By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music “Castanets” by Alejandro Escovido – “She plays castanets/ She works without a net… She turns me on like a pickup truck:”

Motorola, Inc. is claiming the launch of the “first-ever personal digital assistant to operate on Terrestrial Trunked Radio networks.”

The new PDA delivers public safety users pocket-sized access to essential two-way data applications while on the move, Motorola officials say. It’s been “developed to meet the requirements of public safety organizations,” letting users access person and vehicle records, report crimes and accidents, and issue penalty tickets via the PDA’s application suite.

No, sorry, you can’t buy a PDA that writes tickets.

Options available include Bluetooth, WLAN, GPS and camera, allowing pictures to be circulated quickly from the PDA. The pocket-sized device measures 145mm x 83mm x 35-50mm and weighs less than 500 grams. With its “large” 3.5” TFT screen, it provides the ideal form factor for users to work with the information.

Using the TETRA network to deliver data to the PDA gives emergency services access to a controllable data pipeline that remains continuously available, even during a major incident.
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Happy birthday, C.S.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is John Rich’s “One Bud Wiser” (“Well, I’m one Bud wiser/Than I was a minute ago…”)

Boy, the Saturday after Thanksgiving and the news wires are humming, boy, lemme tell you, so much hard industry news it’s hard to know what to say first…

Right. We have to go out of North America to find any news at all.

From Israel comes the news that InterObject, a provider of turnkey outsourced software development projects, as well as customized software products, has announced that Global IP Sound has chosen to integrate the company’s MPEG-4 and H.264 video encoding and decoding technology with its own technology base.

Global IP Sound, whose voice processing tools enable real-time communication over packet networks and are integrated in such VoIP software products as Skype, has chosen to embed InterObject’s technology within the foundation of its VoiceEngine Multimedia.

Eli Schwarzfuchs, InterObject co-founder and general manager, says their suite of MPEG-4 and H.264 software components are available for a wide range of processor platforms.

Gary Hermansen, President and Chief Executive Officer of Global IP Sound said easy integration of these codecs with their own technology base will “keep development efforts down to a minimum while enabling us to remain focused on our core capabilities.”
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Happy birthday, Charles Schulz. The first Peanuts comic strip featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Schroeder, Linus and Sally appeared October 2, 1950. As Writer’s Almanac says, “Charlie Brown was the first character in an American comic strip to suffer anxiety and insecurity, and Peanuts became the most popular comic strip of all time.”
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In a canned announcement released late yesterday, Net2Phone, Inc. says that the Independent Committee of Net2Phone’s board of directors is “expressing no opinion and is remaining neutral” with respect to IDT Corporation’s unsolicited tender offer for all of the outstanding shares of Net2Phone’s common stock that IDT Corporation and its affiliates do not currently own for $2.00 per share in cash, net to the seller, without interest.

Consequently, stockholders should “make their own decisions on whether to tender their shares and accept the offer, based on all of the available information, including the factors considered by the Independent Committee.”

These factors are described in Net2Phone’s Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14d-9, which is being filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and mailed to stockholders.

A week ago Net2Phone announced getting $18.8 million from Altice One, an investment fund with interests in cable properties, due to “a recent change in ownership of those cable properties.”

On November 15, Altice notified Net2Phone that a third party had acquired a controlling interest in Altice, that the third party would not agree to be bound by all of Altice’s obligations under the Agreements, and that therefore, the Agreements were being terminated.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Robert Earl Keen, Jr.’s great new song “For Love.” Why doesn’t stuff this good get on the radio?

Okay, it’s Thanksgiving Day, which means nobody’s reading this, so let’s try to get the ol’ search engine hit count up, hang on a sec… Britney Spears lucky winning lottery numbers Paris Hilton Viagra Britney Spears lucky winning lottery numbers Britney Spears Paris Hilton Viagra Britney Spears Britney Spears Britney lucky winning lottery numbers Britney Spears Paris Hilton Viagra Spears Britney Spears Britney Spears.

Welcome, readers!
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The market for VoIP services in Asia continues to show strong growth, as total revenue is expected to rise from nearly $5.5 billion in 2004 to more than $10 billion by 2009, reports In-Stat.

Currently long distance calls, initiated from either traditional PSTN terminals or full IP local loops but carried over IP backbones to recipients’ local networks, create the bulk of VoIP business in Asia, providing for 85.4% of total revenue in 2004, the high-tech market research firm says. In Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore, a large portion of long distance calls has already migrated to the IP platform.

“By contrast, adoption of local VoIP services is slow due to regulatory barriers in many countries and the dominance of incumbent players,” said Victor Liu, In-Stat analyst. “In Japan, however, competitive service providers such as Yahoo! BB have demonstrated how they can creatively leverage technological advantages to introduce new services and woo customers in a loose regulatory framework.”

The report also found in 2004, there were 8.7 million local VoIP lines in Asia. Yet it cautioned that regulators still have to make hard, yet smart decisions to ensure smooth market development, with some vendors placing high stakes on VoIP for their future success.

And it’s still basically a non-starter in China, as industry observer Dan Nystedt reports: “In China… telecommunications companies moved to block software services such as Skype Technologies’ SkypeOut, to protect their long distance revenue.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning of the high holy day for conspiracy theory wingnuts, and the music is a nice twofer: Elton John’s Honky Chateau, a great collection of songs, and Frank Sinatra’s 1957 album Come Fly With Me, the breeziest, most fun album he recorded:

Ever since First CoffeeSM posted of his troubles trying to order from online retailer Caiman.com, he’s heard from a steady stream of unhappy Caiman.com customers who feel cheated, ill-used and are otherwise dissatisfied.

Today another one came in: “I had a similar experience to you guys,” the newest poster says. “I ordered from Caiman through Half.com on 08-08-2005 and was subsequently informed that they did not have the product. Later I found out that the DVD set I wanted is not out of print. When were they going to inform me of that? This is probably the worst internet company I have ever dealt with, and I’ve used alot of them.”

Why is this a big deal? Why does First CoffeeSM keep hashing on Caiman.com’s terrible customer service?

Because such unresponsive and unfulfilling online retailing, with customer service described by customers as “evasive” and “frustrating” is part of what keeps people away from Internet retailing in general, bad apples and the whole barrel and all that.

Another is security concerns: According to a study carried out recently by the Business Software Alliance, one in four U.S. consumers will not shop online this holiday season due to Internet security concerns.

Almost all – 96 percent – of online consumers surveyed believe it is “important” to protect themselves online, and most are doing just that: 53 percent said they’re planning to upgrade their computer security software within the next three months, and the vast majority of them are actively seeking information from their friends, families, coworkers, ISPs, tech Web sites and the media on how to shop safely.

By the way, about 85 percent thought online retailers were not doing enough to provide security either.

The survey also indicated that consumers are concerned about e-commerce transactions when shopping on auction sites, with 71 percent of the U.S. respondents worried about bidding/selling goods on auction sites.

Neil MacBride, BSA’s vice president of legal affairs said that while it’s good news that consumers are taking proactive steps to protect themselves, “the bad news is that nearly two thirds say Internet security concerns will affect their shopping at some level this year.”

The study, commissioned by BSA and conducted by Forrester Custom Consumer Research, examined 1,099 U.S.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Willie Nelson’s Stardust:

Hey, sometimes all you can do is quote:

After nine delays since November last year, the Telkom-2 satellite of the biggest state telecommunications company, PT Telkom Indonesia, was finally launched from Kourou, French Guyana, on Wednesday afternoon, or at 6:46 a.m. on Thursday in Jakarta, a local media reported here Friday.

The 1,975 kg satellite was launched along with the Spaceway satellite of Direct TV boosted by the Ariane 5 ECA rocket to 188 degrees East Longitude at an altitude of 36,000 kms.

The $170 million satellite will conduct its mission for 15 years replacing Palapa B4 Satellite, the service of which had expired in May 2003, the Jakarta Post said.

Couldn’t have said it any better myself, so I didn’t.
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Happy birthday, George Gallup. At the University of Iowa in the early 1920s Gallup edited the campus newspaper, the Daily Iowan. He conducted what some say is the first poll in human history, a survey to find the prettiest girl on the campus. Ophelia Smith was the winner, and Gallup married her.
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First CoffeeSM’s condolences to the family of Motorola Inc.

By David Sims
David@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is back on Frank with Sinatra’s Swingin’ Session, and friends, you haven’t heard “Old McDonald Had A Farm” until you’ve heard Frank’s version:

Axalto, a French producer of microprocessor cards, has launched a Genuinely Pretty Good IdeaTM: Instant Issuance, a highly secure end-to-end solution that allows banks to immediately issue personalized Europay MasterCard Visa cards directly at their branches, with a design customized on request.

With Instant Issuance, not only do bank customers get their new microprocessor card on the spot, but they can also have a personal picture inserted onto it and choose their card body and PIN code.

The Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles has been able to do this with driver’s licenses for years now, why can’t you go into a bank and get your ATM card or credit card on the spot?

Today, the usual process to issue a new EMV card may take up to one week after the customer’s request. Now, Instant Issuance allows banks to provide their customers with an EMV card in a few minutes, with the same security level and quality of service that traditional personalization centers offer. Plus if you lose your card you get another one right away, great customer service.

It lets customers insert a personal picture onto their card, which is a pretty good anti-fraud idea. They can also choose the card body from a selection background visuals offered by the bank.

Instant Issuance is based on Axalto’s data preparation and personalization software suite and high-end EMV banking cards, which security protocol is compliant with the GlobalPlatform international standard.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Mary Lou Lord’s inspired song “Jingle Jangle Morning”:

Motorola has announced an agreement with Bharti Teletech Ltd. in a strategic agreement that extends Motorola’s reach across metros, cities and to the smallest towns in India. Today’s announcement gives Motorola what excited company officials are calling “unprecedented breadth of distribution through one of the widest retail networks for phones in the country.”

Bharti Teletech’s access to the burgeoning rural market jibes with Motorola’s ambitions to “connect the unconnected,” company officials say, by providing handsets like the new C113a, which Motorola considers “suited to mass-market users.”

Their broad distribution to urban cities also allows Motorola to market to the fast-growing population of Indian professionals eager for the latest high-end gadgetry.

Motorola’s agreement to extend the availability of its products for consumers in the market through Bharti Teletech’s national distribution presence is part of what is, evidently, a long-term focus for Motorola on the market possibilities in India. Right now they’re working on combining Beetel, one of the brands of Bharti Teletech in India, with Motorola’s own internationally recognized brand to produce more options to be marketed to mobile consumers.
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Nokia has today announced support for Optus’ 3G services launch in Australia, which Nokia officials describe as “providing the behind-the-scenes network infrastructure and turnkey services” as well as “assisting Optus to develop 3G consumer applications.”

In November 2004, Optus jointly announced an innovative infrastructure sharing deal with another operator to have Nokia build a shared 3G network. Company officials describe it as “the first in the world to feature Nokia’s Multi-Operator Radio Access Network technology,” which allows for the sharing of radio services.

Where MO-RANs are deployed they allow for two operators to share the same base station and to share the radio network controller which directs the voice and data traffic back to the operator’s own core network, kind of like how two banks can share an ATM.

“The issue for many operators is no longer whether to share a network, but rather, what approach will offer the best solution,” said Henrik Glud, Optus Account Director for Nokia Australia.
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Recent research on the UK text messaging market released by the Mobile Data Association forecasts that 32 billion text messages will be sent in 2005.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is… well, we have Dave Brubeck, some John Cage, some Weird Al Yankovic lined up in the changer, should be an interesting work environment:

First CoffeeSM’s still scratching his head over a Business Week editorial titled “What America must do to compete with ‘Chindia,’“ concerning how we should be “responding” to China and India’s economic “challenge.” Maybe for starters we can stop calling them “Chindia,” a remarkably ignorant, patronizing locution, as if there’s no difference between the two, as if China and India have the same economic strengths and weaknesses, same central policy, same business goals, same problems and issues, same government, same attitudes towards the United States, same food…

(Readers who are reading this off the blog page might want to hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ to keep reading, as the italics help.)

BW: Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans could reasonably dream of a world dominated by a single superpower: the US. No longer. The rapid transformation of China into an economic powerhouse, and the likelihood that India will follow in its footsteps, means the US must prepare for a far different future, one where it must learn to share economic power as never before.

FC: The article starts off on the left foot – the Soviet Union was never an economic threat to America’s “superpower” status, its demise is irrelevant and confuses the point here. While the Soviet Union was disintegrating under the internal contradictions of state-command economies (hi China) America was competing economically with Japan. It’s Japan’s economic fall that set the stage for China and India’s ascension.

BW: Such change won’t be welcome or easy.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a good ol’ Tom Waits-a-Thon on the CD changer – Mule Variations, Rain Dogs, Swordfishtrombones, Used Songs 1973-1980, oh, a veritable cornucopia. Note to self: Must download Nighthawks At the Diner to replace copy on “permanent loan” to forgotten beneficiary:

After almost missing the Internet train, Bill Gates is determined not to let Microsoft miss what he calls the latest “sea change,” the migration to online services.

As the Associated Press reports, “Bill Gates wrote to top-level executives in a memo aimed at rallying his troops against the new competitive threats the company faces.” That threat would be the technology industry shift’s to Internet-based software and services.

“In an e-mail to top executives, dated Oct. 30 and obtained late Tuesday by The Associated Press, Gates urged company leaders to ‘act quickly and decisively’ to move further into the field of offering such services, in order to best formidable competitors.”

Of course this isn’t the first time Microsoft has acknowledged the importance of delivering technology online, First CoffeeSM’s reminded of Steve Ballmer’s threat that Microsoft was going to give salesforce.com “a run for its money” in the online hosted CRM space.

“This coming ‘services wave’ will be very disruptive,” the AP reports Gates writing. “We have competitors who will seize on these approaches and challenge us – still, the opportunity to lead is very clear.”

While Gates’s memo ten years ago titled “The Internet Tidal Wave,” prompted “a massive shift at Microsoft toward Internet-based technology,” the new memo includes a “memo from Ray Ozzie, one of Microsoft’s three chief technical officers, which outlined ideas for broad companywide changes that can address the growing competitive threat.”

Ozzie’s memo points out the plain fact that Microsoft “faces intense competition from companies like Google Inc.,” the AP says.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Al Stewart’s Modern Times:

Agilent Technologies Inc. had themselves nice Sunday yesterday, announcing a $14.5 million order with Indian communications service providers Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. and Tata Teleservices Ltd.

The companies will use the Agilent OSS products to form their centralized network management system located in Mumbai – Bombay, to the cartographical nomenclaturally recalcitrant.

The CNMS will manage the service providers’ international and nationwide telecommunications services, in hopes of improving service and customer satisfaction and streamlining network operations.

The $14.5 million deal includes Agilent OSS QoS Manager and NETeXPERT-based network management software products, services and support. Coupled with partner products, CNMS will cover fault, performance, configuration, security, inventory, trouble ticketing and work flow management.

Agilent OSS in Asia-Pacific, with headquarters in Singapore, has offices in Australia, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan.

Agilent’s just full of good news, as they’re also announcing, in tandem with Mentor Graphics Corp., an integrated product enabling high-volume diagnosis for logical and physical failure analysis in the semiconductor manufacturing test flow. The integration between Agilent’s 93000 Pin Scale test system and the Mentor Graphics YieldAssist diagnostics software enables fast online data collection in high-volume manufacturing.

Using this product, Agilent claims, manufacturers working at 90nm and below will now have integrated online diagnostic capabilities to shorten the time to production yield, with enhanced initial design debug, ongoing yield improvement, process control and quality assurance throughout the manufacturing process.
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Don’t kick dirt on Siebel’s grave just yet (Marc, put the shovel down). The newest addition to Larry Ellison’s silicon menagerie is announcing that Hillert and Co., an integrated marketing communications agency, has selected Siebel CRM OnDemand as its hosted CRM supplier.

Hillert specializes in creating and delivering integrated communications campaigns for its customers.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Ramsay Midwood’s Shootout at the OK Chinese Restaurant, a great rootsy-bluesy album released in 2002, with the terrific song “Monster Truck,” but as far as First CoffeeSM knows it’s the only thing this guy ever did:

Well, it’s finally happening. Setec, a Gemplus company and Finland-based developer and manufacturer of visual and electronic card products, is announcing it has begun the mass delivery of the new biometric passports and national identity cards with a function for electronic services for Sweden.

(Cue minor-key theme music, up and under.)

In October 2005, Sweden began to deploy nationwide passports embedded with a micro-chip, compliant with the international requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization, and the European Union. As such, the new Swedish passports, and the EID cards, meet the world’s most demanding security requirements.

Alongside the actual passport, Setec is also providing a comprehensive information processing system for the personalization of the biometric passports and EID cards and for the security calculation services.

Maybe First CoffeeSM’s just seen too many bad movies or read too many futuristic novels, but this seems like yet another bump down the slide to life as a Stephen King novel.

Biometric passports. What’s next, a requirement that passports actually be chips implanted in people? Don’t laugh, the technology’s there and it’s actually happened.

By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Fairport Convention’s great sing-along “Meet On the Ledge:”

Nortel Networks Corporation has announced that Mike Zafirovski, Motorola, Inc. and Nortel have reached a settlement regarding the lawsuit filed October 18, 2005 against incoming Nortel President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Zafirovski.

“We worked in good faith to resolve this issue with Motorola and we are very pleased with the successful outcome,” said Harry Pearce, chairman, Nortel Board of Directors.

Zafirovski will begin his tenure as Nortel president and CEO, and director of the Boards of the Company and Nortel Networks Limited, on November 15, 2005, as originally planned and announced.

The crux of the problem was that when Zafirovski resigned earlier this year as Motorola’s president and chief operating officer, he was given millions of dollars in cash, stock and stock options to agree not to work for a Motorola competitor for two years after leaving the company.

So when he agreed to work for Nortel, Motorola’s lawsuit alleges, he violated various noncompete agreements, since his work with Nortel would “inevitably” result in the use or disclosure of Motorola’s trade secrets.

The lawsuit sought among other relief, an injunction to enjoin Zafirovski from rendering services to Nortel for two years, from soliciting or hiring Motorola employees, and from using or disclosing Motorola’s confidential information.

Zafirovski left Motorola at the beginning of the year after being passed over for promotion to the top job there.

Under the terms of the settlement, which is subject to confidentiality restrictions, there are no admissions by Zafirovski, Nortel or Motorola of any violations of law, breaches of any agreements, or any other improper conduct, which all parties deny.

The terms of the settlement provide that Zafirovski cannot disclose Motorola trade secrets or confidential information, and Zafirovski and Nortel have agreed for a specified period to refrain from hiring or recruiting Motorola employees under certain circumstances.

The settlement also includes restrictions, until July 1, 2006, on Zafirovski’s communications with certain specified companies, some of which are Nortel customers, and limitations on his ability to advise Nortel on competitive strategy or analysis relative to Motorola for a defined period.

Zafirovski will also repay Motorola $11.5 million, which is part of his separation payment from Motorola, and Nortel has agreed to fully reimburse Zafirovski for this repayment. When this sort of thing happens in European soccer it’s called a “transfer fee.”
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Calypso Wireless, Inc., a vendor of wireless telecommunications technology is announcing a purchase order for $16.2 million from South American distributor Inversiones CCS SA, for the delivery of the Calypso C1250i Dual Mode WiFi-GSM-GPRS VoIP cellular phone, which runs on Intel PXA series application processor and Microsoft WinCE 5.0 operating system.

The cellular GSM service will be provided by Telefonica Moviles Movistar mobile networks, a Telefonica subsidiary. Mobile carriers will offer new functionalities and value added services to the mobile subscribers when using the Calypso C1250i WiFi-GSM VoIP cellular phone and interconnecting with the WLL/WiFi networks.
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Cambridge, England-based TTP Communications plc has announced that its subsidiary, TTPCom Ltd has entered into a partnership with Skyworks Solutions, Inc., a provider of analogue, mixed signal and digital semiconductors for mobile communications applications. Skyworks has licensed TTPCom’s digital cellular silicon intellectual property and EDGE protocol software to develop its Lynx EDGE cellular system product line, which delivers enhanced multimedia capabilities suitable for mid to high tier handsets.

Skyworks has been offering complete handset systems since 1996.