Mark Bridge writes:

Back in the 1960s, Hertz was the number one hire car company in the USA. Avis was trailing a long way behind. Looking for a new advertising campaign, CEO Robert Townsend spoke to Bill Bernbach - the ‘B’ in ad agency DDB - and a few months later “We try harder” became the Avis tagline.

“Avis is only No.2 in rent a cars” the headlines admitted. “We try harder. When you’re not the biggest, you have to.”

It’s a message I was reminded of when I met Andreas Bernström at Mobile World Congress last month. Andreas is CEO of Rebtel, the world’s second-largest mobile Voice-over-IP company. With Skype seen as market leader for VoIP services, I asked Andreas whether Rebtel also needed to try harder.

Heroes of Emerging Markets is an interactive, intimate panel discussion that looks at the opportunities of doing mobile business in emerging markets.  The event took place on 28th February 2012 during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

We’ve recorded the entire event and have turned it into a podcast. You can listen on our desktop web site here, by downloading the MP3 audio file or by finding TheFonecast.com on iTunes.

Mark Bridge writes:

Mobile security always seems to be on the agenda – but one of the companies demonstrating its services at Mobile World Congress 2012 had a particularly stark warning.

Cryptography Research was demonstrating what’s called differential power analysis or side-channel analysis, which can be used to reveal encrypted information from a smartphone or tablet without ever needing to get hold of the device.

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s all gone a bit quiet. Is it the calm after the Mobile World Congress storm... or is it the knowledge that an Apple announcement will push anything else out of the headlines, even before the product itself has been revealed?

Either way, the last seven days have had significantly fewer news stories than the beginning of the month. But that’s not to say they’ve been completely news-free.

Mark Bridge writes:

Mobile World Congress is over for another year. Also gone is the mobile industry’s sudden obsession with public transport and student protests in Barcelona. But away from the local news, what’s been going on?