by Jason Wilk on January 7, 2009
- Verizon Wireless has been keeping a close eye on Amazon’s red hot Kindle e-reader. As paper reading material begins to die out, books and newspapers sent wirelessly to a reading device is an attractive business model for carriers who want to power them.
- As Reuters points out, “Competitors to the Kindle are out there and ready,” said a Verizon executive, Tony Lewis. Verizon, along with the other carriers have opened the door to supporting more devices than just cell phones that they themselves provide, since the Open Handset Alliance.
- Since then, Verizon Wireless supports 29 wireless devices that run on its network but are sold by independent vendors such as health and tracking devices. It will be interesting to see how the carriers slip into selling other devices from their store, such as e-readers, digital femtocell picture frames and more. The problem with going against the Kindle is that users don’t have to pay a fee for wireless connectivity on the Kindle to download/access books, newspaper, blog posts and Wikipedia. No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments, means no $$ for Verizon. So what’s in it for them? Sell it cheaper and sell the data plan.
- Once offered by the carriers, consumers will most likely be able to get their hands on a seriously subsidized e-reader (around $100) to replace their paper-delivery boy in the morning. If e-readers are going to be as big as everyone thinks they are, Verizon will signing up customers for small data plans (about the price of a monthly newspaper subscription) so they can use their device anywhere. For many it will be a more affordable option than the $360 Kindle.
- So far Amazon has nothing to worry about. Aside from the e-reader on the iPhone, Sony’s version and a few others that have come to market, nothing has really come close to the easy of use and quality of the Kindle.
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by Jason Wilk on January 6, 2009
- One of Motorola’s releases this week at CES will help consumers finally ditch the landline in their home. It’s a new digital photo frame that combines a CDMA femtocell with a software-based phone. How does it work? The femtocell will connect with your existing broadband connection, boosting cell phone coverage in your home. It will be especially helpful for current and next generation connection speeds such as 3G and 4G Wi-max. If you are tired of only receiving Edge or no connection throughout your house or areas in your office, this is the perfect solution to guarantee you will receive the service you are paying for.
- This year will be about having another device in your home. Whether it is this product, or it’s a femtocell embedded in the screen of your refrigerator, a new form of connectivity will be arriving. Some may see this as the Carriers penetrating your household, which in some sense is true, but at least these devices will have multiple functions such as photo’s, RSS readers, weather reports, etc. As Om Malik points out, Rob Malnati, a senior manager at Motorola, said these devices will likely be offered through the carriers as part of the current subsidized model for consumer premise equipment. It will be available for trials in the first part of this year. At least it will be better than another blinking black box with wires coming out of it. Yuck.
by Jason Wilk on January 4, 2009
- Palm is expecting to launch back into stardom with the launch of their latest phone this week at the CES conference in Las Vegas. The new phone, which many claim to be competitive with the iPhone (yawn, heard that before), is running Palm’s brand new Nova operating system. This will be Palm’s big push into a standardized platform which will allow third-party developers to submit applications. The above photo is a mock-up from CrunchGear, and PalmDoc based on the widespread rumor that the phone will have a slide-down QWERTY keyboard.
Updated Screenshots Here
- CEO, Ed Colligan, who’s watched Palm’s stock price fall off Mt.Everest this year, is putting all his chips in on this new operating system. He says they have been working incredibly hard on the new technology and it is already getting “amazing” reviews from those who have been able to play around with it. Personally, I feel that standardization is not going to be the kicker to push any of the phone manufacturers over the top. The golden days of the OEM’s were when the decks were fully controlled by them and the carriers (i.e $$$).
- Look out for the official Palm announcement this Thursday. We’ll see if it can’t give that stock price a little nudge.
Updated Screenshots Here
by Jason Wilk on December 17, 2008
- It’s no secret anymore, the iPhone is popular (who knew?). It is so popular that it has been entirely strange to me that competitive carriers unable to strike a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone haven’t taken stronger action to do so. Well, that changes today.
- On September 18th, France’s third largest mobile operator Bouygues Telecom filed a complaint with the regulator, arguing the deal between Apple and its larger rival, violates local freedom of competition and pricing laws. Today, that ruling was passed, forcing Apple to cease its exclusive relationship with France Telecom’s Orange carrier. The French competition counsel ruled that Apple must open up the phone to other French carriers and French Telecom is further prohibited from signing any further exclusive deals with Apple in the event they release a new phone.
- The French Competion Counsel said:
Apple’s exclusive arrangement with Orange poses a serious and immediate threat to competition in the wireless sector and causes consumers to incur hefty and unjust fees should they attempt to switch providers. (A copy of the 48 page ruling can be seen here [PDF] in French.)
- France Telecom plans to appeal the issue, but it is likely that they won’t be able to get the decision turned around. This is a big win for consumers who should have the right to use whatever device they want with any carrier they choose. We will see how the carriers in the US who want to carry the iPhone react to the issue. Moreover, how will this ruling bleed over into neighboring European countries and extend into Apple’s upcoming deal with China to carry the phone in early 09′?
by Jason Wilk on December 5, 2008
- Speaking at the Symbian Partner Event in San Francisco yesterday, an AT&T executive made some bold claims as to what the companies strategy is going to be for the next 5 years.
- Roger Smith, director of next generation services for AT&T discussed how the company will move forward with their smart phone strategy. The company wants to standardize their smart phones on a single operating system as part of their “dramatic consolidation” of mobile platforms initiative taking place throughout the next few years.
- Smart phones, by 2014, will make up the majority of phones connecting to AT&T’s network, and they want to make sure that they have a ubiquitious platform (aside from the iPhone) that will cut down on technical issues and increase third party involvement in developing applications.
- What’s interesting here? AT&T wants to go with an open-source mobile platform and it’s not Google’s Android. Smith said that Symbian is “a very credible and likely candidate” to become that one operating system.
- Nokia just completed its acquisition of Symbian, the largest mobile operating platform provider, which plans to go entirely open-source. Over 77 million phones were sold usig Symbian last year.
- This is a surprising move for a big carrier to want to shift to an entire open platform, since in the past they have been notorious for wanting to stay in full control and lock up the decks.
- This could have been a huge get for Google if they could have convinced AT&T to jump on board with their own Android platform, which so far has only been embraced by one carrier and one manufacturer (supposedly two now); T-Mobile and HTC. Android has been poorly recieved thus far, despite 1 million phones projected to be shipped through its first quarter. Besides AT&T, Sprint’s CEO, Dan Hesse has publicly said that ‘he doesn’t think Android is ready yet’.
- With the pace at which smart phones are growing and the time frame the big carriers are placing on choosing what the future of their phone platforms will be, Google may be missing out hugely. Their whole idea of a mobile OS being open is a success in some sense considering the carriers are looking to move in that direction, however Google is not going to be the one getting credit for it.
- Whether or not Google is at the healm, this is a good day for the mobile industry. Nokia, Symbian and AT&T are doing their part to raise te bar for mobile standards. Once open everywhere, major strides can be made.
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