Category Archives: Mobile Industry General

Is There Any Money in Service Exposure for Consumer Services? + Smart Pipes Conference (18-20 May) Update

There’s a great saying from Benjamin D’Israeli, ‘There’s lies, damned lies and statistics.’  To read the press, you’d think the trillion dollar telecommunications industry has been shaken to its core by Apple, a $33B consumer electronics company.  In April 2009 the Apple app store achieved 1B ‘application’ downloads in 9 months, estimates vary on the […]

Explanation of EBIF, tru2way, OCAP, ETV for the non-Cable (Mobile) Folks

The previous weblog article described the learning offered by Canoe Ventures to the mobile industry in working successfully with other industries.  For the non-Cable (mobile) folks this article provides a little more depth on what the cable acronyms mean, how they fit together, and some analogies to the mobile industry to aid understanding. Tru2way was […]

Why the Mobile Industry needs to keep an eye on Cable’s Canoe Ventures

In the Mobile World Congress Summary weblog entry I made reference to the Cable industries targeted advertising initiative, Canoe Ventures. Canoe Ventures is backed by most of the US cablecos, including Comcast, Cox, Cablevision, Charter, Bright House, and Time Warner.  Its purpose is to make cable’s advanced advertising applications easier to buy and use, and […]

Mobile Operator Smart Pipes & Applications: 19-20 May London

On May 19-20th in London will be the Mobile Operator Smart Pipes and Applications Conference.  In attendance will be Steve Glagow, head of Orange Partner; Pieter Knook, head of Vodafone Internet Services, Sune Jakobsson, Telenor Open Services; James Parton, head of O2 Litmus; plus many more operators.  As well as leaders from Nokia Ovi, Google, […]

Options on how the Telco industry can work with the App Development Industry

Examining the factors necessary for app store success: Direct customer access: a critical factor in Apple’s success, and why operator third party developer initiatives continue to languish.  However, this is changing.  O2 Litmus was launched with direct customer access at its heart.  Similarly Vodafone’s Betavine Widget Zone is also allowing direct customer access.  Critically the […]

The Three Dimensions across which customers pay: ‘Customer Pay-Space’ or a 2 State System?

Following up on my presentation at eComm last week, I was asked to provide a little more background on my comment about the three degrees upon which customers pay.  They pay on three dimensions: cash, time and privacy; creating a ‘Customer Pay-Space.’  It’s important to remember with the non-cash dimensions (time and privacy) value is […]

The Long Slow March towards a Utility Business Model: Mobile World Congress Summary 2009

Overall view of the show: Better than ever to do business. The number of meetings, their quality, and the decisiveness of the people involved was up.  MWC (Mobile World Congress) has returned to the days where the focus is business not hype.  I hope they can keep this quality and focus in the years to […]

When everybody wants to be your Friend: What’s an Application Developer to do?

Only a few years ago application developers were spurned by VCs as not being able to generate the returns they seek: ‘only platforms could do that.’  Now there’s a $100M fund for just iPhone apps.  Application developers were also subject the vagaries of operators’ new product development teams, who are expert on what will not […]

IN (Intelligent Network) Returns!

Many of the incumbent vendors are bringing their old IN (Intelligent Network) systems to end of life; and in some cases proposing technology that was built 5-10 years ago so is generally based on old or proprietary architectural principles, e.g. Ericsson TSP (Telecom Server Platform) – some of us may remember the TSP announcements made […]

Case Study of Managed Service Success: IMIMobile

A previous article provided ‘A Managed Services Primer.’ Managed Network Services (MNS, aka Outsourced Network Operations) was a $10B business in ’08, with a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 16%.  Europe accounts for 45% of the market.  The leading supplier in the market, Ericsson, rips-out other supplier’s equipment and installs its own in the […]