Motorola plans to split in early 2011

On 10.08.10, In Mobile, By Editor

Motorola is planning to split in early 2011. The company plan with one half containing its consumer-focused mobile phone and television set-top box products, and the other holding divisions that target business customers.

The company will now have two co-CEOs, Sanjay Jha and Greg Brown, running the separate companies.  Sanjay Jha will focus on Motorola’s entertainment and consumer-oriented devices, including smart phones like the Droid, and Brown on high-tech business solutions.

Greg Brown, the company’s other co-CEO, will head the enterprise mobility and networks businesses. The enterprise mobility division makes products like handheld devices for warehouse workers and bar-code scanners.

The networks business comprises building out cell phone towers and setting up fiber-optic cable lines to enable the spread of high-speed Internet connections.

The split will offer existing shareholders a share in each new company, which will be roughly the same size in terms of annual revenue at US$11 billion. Both halves will be publicly traded.

According to Greg Brown, the company believes this configuration is cleaner and more compelling for customers and investors. The company do anticipates that both business segments will have positive operating cash flow moving forward.

Two newer phones based on Google Inc.’s Android operating system, the Cliq and the Droid, have received a positive response , and according to Motorola, it shipped 2 million units in the fourth quarter. Motorola’s Android-based Devour will go on sale in March through Verizon Wireless. The company plans to launch 20 smart phones this year alone.

According to Jha, smart phones will be increasingly wedded to television set-top boxes as video is watched on multiple devices. Motorola’s mobile-device business will be profitable in the fourth quarter of this year. Together, mobile devices and the home business are uniquely positioned to be a leader in the largest opportunity in technology today, the convergence of mobility, media, and the Internet.

Both the company will continue to use the Motorola brand name, with the mobile device side holding it and licensing it royalty-free to the other.

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Verizon pulls the cover off Motorola Droid 2

On 08.11.10, In Mobile, By Editor

US mobile operator Verizon Wireless will launch its special limited-edition version of the Motorola Droid 2 smartphone, which will hit stores August 12.
The Android 2.2-powered device (priced at $199 after a $100 mail-in rebate) promises a new keyboard, improved processing power, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and 3G Mobile HotSpot capabilities and connect up to five Wi-Fi devices, as well as access to the Android Market application storefront and solutions like NFL Mobile and Blockbuster On Demand, presented by Verizon’s V Cast Video.
Other features include a 3.7-inch touch screen, 5 megapixel camera, HDMI and DLNA connectivity, push mail, 8GB internal memory plus a card slot for up to 32GB.
Verizon is also offering a limited edition of the phone online in September, derived from the R2D2 character from the Star Wars films and including exclusive Star Wars content and external hardware designed to look like Droid from the films.

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Mobile Broadband Capacity woes: iPhone OS 4.0 with multi-tasking is coming.

On 05.31.10, In Mobile, By Editor

Oh Great! Apple’s new iPhone OS update is adding multitasking to the iPhone now which is already causing enough nightmares to Telcos already with iPhones guzzling data like there’s no tomorrow!

Great news for users though. iPhone users have always yearned for multi-tasking and with the iPhone OS 4.0 they will get it this summer. Now, with multiple applications constantly pinging away at the Radio Network Controller (RNC) with their mouths wide open, the Telco nightmare is almost about to come true! The bandwidth and session count per user will go through the roof.

On top of the multi-tasking issue there is the matter of the battery! Apple with every successive release will continue to make the battery usage more efficient. To conserve battery the iPhone drops the data connection as soon as it is done with what it needs, emails, tweets etc in short bursts. This is great for the battery but the network suffers as a result of this. When the iPhone needs more data, it has to set up a new data connection. The need to initiate a new data connection everytime creates some trouble at the signalling end.

While the iPhone started this, Android and webOS use the same technique, and with wider penetration of these devices, Telcos need to gear up for this as of yesterday! Some highly clued-in folks at our operator clients tell us that the bigger problem is not the data capacity flowing through the towers, it is this frequent connecting-and-disconnecting which is posing to be more of a problem.

So we all know there is a problem! Where’s the answer? The answer partly lies in the Mobile Broadband 2010 report published by one of Wireless Federation’s group companies. Please write to Christina (at) WirelessFederation.com to pre-order your copy.

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Motorola to unveil brand new Droid products for Verizon (USA)

On 05.28.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: New smartphones under Verizon Wireless’s Droid line has been planned to be introduced by Motorola representing the carrier’s top-tier devices and typically benefit from a more aggressive marketing push. Verizon Wireless’s push at the end of last year for the original Droid phone benefitted Motorola but Motorola’s flagship device has been pushed aside with the launch of the Incredible from HTC Corp.

This has brought up so many issues like how the company remains competitive with so many other players in the market. According to Motorola Inc. co-CEO Sanjay Jha, size, brand and software provides it with the differentiation necessary to attract customers and added that the company will launch a new version of its Motoblur user interface later this year. He also noted that company has made tremendous progress in its transformation to a smartphone maker.

While touting the strong relationship that Motorola has with its carrier partners, Jha opined that the company is focused on ensuring that consumers like the devices, and that the company can ship its products in time. The company is also considering creating its own mobile operating system under certain conditions with all its focus on Android.

The constant revisions to Google Inc.’s Android software has been hailed as the biggest problem that the handset manufacturer has to face and these changes to the underlying framework of the software has made it difficult to upgrade quickly. Introducing Android 2.2 to phones is on the priority list of the firm and expects an aggressive launching since it will enable Flash on its phones. Installation of Flash is important for the customer’s Internet experience.

In the feature phone side, Jha also opined that he was managing the business for a modest profit, and that he sees the business stabilizing with more volume next year as it starts to benefit from its original equipment manufacturing deal. The production of low end phones has been outsourced by the company in an effort to maintain its brand in emerging markets and with a hope that customers from those countries will eventually buy a Motorola smartphone.

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Orange plans to launch low cost Android phone in Europe

On 05.27.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: LG-made low-cost Android smartphone is planned to be launched by Orange in Europe later this year. Operator’s affordable smartphone strategy has been emerging this week and it includes a range of devices made by Chinese vendors including Huawei, ZTE and Gigabyte.

According to Patrick Remy, Orange’s vice president of devices, at the beginning of 2010, 15% of Orange portfolio was smartphones and this will rise to 30% by the end of the year, and will be 50% by 2013 while with the plethora of white label devices in the pipeline, Orange’s low-cost smartphone portfolio will also include handsets designed by “A-brand” phone makers. The company LG is on the first A-brand product in its affordable smartphone range.

No specific information about the launch timetable and likely cost of the device has been revealed yet. The handset includes the entire standard features like a touchscreen interface, WiFi, GPS, full Web-browsing, and a five megapixel camera and the Android-powered smartphone will launching soon in Spain, Austria, Slovakia and Romania.

The company has explained its objective as-  to make low-cost smartphones available for free even on low-cost tariffs and it is in discussions that could see it offer cheap smartphones to prepay customers, with devices that are priced around €120. Orange’s aim of doubling revenues from mobile multimedia services between now and 2012 will get a push from these cheap smartphones.

The operator is putting extra focus on highlighting services like mobile social networking, instant messaging, location-based services and content, taking lesson from the fact that at the beginning of 2009 only one in 10 Orange customers was using mobile multimedia services.

Remy also opined that 25% of Orange’s customers are now using mobile multimedia, which is significant and tremendous growth, but it still means 75% of its customer base are not multimedia users and Orange’s affordable smartphone range will further lower the barrier to mobile multimedia uptake.

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10.7m iPhone devices in April on AdMob network in the USA

On 05.27.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: In April, the USA had 10.7 million iPhone devices as compared to 8.7 million Android devices. Unique devices that requested at least one ad from the AdMob network in April are represented by these numbers.

IPhone, iPad and iPod Touch shipments have been 18.3 million during the same period. The gap between platforms increases to two to one in the US with the inclusion of the iPod touch. The iPhone platform has considerably more exclusive devices than Android in the AdMob network at an international level.

There were 27.4 million iPhone devices compared to 11.6 million Android devices globally and the ratio between iPhone OS devices and Android devices was 3.5 to 1. In North America, there are around 75 percent of Android devices as compared to 49 percent of iPhone OS devices.

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Dell plans to launch iPad-like tablet

On 05.26.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A 5-inch tablet computer called Streak is being developed by Dell Inc that will run Google Inc.’s open-source Android operating system. The move is one more effort of the computer maker to catch up with tablet computing pioneer Apple Inc, which sold its one millionth iPad in late April. Earlier this month, Verizon Communications too announced to work with Google on a similar product.

Streak will hit the stores in UK June and in the U.S. later this summer. It will be able to connect to wireless Internet and 3G cellular networks and will come with built-in Bluetooth connectivity, a 5-megapixel camera and a VGA front-facing camera. Qualcomm Inc.’s Snapdragon computer chips will power the unit and will also have a 1-gigahertz processor.

Dell recently announced that its profit rose 52% in its latest fiscal quarter as PC shipments jumped a higher-than-expected 27%

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Nokia & Yahoo enter into partnership

On 05.25.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: At a time when search engines like Google and Microsoft made their mark in the mobile market by developing their own highly popular operating systems, Yahoo has been slow to capitalize on the mobile market. To enter the arena, the company has tied up with handset manufacturer Nokia to provide Mail and Chat services for their devices. By this move, both the giants are battling to retain or even regain relevance in a changing market.

Nokia devices in the future will be preloaded with Yahoo Chat, Mail and the newly re-energized Maps, thus providing innumerable opportunities to both the manufacturer and the consumers. However, the deal is not without opposition.

A number of resistances will have to be faced by Nokia from the likes of Apple, HTC, Samsung and a whole bevy of manufacturers. Yahoo on the other hand is struggling to maintain its own identity in an increasingly Google-centric world. The real mobile market fight is between the two leading operating systems, the iPhone which is the most popular individual device and Android, making Google’s platform the most used.

A spike of additional interest might be generated by Nokia- Yahoo partnership and by having its brand and products on all supporting devices; it will at least give Yahoo some mobile visibility.

By offering enticing offers for users, manufacturers and distributors, Bing, another search engine is working hard to become the default search engine for a variety of devices. Google is still the default search engine on the iPhone and with its own Android service; they have a pretty steady footing already.

Not having a search engine anymore is the biggest challenge faced by Yahoo currently but they still have valuable properties, including the most popular email and news services online. However, breaking into a new market without anything new to offer still looks challenging.

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Apple OS supersedes iPhone in the USA

On 05.11.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Apple Inc.’s iPhone has been superseded by Android mobile operating system in terms of U.S. market share during the first quarter.

Android OS, developed by Google Inc occupied 28% of the domestic market share during the first quarter, up from 20% in the December quarter. Strong sales of handsets such as the Droid and Droid Eris at Verizon Wireless have been cited as the reason behind the strong market share.

The US share of the iPhone remained relatively flat at 21%. The leader has been Research In Motion Ltd., whose BlackBerry family of smartphone devices has about 36% of the market.

Launch of the Droid handset from Motorola Inc. in late 2009 has been attributed as the boost for the Android platform which picked up strong sales surging market share from below 5% in the third quarter to end the year around 20%. Verizon Wireless too put considerable effort behind promoting Android to its customers.

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Females more into mobile downloads compared to males

On 05.10.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: When it comes to males and females, everyone first talk about how women are superseding men in all aspects. Here comes one more example where women throughout the world have overtaken men. According to a latest survey, females are using and buying mobile entertainment content more than males.

Women downloaded twice the amount of mobile entertainment content as men in the month of April which is 4.5 million downloads, or 67% of total content downloads, compared to 2.2 million downloads for men.

49% of females chose Blackberry compared to 43% of the males. However, males use Android devices more frequently than females, with 23% of them choosing the Android platform vs. 18% of females.

When it comes to downloads on Android and iPhones, females far surpass males again as average female using an Android device downloaded 7.6 pieces  while male downloaded 6.0 items, for the month of April.

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