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Sunday, February 5, 2012

Last week at The Fonecast: 6th February 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

Facebook’s certainly had its share of privacy concerns – but last week the social network revealed plans to go public in a very different way. It formally announced its intention to launch on the stock market; what is known in the USA as an Initial Public Offering. The IPO is expected to raise around $5 billion, although that’ll just be a fraction of the total (and as yet undisclosed) value of the company.

What the IPO documents tell is us that Facebook currently has 845 million active users per month, with around half of those people accessing the site from their mobile devices. It also made $1 billion in net income during 2011. Big money indeed.

Meanwhile Apple and Motorola were waving multi-million dollar cheques around on Friday, metaphorically if not literally.

In Germany, a court granted Motorola Mobility a permanent injunction involving ‘push’ email on the Apple iCloud service. That’ll affect iPhones and iPads, although Apple is appealing and – whatever happens – it seems likely that some form of work-around could be put in place.

As well as this, Motorola paid a 100 million Euro bond to enforce a German injunction originally won in December against the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4 and 3G-equipped iPads. The products disappeared from Apple’s online store for a few hours before Apple appealed, apparently making a new offer to pay.

That second case involves ‘industry standard’ patents, which are required to be licensed on Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory terms. With the European Commission having just started an investigation into Samsung Electronics and the way it’s applied mobile-related patent rights, I’ll be interested to see what happens next.

If all that’s not confusing enough, spare a thought for mobile networks in India. Those who won auctions for a total of 122 GSM licences in 2008 have had them cancelled by the Supreme Court on grounds that parts of the process were a bit dodgy. Again, the big question is “what happens next?”

What’s definitely happening is the growth in mobile devices; a fact reinforced by recent research. Canalys noted the increase in tablets and the decline in netbooks while IDC talked about smartphones winning over feature phones.

Next, to jobs. Sony has named Kazuo Hirai as its new CEO from April. Kaz, as he’s often known, has been involved with many of the PlayStation’s recent successes. Sir Howard Stringer is stepping down – but only briefly before becoming Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Industry-watchers weren’t particularly surprised with that news – but there were a few raised eyebrows when Apple announced that John Browett, the CEO of Dixons Retail, had been appointed as Apple’s new senior vice president of Retail. John was, of course, played by Darth Vader in the company’s TV ads last year.

Finally, and remaining on the subject of advertising, Everything Everywhere has launched multi-million pound UK ad campaigns for its Orange and T-Mobile brands. Orange will be portrayed as the brand that “goes that extra mile to give customers more” while T-Mobile “offers brilliant value”.

T-Mobile’s value is currently demonstrated by a new tariff called The Full Monty, which includes unlimited calls, texts and internet access. Some have suggested the name is reminiscent of a transport café breakfast or the comedy film about male strippers. In either case, there’s probably too much sausage for everyone’s taste.

Start your week with a reminder of the latest mobile headlines. Simply register at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page and we’ll send you this weekly news summary by email.

The Fonecast is sponsored by 51Degrees.mobi. You’ll find more about advertising and sponsorship opportunities on the ‘About us’ section of our website.

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Opinion Articles

A Sure Signal from Vodafone

Mark Bridge writes:

Today I've been using my mobile phone at home. For many people that’s not an unusual thing to do – but it is for me because, around here, coverage indoors isn’t particularly good. Downstairs it’s previously been non-existent. But this morning everything changed.

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Physician uses cell phones to bring health care to the poor

Natalia Ardanza of voanews.com writes:

In Africa there is another use for mobile phones. Public Health workers in Kenya are now using mobile phones to gather health information from patients in remote areas and upload it to the internet for instant analysis at distant centers. And it is all happening thanks to Dr Joel Selanikio.

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Making dumb touchscreen phones was a smart move

Mark Bridge writes:

I remember a report from last year that said ‘non-smart’ touchscreen handsets – generally those without a popular operating system – would be bad news for mobile operators.

Conventional touchscreen smartphones tended to result in higher-than-average ARPU thanks to their early-adopting tech-loving users, their web-friendly browsers, their email programs, their app-friendly operating systems and their fast 3G connectivity. However, dumber touchscreen devices – those with a manufacturer’s own proprietary OS and perhaps a clumsier browser – could generate 23% less ARPU than smarter phones. So, if touchscreen dumbphones weren’t good for networks… and weren’t really good for consumers either… manufacturers wouldn’t really bother with them. Right?

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"Hello Nexus One" I say...

James Rosewell writes:

Mark’s been encouraging me to write an opinion piece on the Nexus One for the last few days and I’m finally putting fingers to keyboard to share my experiences. It’s taken so long because this phone has so many features. On a positive note I could go into details about the gorgeous screen, the Android Marketplace that will out-sell Apple’s over the next 18 months, the built-in satellite navigation service and the speedy processor that makes everything run smoothly in real time. Or on a less positive note, the touch screen keyboard that sucks (think carefully about this if you’re a heavy texter or emailer, it’s even worse than the original iPhone), the lack of ActiveSync for Calendars and Tasks, no support for WMA music files or the clunky zoom functions on the web browser.

However I’m going to focus on voice dictation. Nexus One is the first phone I’ve used with this feature.

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The Amazon Kindle prepares to fight the Apple iPhone and Tablet

Mark Bridge writes:

Here’s a curious thing. Firstly, Amazon creates the Kindle. It starts selling the Kindle in the USA with a mobile deal that lets users download electronic books and newspapers wherever they are. Then it starts selling the Kindle to us in the UK, although – hang on a moment – it’s not talking about a UK mobile deal. Instead it still seems to be ‘roaming’ from the AT&T network. Next comes the larger-screen Kindle DX – also roaming away when it reaches our shores. And now Amazon is talking about third-party downloadable applications for the Kindle. Yes, a mobile device with downloadable apps. Hold that thought; I’ll be returning to it.

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