About Mobility

A great piece by Daniel at the Mobile Enterpise Weblog — see The Three Halves of Seamless Mobility…

Daniel provides a good historical background, talks about the split we currently have between voice and mobile, and other walls. I would like to add to the list of walls the “enterprise vs. consumer-space” wall; as personal handsets make it into the enterprise world, such wall must also come down…

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There are plenty of areas in mobility yet to be developed to its fullest potential. Below is a list of some of the “hot areas in mobility” to follow, or even better, to be part of and make a difference – there is plenty to innovate still:

1. Mobile advertising (web-based, local/native-based)
2. Mobile payments (ordering, payments, coupons, SMS-based, contactless, …)
3. Mobile directories and 411 (local information, merchants, …)
4. Mobile search (quick access to relevant data, traditional and new ways)
5. Mobile gaming
6. Mobile messaging (from IM to email, from text to video)
7. Mobile-and-Multimedia in general
8. Location-based Services
9. Advanced User Interfaces (including voice integration, navigation, and Widgets…)
10. Content sharing (photos, events, …)
11. Mobile Social Software (from sharing, to messaging, to virtual communities)
12. Power! (better sources for power)
13. Content adaptation (better ways to manage/target/adapt Web content for mobile handsets)
14. Common/single sign-on (common identification, authentication, authorization across the mobile Internet/Web; see Identity and Mobile)

Other:

1. Smart notifications and reminders (based on user's mobile context)
2. Backups (keep data safe, off the handset)
3. Device management (this is key for enterprise adoption: application, access control, licensing management, etc)
4. Education, translations, tourist-related information, while on the go
5. Mobile banking
6. Mobile polls and surveys

Join the bandwagon… Have other hot areas? Leave a comment!

ceo

The Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) forum, an operator-sponsored forum, has released a set of guidelines for mobile terminals such as PDAs and smartphones. The purpose of the guidelines is to minimize fragmentation across handsets.

The guidelines OMTP Hardware Requirements And Defragmentation, Trusted Environment (PDF), defines a list of requirements for a trusted environment, as defined by the OMTP Hardware Working Group. The document has “a general objective to help in defining terminal requirements and to allow development and deployment of new services as well as de-fragmenting secure requirements offered within terminals”.

From the OMTP Hardware Requirements And Defragmentation, Trusted Environment document:

The document defines requirements for (U)SIM, debug port, mobile device ID, DRM, booing, binding and flash updates.

The OMTP forum currently consists of Cingular Wireless, Hutchison 3G, Orange, SK Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor, T-Mobile and Vodafone, AOL, Ericsson, Freescale, Motorola, Nokia, and Spansion, and other participants from all parts of the industry; including Application software, hardware and the OS space. The OMTP is operator driven.

ceo

Read via MocoNews that Telephia and ComScore revealed that on mobiles more people like to access weather information, while on the PC it is about searching…

Let me tell you why I'm not surprised with these results… and why this validates one of the main usage patterns and characteristics of mobility…

First, the above results revealed that in general, both in mobile and desktop, search is king. The differences are a result of different usage patters, where in mobile people search for specific types of information, vs. on the desktop where it is about search in general.

Besides its main purpose of “communicating with friends and family (and co-workers)”, the mobile handset is about finding relevant information, while “on the go”. As previously mentioned, it is about finding specific snippets of information that is needed “now”, and typically related to an event while on the go. These are data snippets such as “what is the time”, “the local weather”, and “places in your area”, or access to other information related to the person's mobile context.

Consuming information on handsets is not the same as on the desktop or even a laptop, and it is about relevancy. Please note that relevancy is not only about finding specific information of interest but also has an impact on how information is organized and presented to the user.

So kids, the word of the day is relevant, as in relevant based on time, location, and other personal preferences or characteristics “surrounding” the mobile user at a specific point in time.

Note that one of the MIDP3 upcoming features is support for “idle screen”, which is great, and is perfect to bring relevant information to the user while the handset is “idle” – think Widgets…

ceo

The Mobile Marketing Association has released the latest version of their Consumer Best Practices Guidelines for Cross-Carrier Mobile Content Programs (in PDF format). The guidelines include information on:

General Conduct
Advertising and Promotion
Opt-in
  Standard Rate Programs
  Premium Rate Programs
Help
Opt-out
Subscriptions
Chat
Customer Care
  Spending Cap Limits
  Bill Face
Word of Mouth Marketing
Content Specific Guidelines
  Alcohol and Tobacco
  General Content
Glossary

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[Via MocoNews]

From the Sony Ericsson press release:

“With the new Web Services for UIQ 3 package released today, Sony Ericsson gives developers an easy solution including guidance on how to access remote services over the internet on UIQ 3 phones using an open XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) protocol called SOAP (Simple Access Object Protocol). By combining the open-source gSOAP toolkit with a new developer tutorial and code samples from Sony Ericsson Developer World, developers are provided with a simple API that enables them to concentrate on the application-essential logic instead of protocol specifics.”

Download the Web Services for UIQ 3 tutorial package, from the Sony Ericsson Developer World portal and click on Docs & Tools -> Tutorials.

ceo

Jason at the Paxmodept Blog points out an article at ZDNet UK about Google and its struggles with operators who want to block Google applications.

Oh boy… not even Google can be saved from this one… that says a whole lot about the current (and nothing new, and who knows until when) situation between mobile software product companies/developers and carriers.

Chris says: “They're inserting themselves in between you and an application that you want. I think that has scary, scary implications…”

Yes, yes, that's what we have been saying for a while (years) now… Yes, we know (and are hoping) that the carriers will realize sooner rather than later how beneficial it will be for everyone, including themselves, to allow for open access and flat-rates… it is common sense. There are better and more creative ways to “milking the cow”… You know, sometimes, to move forward a very hard thing must be done: “slaughter the cash cow”. This is exactly what has been happening here; carriers just can't get over it, and are afraid of the unknown. It takes guts (as we say back home cojones) to kill the cash cow; a very hard decision to be made by executives it is indeed… Where are the fearless, visionary leaders? Fear not…

ceo

Mike Rowehl writes about something that has me perplexed, upset, and furious – see All traffic to US handsets require a valid short code registered with the different networks.

This is a very big deal. And is no good… Closed systems, over-control by carriers is the top reason mobility is moving so slow here in the U.S.

Coincidentally, yesterday I left a comment on MobHappy on “Daniel Taylor: Let’s Address The Industry’s Failures, Not Ignore Them” (a must read by Daniel). Since what I wrote there and this shortcode debacle are both related, i.e. same root cause, I will include part of that comment here:

This shortcode debacle introduces yet another detour on the road to open mobility… I am dead serious when I say we are talking about another 2-5 years of pain here. Note that this kind of pain is taken care of with an influx of money, but the reason this is not good is because it seriously restricts the kind of companies and innovation to just the few who can afford it – and this goes against the whole philosophy that has allowed anyone and everyone, you and me, anywhere around the world to contribute in whatever shape or form to the advancement of the (mobile) Internet/Web.

Now I must research this in detail, and map out the monetary impact of this: hundreds to thousands of dollars a month!

To the network carriers: think forward and long-term… to get there, we must start today… the ecosystem consist of “Big brother-Small brother” relationships to make it work… Let's make it work.

ceo