networks?

The answer to both probably has something to do with Magic Jack’s target audience- your grandmother. Magic Jack is going after the substantial portion of American consumers who don’t know a lot about technology. Despite the popularity of the iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices, there are still a lot of people out there who don’t even know what a smartphone is. They don’t care about the latest apps, and they certainly don’t want to figure out how to make VoIP calls over random WiFi networks. They are just looking for a way to cut their phone bills, and maybe even replace their landline, but want something more reliable than just a mobile phone. And they probably buy products off TV infomercials.

Here we go again- another post about mobile OS’s. But how could I resist while Symbian is bleeding and no one (Nokia) seems to be trying to do anything about it? 

Over the last several years, Symbian has been the most widely deployed mobile OS, and until recently, Blackberry and iPhone have been like flyspecks on the wall (and still are in some markets). As I have stated before, this is changing with better usability (iPhone), increased openness (Android) and the proliferation of application development (on Apple Store, Windows Mobile and Android).  It is this last point which makes me wonder if Symbian’s future is even bleaker than indicated in the latest Gartner projections (I also happen to think RIM is in trouble, especially if you read this article, but we can leave that for another post).  

Symbian has been struggling to attract application developers to its Ovi store, even though Nokia seems to understand that application availability will be a driver of mobile device sales and a future source of revenue.  One of the main problems is that developing on Symbian is really complicated. I have heard that it takes 6 times longer to develop an application on Symbian than on iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile. I was personally involved with the Symbian Signed process at GIPS and barely managed to survive. 

It hasn’t always been this way.  A couple of years ago, the Nokia/Symbian online developer community was a lively forum with lots of developer activity and communication. But today it is like entering a funeral compared to the Android forums. No wonder there is much less activity on the Ovi store compared to the Apple Store. 

So why are applications so important? Do most people even download more than 3 applications to their phone?  Does it matter if the Apple Store has 10,000 applications versus 5,000 at Ovi store? Isn’t it more important to have one smart business or personal application versus 100 different kinds of car racing games? 

Ovi might have a good selection of applications that meet people’s basic needs, but I suspect that the interest of developing new applications for Symbian will decrease dramatically with the drop in consumer demand for Symbian phones. I use Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhone OS devices for work, and by looking what you can do on the new smart phones (such as the new Android) I am becoming  more convinced that the smart applications will play a very important role in the future.

The gloves are off and the iPhone looks to finally have decent competition here in the US with the release of Droid today. AT&T’s exclusive agreement with Apple has pushed its competitor Verizon to develop their own phone that directly competes with iPhone.

It’s great to see a new smartphone on the market that has consumers and sour anti-Apple fans excited. It hasn’t caught the same trailblazing buzz that the iPhone created – but it’s doing a good job of getting noticed.

The advert below says it all and I must admit I would be tempted to leave AT&T/iPhone if my contract was nearly up.

Earlier this week in a timely shot across the bow, or perhaps chest puffing,  Apple announced that its  application store, now has “over  100,000 applications available” and added “the iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating.”

The iPhone currently has 125,000 developers in its program and more than 2 billion downloads – plus it’s a global phone unlike the Droid, which is available only in the US.  However, with more phones being developed on the Android platform some predict that Android based phones will overtake Apple in market share by 2012.

However, when it comes down to it – Apple is currently the standard for smartphones and every smartphone, including Droid, is defining itself on how it compares to the iPhone. Let the applications, chest-puffing and games begin.

A lot of what is written about mobile VoIP centers on carrier resistance to the technology, for fear of revenue cannibalization.  Today, GIPS and Israeli company Outsmart announced a partnership which could redefine the way carriers view VoIP. Outsmart has integrated GIPS technology in their Plug N’ Talk softphone to deliver high-quality VoIP to mobile customers. By offering a softphone that is tied to a user’s mobile account and loaded on a USB memory stick, mobile operators can use VoIP to retain customers and realize revenue from VoIP calls.

Plug N’ Talk is already successfully deployed with Filipino carrier SMART, and is targeted at Filipinos living abroad. With Plug N’ Talk, Filipinos can maintain their mobile numbers and accounts, while enjoying local rates for international calls from softphones to other Smart customers. But don’t take my word for it, check out the commercial. I have no idea what she is saying, but it sure looks fun!

About a month ago, GIPS bought an HTC Hero Android device for the Stockholm office so we could investigate if we  could port our voice and video processing products to the Android OS. I saw it lying on the Chief of Software Development’s desk, and was eager to try it out, but our CTO, Roar, was quicker than I. Once he tried it out, he didn’t want to give it back! As you can read, he really liked how easy it was to use advanced features like e-mail and web browsing. This is in fact a very similar story to when we bought an HTC Touch Cruise, running Windows Mobile, for development. It eventually ended up with Mats in Marketing. He uses a lot of office/ business functionality and is more satisfied with the Cruise than his previous phones from large traditional manufacturers. The PC-like OS obviously works well on Smartphones.     

   Because of Roar’s infatuation with the Hero, a second device was bought to use for development and it landed on my desk. I could immediately see that the screen and navigation buttons were different, and better, than on the HTC devices running Windows Mobile that I am used to. Once I turned the device on, I recognized many similarities in the GUI from the HTC Touch Diamond- like the quick menus for settings, the horizontal scrolling between different screens and applications, and the clock. The big difference is that the Hero’s touch screen is a lot better than the Diamond device’s. Again, if you would take the Windows Mobile software from the Diamond and put it in the Hero, you would have a similar experience and look. So one shouldn’t get carried away just because it’s Android. The GUI and hardware are done by HTC. But I must say that I was immediately impressed by this phone, in a similar way that I was when I first tried the iPhone.

During this year’s P&T Wireless and Networks Comm 2009 exhibition in Beijing  ( 16-20 Sept ) China Mobile showcased  their  Smartphone OS platform  called OPhone :

• based on Linux 2.6 kernel and Android platform
• with support from more than 20 mobile handset manufacturers e.g  Lenovo, HTC/Dopod, Dell, LG etc.
• SDK available for application developers  ( http://www.ophonesdn.com/)
• applications can be downloaded from app store called Mobile Market  ( http://www.mmarket.com )

China Mobile is probably the 1^st mobile operator to try to own the  handset OS platform.  With over  500 million subscribers in China  (as of 31^st Aug 09 ,   http://www.chinamobileltd.com/ ) China Mobile surely have enough bargaining power to demand support of OPhone from handset manufacturers.  Also by owning the OPhone platform  and its app store future revenues from application download can be kept within China Mobile.

I have been reading about the rumors that Nokia will possibly start using the Android OS in their phones and their newly announced 3G Windows-based notebook. 

It is interesting see that some mobile device manufactures have an almost religious attachment to an OS. For example, Apple has its iPhone OS, RIM its Blackberry OS and Nokia has Symbian. Other mobile device manufactures are more OS agnostic and are using a variety of operating systems across their lines of phones. Examples of these manufactures are Samsung, HTC, Motorola and SonyEricsson.  

The Nokia rumor indicates they are slowly moving to the OS agnostic side. Even if they only support Android for the 3G Notebook to start with, Nokia could become a rather significant Google partner at the same time that they are also partnering with Microsoft.

If we were to assume that the Android rumor is true, how would that affect the mobile landscape? Since Nokia is the number one mobile manufacture in the word, the partnership could definitely have a dramatic effect on the market. With their brand name, power and knowledge, Nokia could definitely take over the role as the main manufacture of Android phones. It could also help the company gain traction in markets that they have had trouble penetrating in the past, such as the US and Asia. Perhaps we are seeing some desperation from the saunas in Finland due to the iPhone’s popularity in US (and now in Europe). Do they think that Symbian has become too big, making it is hard to keep pace with the competition? 

At the same time, such a decision could hurt the Symbian market and affect Nokia’s overall business. Who would buy a phone with an OS that the major owner appears to be abandoning? Nokia could be putting its brand name at stake to reach new markets that are drooling for a new OS such as Android.

So, do I think the rumor is true? No. I would be very surprised if Nokia made such a drastic move and totally abandoned Symbian. They might offer their new 3G notebook with Android, but probably not their mobile phones. But, as always, I could be proven wrong. If so, we can expect some major waves in the mobile phone market.

Only last month Global IP Solutions sponsored the HD Communications summit in New York. While attendance was relatively small, much like introducing a blend of quality cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot grapes to a wine press – the audience was a great mix that should produce a successful push for high-definition voice.

GIPS is strongly pushing for change and the momentum is growing among businesses and consumers who experience high-definition (HD) voice. As the core fundamentals of HD voice rest in GIPS VoiceEngine technology, it’s only natural that we tout the benefits – come on it’s in our company’s DNA.

A number of customers have said to us that GIPS is their secret sauce, a high compliment indeed – but their success is also because they started with the right building blocks and it’s their vision of how they develop and market their products that ultimately produce success.  So you can drive a BMW, Lexus or Ferrari but if you’re running a Yugo engine underneath the hood – it’s not going to be long before the driver realizes they are in control of a dud.

There has been a growing interest in HD voice from the mobile sector and we are continuing to spread the word about GIPS VoiceEngine, which is why we’ve signed up with US Telecom to provide more information through an upcoming webinar . We’ve invited Elliot Gold to join – an analyst and industry pundit who has been providing an authoritative source for teleconferencing news and analysis for more than 25 years.

So while FM radio launched, a man stood on the moon and television has evolved from black and white to color to high-definition over the last 72 years – telephony has remained the same…yawn.

1937                   1980                   2009

NO CHANGE

Carriers could be caught unaware if they don’t rise with the tide and offer HD voice services, as it will be the first and second mover’s advantage that will really impact the market.

There’s a great opportunity for the telecommunications’ industry and understanding the essential requirements for the future will enable carriers, hardware manufacturers and service providers to provide the HD communication experience that consumers want to call. Because the last thing we want to hear is that HD voice is all gone Pete Tong.