4G Wireless Evolution - AppStores Archives

Who You Calling "Droid"

2011-01-03T15:24:23Z

This week the eyes of the wireless world turn to CES to see what will be in hands and hearts for the next 6 months. Of course we will also keep and eye on Cupertino. However, The Wall Street Journal has pointed out that Verizon is going to have an LTE phone announcement in Las Vegas this week (see http://on.wsj.com/f6tk69 ) As technologists we will be curious to see if this is UTRAN / VoLTE or something else.

I suspect it will keep the volce separate. Its hard to imagine that the migration to a totally evolved packet core is going to be done by VZW in the first year of deployment.

We live with two year cycles and keeping it simple to deploy is a good move.

More important than the way the transport works though will be the signaling. Verizon wants apps that integrate into the network and this would be a great opportunity to move beyond the Skype Mobile handoff.

At 4GWE http://www.4gwe.com we have the benefit of Anton Wahlman speaking who is one of the best trackers of this space. He suggested last year that the discussion at CES would dominated by tablets.

One company that looks like it needs to make a boost is RIM, Their tablet has long been discussed, but others such as Vizio maybe stealing the thunder http://on.wsj.com/gQfMjV .

Additionally, the divide and Conquer model of Google is expanding with their tablet / ereader strategy called Newstand http://on.wsj.com/hmJf82 . Here is an interesting question to think about, when you want to read an article do you go to a newsstand or a tunes place?

I think the familiar model has been captured by Google, now lets see the ease of use.

Over the Top - Money

2010-09-30T15:53:50Z

Who cares if you carriers billing system is working right? when you have all these options to pay from the web. Once again the mobile Internet is really just the Internet.

Watching a panel of companies at Gigaom's Mobilize of companies successful in mobile payments. But it is all over the top.

The companies include Boku, Groupe Hi-Media, Mastercard, Paypal, Zong

Interesting Geoff of Mastercard, has not brought up Smart Cards.

Web envy Google vs. Vodafone

2010-02-17T12:24:54Z

At Mobile World Congress Vittiorio Colao the CEO of Vodafone made mention of the fact that regardless of what smart phone your were using over 80% of the time was using Google.

This pointed to the latest love hate the carriers have with Google, but they have a history of not liking any of the computing partners. Apple got to watch the wholesale app announcement with about half of the 24 carriers being their partners pledging to work with LG, Samsung and Sony to build an app market.

Likewise Microsoft has a long history of trying to bring smarts at a time when the network had little capacity for computing.

However, in these times when wireless broadband is an imperative to the carriers the strategies of come one come all, have proven less than successful.

Its clear that mobile markets are going be more like computing the in years past and the company's success will be based on finding ways to partner without losing brand to the consumer, or without using the brand in the application (as in M2M).

One thing that has not risen to the surface in MWC this week is e-readers. The group is strangely silent, either because they are retooling after the iPad or because the deals are not that valuable to the carriers.

Whatever the reason, the computing devices are coming more and more often and it will take more than an app store to catch the consumer's attention.

Ceilings and Floors: Vodafone and Verizon

2009-09-25T10:40:03Z

It's game of inches as they say.

I have been looking at the reporting about Verizon's App Store activity and find the perspective of some pundits troubling.

As I reported when I went to the Verizon Developers Conference, the goal Verizon has is very different than being the equivalent of the iTunes AppStore.

Lets be honest, how many of us have looked at all 65,000 apps, and how many of us really want to.

Verizon announced a partnership with Vodafone, China Mobile and Softbank to deliver applications their way. Very specfically Verizon was looking to open the interfaces for location, billing and trust (security). I noted that their strategy was associated with a API that masked alot of the behind the scenes OSS work.

Carriers and cellphone vendors have procedures for turning on the phone that represent over 100 steps in provisioning and configuration. Verizon has tried to make the network valuable without having the carrier's internal OSS stifle the developer. The one requirement is work within a framework. A lot of the companies that are on the iPhone do not like this framework, and it shows in in the blogosphere.

So Vodafone makes its announcement about their efforts to build Vodafone 360 which to me is a another strategy in keeping with the alliance, but is not getting the anger yet.

I think the reason maybe be that Verizon is in the California footprint and the developers are asked all the time "Can I use it on my phone" and since VZW is big in California, the answer frustrating.