Nokia CEO Stephen Elop:
Nokia’s Windows Phone devices flop

Stephen Elop

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) CEO Stephen Elop  last week unveiled the company’s first smartphones running Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone platform, the opening gambit in whether Nokia’s bet on the new software will help revive its flagging fortunes. The Lumia 800 and 710 will be available in November in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK, with support from 31 operators and retail partners. By the end of the year, both devices will be available in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan.

For the United States, Nokia did not announce any specific products, but Elop said a portfolio of devices will be coming in early 2012, meaning Nokia will miss the crucial holiday shopping season for the U.S. market. There are lots of unknowns in this gambit: Will Nokia’s Windows Phone devices be differentiated enough from those from HTC, LG and Samsung? Will consumers warm to Nokia’s brand, which has taken a beating in recent years, especially in North America? How will Nokia break through with carriers and retail sales representatives, two crucial constituencies? The pressure is on Elop and Nokia to deliver. If they don’t, Nokia might not last.

Sony has reportedly announced that it will acquire Ericsson’s stake of 50 percent in mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson for $1.46 billion. Consequently, Sony Ericsson will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony and will be integrated into the company’s platform of network-connected consumer electronics products.

As per sources, Hans Vestberg, CEO, Ericsson said that when the joint venture was formed ten years ago, thereby combining Sony’s consumer products knowledge with Ericsson’s telecommunication technology expertise, it was a perfect match to drive the development of feature phones. However, today they take an equally logical step as Sony acquires their stake in Sony Ericsson and makes it a part of its broad range of consumer devices.

Sony President, Chairman, and CEO, Howard Stringer has reportedly said that this acquisition makes sense for Sony and Ericsson, and it will make the difference for consumers, who want to connect with content wherever they are, whenever they want. Further, Ericsson reportedly plans to focus on the global wireless market as a whole as well as how wireless connectivity can benefit people, business and society beyond just phones. The agreement, subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close in January 2012.  According to reports, the transaction also includes a patent deal enabling Sony to receive the five sets of patents that are essential to making the phones and a licensing agreement on any other intellectual property.

Reports suggest that shares in Ericsson rose by 5.1 percent to $10.7, while Sony’s share price rose 5.4 percent to $21.7 at the time of closing.

Michael DeGusta of The Understatement posted an excellent infographic (that is, a truly useful one) this week showing just how poorly the Android community, namely Google (NSDQ: GOOG), phone makers, and carriers, have supported their early adopters with new versions of the software. Click through for the full graphic, but the stats are telling: of Android phones launched prior to June 2010, several of which are still under contract with their respective carriers, “12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less” and “10 of 18 were at least two major versions behind well within their two year contract period.”

Sometimes we come across an idea that is so interesting or innovative, we have to report on it even if it is not yet clear what the uptake will be.

One such idea is the “QR code service from Space“, recently launched by Phillips & Company.

Check it out.

The idea is that more and more people are using tools such as Google Maps or Google Earth to look at locations on the ground. For example, Google Earth has reportedly been downloaded over 400 million times!

So why not use this opportunity to connect with these people for marketing purposes.

The concept makes use of the fact that services such as Google get new satellite photos of the earth on a regular basis. So, for any company that has a building which is viewable for example on Google Maps, Phillips will arrange to place a large QR code on top of your building, just when the satellites are coming by to refresh their images of their location.

The result is that when someone looks on Google Maps, the will see the building with a QR code on it (see image below). Consumers can then use the QR code scanner in their mobile phone to learn more about the business. Scanning the QR code will cause them to be directed to any sort of website or information source that the business chooses.

Phillips calls this marketing service “Blue Marble“. Whether or not companies are willing to pay the money to have a QR code appear on their building in Google Maps is not clear, only time will tell. But in any case, this is one of the most innovative ideas for communicating with consumers.

This is from mobiadnews.com

Independent app store GetJar announced partnerships with two Android tablet vendors, who will be pre-installing a link to GetJar on new devices they make. However, the companies it has partnered with – Pandigital and Skytex – are hardly “tier one” vendors. GetJar announced earlier this year that it intends raising its profile in the Android space, as an alternative to Google’s much maligned Android Market. The deal does not mark the first time that GetJar has offered its content through partners – it has previously inked deals with vendors including Sony Ericsson and LG Electronics, and operators such as 3 UK, AT&T, Reliance Communications and Sprint.

Mobile Streams has announced that it has roped in Huawei for distributing its Appitalism app catalogue in selected regions. The former is a mobile content distributor looking to reach out to Huawei’s network across Asia and the Middle East.

There more than five million apps, songs, books, games and videos that can be accessed using a number of devices like smartphones, tablets, PCs as well as eBook readers, harbored in the Appitalism library. Under the umbrella of the deal, Huawei will have access, in addition to the distribution rights to the Appitalism library.

According to Simon Buckingham, CEO of Mobile Streams, they are optimistic about Huawei’s partnering them in ensuring that their app catalogue is in the hands of Asia’s top mobile operator, poised for widespread distribution in the Middle East – a region which was not previously part of Mobile Streams’ network.

This is from wirelessfederation.com

I came across this article and I just needed to post it MobilOpen. It is so much what we have been believing in for so long… That the telcos need to look at developers as their partners and their lifeline to bring content to the user. Rather then the usual role of telcos making developers feel like it was a privilege for them to even consider talking to them ! Hopefully a change is coming…

There’s 10s of telco programs targeting developers. But they all lack commercial traction. Isn’t it about time for telcos to question their approach? Guest author Jose Valles argues for a ‘polarity change’ in the telco business model and discusses the need to rethink the telcos’ relationship with developers.

In life, we tend to take many things for granted; the Sun will rise and set every day and a compass will always point North. But we mustn’t forget that things do not, and in some cases should not, remain constant. The Earth’s magnetic poles are known to reverse their polarity every few hundred thousand years and then, the compass no longer points North, but South.

More App Store Economics

I have been exploring the reality of smartphone apps as a business. There is no question that we consumers love to download apps, in particular free apps. But is there business in it. I did the first major study of the economics of smartphone apps on this blog, which focused on the futility of the paid apps, as soon as we had enough data to be able to deo it. That blog has been widely referenced as a landmark study to expose some myths in smartphone apps.

However, we did not have the data yet on the advertising side. Perhaps there is real money in the advertising in smartphone apps. I am on the look-out for metrics and stats. And I can report now on a particular case study of an early super-hit of the smartphone free apps space in gaming. In fact the game that earned Apple’s awars for the best free iPhone game of 2009. This is the case study of advertising on Smartphone Apps: How much ad money out of 10 Million game downloads?

This is the busy time in consulting and speaking and I rapidly collect a vast library of new lessons learned and interesting stories to share. This was something quite extraordinary we learned when I was presenting in Helsinki at the excellent Mobile Developer Camp a few weeks ago, in late February. I want to share with you a stunning case study of the effectiveness and the revenues of in-game advertising on smartphone apps.

A useful tool which translates text using image based processing on your mobile phone. The application uses the camera on the phone to take a picture of a word or phrase; which is then processed and recognized as separate words. The user is then able to get word-by-word translations on-the-fly. The translations are done accurately depending on the quality of the image taken; the semantics used in the image-to-text conversion appear to be extensive and can usually recognize even a moderately distorted image. Processing of the image hardly takes any time, thereby making the user experience a pleasant one.

FotoTranslate is available in multiple language packages which can be purchased independently.

The application requires Symbian OS S60 3rd Edition, 5th Edition.

You may contact us to get Free Serial Numbers to check the trial version.

For more information : http://www.abbyy.com/fototranslate/