Content Partnering to Supercharge 3G Growth

Content Partnering to Supercharge 3G Growth

Summary

Background

Analysis

Recommendations

Authors

Subject: Wireless Industry: Communications

Date: June 2005

3G networks are gearing up in Europe, making that region the global testing-ground for a new type of relationship between operators and content providers. From networks to handsets, 3G service components are being developed, integrated and optimized in readiness for take-off. However, amid the pre-launch rush, one key question is possibly being overlooked: where is the money? By the end of 2005, shareholders will be demanding proof of incremental revenue and usage flowing from 3G handsets.

As attention turns to the commercial potential of high-speed mobile services based on 3G technology, the omens are not encouraging. Publicly-available information suggests that the early levels of mobile data usage at the interim 2.5G level are far from satisfactory. Despite the fact that the new 3G services are reported to be capturing customers’ imagination, there is little sign so far of them capturing a huge share of wallet. Figures to date suggest that the majority of users are not yet touching their 3G button—and that the ones that do press it are generating just a few dollars per user per month.

One place where European and US operators might look for lessons is Asia. Operators in Japan and Korea worked out how to make money from data some time ago and now generate approximately 100 percent more revenue per customer from mobile data than their European counterparts. But the main difference between these operators, apart from cultural distinctions, is the nature of this revenue. While the majority of data revenue in Europe derives from messaging (80-85 percent), in Asia content and applications make up the majority (60-70 percent).

While "content is king" remains the mantra in mobile data, the way this has manifested itself in Asia—via thousands of different content creators and in a continuously changing format—is far removed from the original expectations. It also differs sharply from the market in Europe, where mobile content's limited scope and depth has prevented it from competing satisfactorily with TV and the Internet. Operators in Asia typically have commercial relationships with around 1,000 selected content providers—and this broad provider base helps to keep competition alive and get the best content ideas to market.

However, European operators report that effectively managing thousands of content providers is operationally impossible, meaning that much of the effort they put into promoting open competition for content was, in fact, wasted. So what really sets the Asian operators apart is that they have managed to execute their original business plans, offering the most compelling developer experience to the mass market.

Based on interviews with a number of content providers and operators, Accenture has identified four areas in which an operator must develop outstanding capabilities to attract the best third-party providers. These four capabilities, illustrated in Figure 1, are:

1. Design/Test 2. Operate 3. Commercial 4. Support

While an operator would need to be world-class in all these capabilities to meet every conceivable third-party requirement, in practice it needs to make a pragmatic assessment of what developers expect from it—and invest accordingly.

1: Design/Test—Up to now, most service design has been focused around SMS, MMS and WAP standards. With the advent of Java technologies on high-capability handsets and faster mobile IP networks, developers now want better Service APIs and Development Kits to complete their offerings. 3G operators take two main approaches to selling content—either acting as an aggregator via a central repository, or providing developers with guidelines and xHTML templates.

The development of a new mobile content site takes from one to four months. To shorten this cycle, several operators are providing Development APIs to give third-party content providers greater flexibility in areas such as charging mechanisms and controlling access to content.

2: Operate—Many developers cite the lack of any clear organizational structure as a major drawback in their relationships with operators. Another common headache is the legal/contractual wrangling required before joining a large 3G operator’s development community, while 3G operators themselves face the challenge of integrating third parties into their own real-time billing systems.

Providers and partners also expect a steady testing environment, access to representative production data and responsiveness in the event of operational problems. However, most operators are currently failing to provide developers with clearly-defined service levels—despite this being standard practice in the fixed phone world.

3: Commercial—Developers’ commercial expectations could not be greater—and their impact to date could not be more disappointing. Developers would welcome the introduction of more flexible business models with fair revenue-sharing. Not surprisingly, developers would also like to see flawless charging−billing–payment−settlement flows so they receive their hard-earned money as quickly as possible. Operators should come up with a portfolio of billing models and give their providers the flexibility they need to match their specific offering with the most suitable model.

4: Support—Most developers expect some support for their own development activities. The availability of SDKs and well-documented material will prove adequate for most of their activities. However, they would also like to get in-depth management information capabilities, such as SLA Tracking or KPI Reporting. Such information allows them to develop services geared to specific target customer segments. Certainly, many operators could improve on their capabilities in this area, and Accenture research shows that the market is now waking up to the importance of doing so.

Bottom-line Benefits

In the introduction to this article, we asked: “where is the money?” As we have shown, while pulling all these capabilities together for third parties is neither cheap nor easy, it is worth the investment. For operators looking to grow their revenues and build market share, a roadmap to acquire the right partnering capabilities is not just a good-to-have—it’s a prerequisite for future success.

Tunc Yorulmaz is an associated partner in Accenture’s Communication & High Tech group, based in the London office.

Philippe Delaide is a partner in Accenture’s Communication & High Tech group, based in the Paris office.

Jean-David Benassouli is a manager in Accenture’s Communication & High Tech group, based in the Paris office.

Simone Maggi is a consultant in Accenture’s Communication & High Tech / CRM group, based in Sophia Antipolis.

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©1996-2005 Accenture All Rights Reserved

U.S. teenagers prefer instant messaging to connect with each other

Teen survey: E-mail is, like, so yesterday U.S. teenagers prefer instant messaging to connect with each other

News Story by Reuters

JULY 28, 2005 (REUTERS) - E-mail is for grown-ups, as U.S. teenagers now prefer instant messaging to communicate with each other online, according to a survey released yesterday by the nonprofit Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Internet users from 12 to 17 years old say e-mail is best for talking to parents or institutions, but they are more likely to fire up instant messaging when talking with each other, the survey found.

While e-mail is still used by 90% of online teens, the survey found greater enthusiasm for IM. Three-quarters of teen Internet users use instant messaging, compared with 42% of adults, Pew said. Nearly half of teens said they exchanged IMs daily, and some said they spent more than two hours each day using instant messenger programs.

Half or nearly half of the 1,100 teenagers surveyed said they use IM to send Web links or photos to each other, while nearly one-third said they had sent music or video clips. Adults were much less likely to do any of those things, the survey found.

Nearly nine out of 10 teenagers said they use the Internet, up from 74% in 2000. Those who are still not online are likely to be so poor that they have limited access to technology, the survey found, and are disproportionately minorities.

The survey, conducted in October and November 2004, has a margin of error of four percentage points.

A virtual vault for personal data

Note synchro with phones and auto-format ====== A virtual vault for personal data

By Michael Kanellos http://news.com.com/A+virtual+vault+for+personal+data/2100-1046_3-5796996.ht ml

Story last modified Wed Jul 20 15:09:00 PDT 2005

PALO ALTO, Calif.--EverNote has come up with a catch-all personal database for your computer aimed at helping you keep, and search for, items you don't want to lose.

Users can insert PowerPoint slides, handwritten notes from a tablet PC, photos, passwords, e-mails or fragments of Web pages into the EverNote database. The system then synchronizes so that the data is automatically replicated on all the cell phones, PCs or other devices in your personal network.

Later, if you search for a term, the database will pull up all of the documents, regardless of file format, containing that term. A single query on "Gates" on EverNote CEO Stepan Pachikov's phone produced a handwritten note, a few pictures, a few e-mails and some Web links. Consumers can also insert recorded voice messages into the database, but they can't be searched for yet.

"This is a database for everything you would like to remember," Pachikov said during an interview at the AlwaysOn conference at Stanford University. "People dream of having a photographic memory." "This is a database for everything you would like to remember." --Stepan Pachikov CEO, EverNote

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company is one of several new start-ups in the "Your Data Anytime" category. These companies are effectively trying to sell technology that will allow consumers to access their personal files through any device. Orb Networks, for example, sells an application that lets an individual with a cell phone tap into pictures, videos or music stored on a remote home computer.

Some venture capitalists express doubts about whether these companies--most of which have to give at least a basic version of their software to attract customers--will be able to thrive. Nonetheless, the idea is attracting attention, and many of the companies are landing funding.

EverNote differs from others in the category in that the data isn't accessed remotely. The information inside the database is replicated on each device during the automatic synchronization process. The data is altered to suit the device: hefty 5MB photos, for instance, are stored as a 53K file on a phone.

The EverNote database, however, is only designed to hold a person's most valuable documents. Users don't put everything in it: only the stuff they really want to keep. Pachikov, who once worked as a supercomputing scientist in the Soviet Union and sold a company to Silicon Graphics in 1997, had 1,061 items in his database. Orb and other services can connect consumers to the whole hard drive or a live TV feed.

So far, approximately 150,000 people have downloaded the application from the company's Web site. A premium version can be bought as well. Microsoft, Google duke it out for China Investors see green in clean tech Broadband's bargain hunt Staking claims for patent gold When technology is a distraction Previous Next

In the future, the company hopes to link up with cellular carriers to promote the technology. Cell phone carriers are now trying to find applications for the technological capabilities on today's phones.

EverNote, Pachikov asserts, could help turn the cameras now included in phones into something more than a consumer feature. He uses it at conferences to take pictures of people and their name tags so he can remember them later. The pictures are automatically given a time and location stamp.

"The phone is like a hand scanner," he said. "I would like to use it as a universal recorder."

Copyright C1995-2005 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

V3RT entertain - fox and hound

http://www.culturehole.com/blog_commento.asp?blog_id=14

 In brief: One guy named Mr. X runs around Toronto’s transit system in a bright yellow shirt, while three or more guys in red shirts try to find him using the clues he gives at every third stop he makes. The three detectives are coordinated by dispatchers who tell the detectives where they think Mr. X might be and how best to block him off. Mr.X’s dispatcher is relaying information about the detectives whereabouts and tries to keep him away from them. The game ends when a time limit has been reached or X is caught.

You need:
• A fully charged Cell phone with unlimited weekend minutes
• A Monthly or Day Pass for the TTC
• Sunscreen

Here are the rules: Scotland Yard is played by 6 or more people, half of the players are in the field, and the other half are dispatchers. Teams are paired up, one dispatcher with a field agent. Each pair is in contact with each other using a cell phone. One agent in the field is chosen to be “Mr. X” while the rest are detectives.

The object: As Mr. X, you must avoid capture for a determined amount of time (3 or 4 hours), As a detective, you have to capture Mr. X (optionally cuff, rough-up, interrogate and incarcerate) through team play and coordinated efforts before time runs out. Dispatchers are the people who will strategize and coordinate your efforts in the field.

To start the game: Mr. X is randomly placed at a stop and must phone into HQ to tell his dispatcher what 3 methods of transportation he will be using on his next three moves (subway, streetcar, bus). To stand out from the crowd, Mr. X must wear his yellow “X” shirt. Detectives must wear the red “D”. (These striking shirts are provided)

How to move: Both Mr. X and the detectives will utilize Toronto’s public transit system during the game. Mr. X is limited to the transportation provided on the map, however the detectives may freely move about the playing field in any way they see fit. (This rule may change depending how the game flows.)

Going from one stop to an adjacent stop is called a move. 3 moves consists of a turn. At the beginning of every turn Mr. X must phone into HQ to tell his dispatcher what 3 methods of transportation he will be using on his next three moves and in what order. At every second turn (6 moves) Mr. X must reveal his location as he enters that location. Mr. X’s dispatcher must tell the detective’s dispatchers this information, who in turn tell the detectives. The detectives locations known by Mr. X at all times.

Mr. X is given 1 black ticket with which he may make one bonus move in secret. This will be used at any time, and doesn’t need to be declared at the beginning of his turn.

When travelling by subway Mr. X must skip one subway stop for it to be considered a move. This gives the advantage of allowing Mr. X to travel greater distances in less moves, and skip by detectives, e.g.. Mr. X may travel from 47 to 35 by subway in one move but may not go from 44 to 37 in one move). All other transportation moves as expected. Be careful on the weekends as there may be longer waits between buses and streetcars. Usually no longer than 20 minutes though.

The DetailsMr. X may not leave the platform, station, or TTC boundary by any other means than the transportation declared. Mr. X may not deviate from his declared plan.

When outdoors, the boundary is set by the stops them selves. An imaginary line is drawn around the corner stops, or subway entrances on each intersection. Failing this, a boundary the size of a soccer field would be appropriate.

Mr. X must stay in this area in open view, but if discovered, may run, jump, deke out, hide or whatever is necessary, in order to avoid his captures. If Mr. X gets on his declared transport before being tagged, the detective may not follow him, and can either follow on foot or wait for the next one. BE CAREFUL OF TRAFFIC AND SUBWAY TRAINS! Once Mr. X is tagged or the time expires the game is over.

'Write once, run anywhere' not working for phones

'Write once, run anywhere' not working for phones By Ben Charny, CNET News.com 15/7/2005 URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,39243407,00.htm

When it was first introduced, Sun Microsystems' Java software for cellular phones was supposed to let developers write a single program that could run on any handset.

A half decade later, Sun's Java for cell phones, called the mobile information device profile, or MIDP, is used in half the world's 1.4 billion phones for downloading other bits of software. But writing a program that can run on any handset still isn't possible.

It's an odd by-product of Java's success in the cell phone market. Ironing out the details of software such as the MIDP takes time, and neither the cell phone makers nor service providers have been willing to wait as they pump out the 700 million or so cell phones sold each year.

Instead, Nokia, Motorola and other handset makers have built devices using their own fixes for MIDP.

Though that's understandable, since they have to deal with the immediate needs of the market, their actions have played a major role in sullying the "write once, run anywhere" promise of MIDP, say Sun executives and developers of cell phone software. That means that the extra costs and development time associated with creating multiple versions of the same software find their way into nearly every corner of the cell phone industry, from the price of handsets to the price for downloading a ring tone.

"Fragmentation is the one major roadblock that could mean the difference between success and failure for developers embracing this market," Allen Lau, the chief technology officer at Tira Wireless, wrote in an article in the trade publication Java World.

What was billed as an oasis for developers has turned into quicksand, quipped developers attending Sun's recent JavaOne confab in San Francisco. None were louder than representatives of Nokia, which sells about a third of the world's cell phones, nearly every one with Java inside.

"Defragmentation remains a major issue," Nokia Chief Technology Officer Pertti Korhonen said during a recent speech to Java developers. "We need to reduce the fragmentation effect because interoperability is critical for today's mass market devices. We need to simplify the standard, and use open, fair and predictable licensing terms for the technology."

Though the cell phone industry has made tremendous strides in the last two years, it's becoming clear to engineers at Sun that the ultimate goal of "write once, run anywhere" may never be fully realized because the cell phone market is simply too diverse, said Eric Chu, a Sun senior director who played a role in much of the early MIDP development.

Sun's efforts to end the fragmentation problems have so far come up short. Just about every year the company has had another way to attack the problem. The latest attempt involves the Java Verified program, which was created several months ago to certify cell phone software and ensure that it runs on different companies' phones.

It's a radical change from past practices, when applications had to be tested by each handset maker in order to ensure the coding was bug-free and at a certain quality level. But it's too early to say how well the new program is working.

Great promise, mixed results The MIDP standard, based on Java 2 Micro Edition, or J2ME, was developed collaboratively by Sun and more than 20 cell phone companies. The goal was to provide the cell phone industry with a

standard for downloading software onto phones, one that would allow a single version of any application, be it a three-dimensional game or instant messaging, to work on any phone.

Fragmentation issues surfaced quickly. The initial version of MIDP had a limited set of built-in features, so if handset makers wanted to, for instance, add 3D gaming, they had to build their own way of doing so into the handset. So a 3D game built to run on, say, a handset made by Motorola, wouldn't operate appropriately on a handset from Nokia.

Meanwhile, hardware makers were busy producing cell phones that were like snowflakes: No two were alike. Some had huge screens and tiny dial pads, others just the opposite. Application makers have had to account for the nuances or risk severely limiting the reach of their products.

Essentially, that means developers have had to do something different to their software to fit each different phone. Writing multiple versions of software can mean adding months of additional work on a program.

"It can take up to nine months to deploy an entertainment application," said Craig Hayman, vice president of carrier marketing at IBM. "But that's the duration of a cell phone in this market."

Sun, Nokia and others are still trying to deal with the issue. MIDP is now on its second version, one that accounts for just about any feature customers might want on a handset, so there's less of a need for proprietary software, Chu said.

There's also a movement afoot to standardize the ways in which different features on phones work together, Chu said. The proposed standard, known as MSA, or Mobile Service Architecture, is meant as an adjunct to MIDP, according to the handset makers and carriers that support the idea.

But don't expect the problems to go away anytime soon.

"You can look at (MIDP) as a problem, or at the incredible progress so far," said Jason Guesman, vice president of Seven, a Redwood City, Calif., wireless messaging specialist that competes with the likes of Research in Motion and Good Technology. "It's amazing what you can do now, thanks to Java, with a US$99 handset. But write once, run anywhere isn't close."

Asian developer maps software to location services

Asian developer maps software to location services By Aaron Tan, ZDNet Asia 7/7/2005 URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39241536,00.htm

SINGAPORE--An Asian software company has developed a new application for accessing location-based services on Symbian-based cellphones.

Called NavFone, the software was developed by agis, a Singapore-based company. Users can download it from the company's Web site and install it on cellphones like the Nokia 6600 and 6630, said Poon Kim Ying, agis' chief technology officer.

Available since April this year for about S$30 (US$17.71) per copy, the software includes a directory map of the island-state, together with addresses of places such as restaurants, banks, roads, malls and churches. So far, more than 1,000 copies of the software have been sold, Poon said.

With NavFone, a cellphone user is able to locate a restaurant within the vicinity or search for a building by entering its name--similar to how users perform a Google search. "It's like having a street directory and Yellow Pages with you on your mobile phone," said Poon.

To make it easy for NavFone users to download new and updated information from the Web site, agis embedded all information, such as restaurant locations, in "layers" that sit on top of the map. This makes it easy to create layers for new classes of information, such as bus stops, and to update existing ones with new data.

The software also enables mobile phone users to pinpoint their physical locations when they are indoors. To do this, NavFone retrieves information from the individual cells on a GSM cellular phone network to determine where the phone is.

Poon said this gives the software an advantage over GPS (global positioning system) solutions, which typically require users to be outdoors. Also, users may not be willing to pay for GPS receivers that cost around S$200 (US$118) each, he added.

Another notable application is taxi-booking, which enables users to book a taxi with Singapore cab operator Comfort Transportation by highlighting a taxi pickup point on the map. In 30 seconds, a text message will be sent to the user with the estimated waiting time, together with the taxi license plate number, Poon explained.

NavFone took a year to develop and at a cost of S$500,000 (US$295,200). The project received funding support from the Infocomm Development Authority, but agis did not disclose the amount.

Poon said there are plans to partner with banks and malls to "push" information on retail promotions to mobile phones users whenever they reach a targeted location.

agis is in talks with Singapore mobile operators to market the software to cellphone users. The company is also planning to introduce NavFone in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India and Australia.