SingTel launches global cloud-based service (Singapore)

On 02.03.12, In Mobile, By Editor

SingTelMobile operator SingTel has launched a global cloud-based service that enables companies to secure, control and manage corporate data and mobile devices of their employees, regardless of their location. The SingTel Mobility Device Manager (MDM) service, enables companies to manage devices of different mobile OS and ensure information security for mobile devices used by their workforce. This includes company-issued devices, as well as those belonging to employees.

According to company reports, Bill Chang, Executive Vice President (Business Group), SingTel has said that they are seeing a surge in the number of companies that allow their employees to bring their own mobile devices for work.  In fact, the use of smartphones for business activities worldwide is projected to grow by 116 per cent by 2014.  This opens up new security issues, particularly for companies with regional operations. With SingTel MDM, companies can secure data through security policy settings and governance, control on devices, manage apps deployment and control cost through usage policy management. These can all be done via the simple-to-use web-based portal.

Further, in the event of the loss or theft of an employee’s mobile device, an administrator can remotely lock the device or selectively erase corporate data to prevent market sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands.  Administrators can determine the location of the missing devices and remotely deploy and track apps downloads within the enterprise. They are also able to configure and provision the devices over-the-air.

The report alsoreveals that SingTel MDM is compatible with all mobile OS platforms including iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Symbian and Windows Mobile. In addition, it is independent of the location and mobile network, thus facilitating the seamless control of mobile devices globally.

Chang added that as SingTel MDM is offered on a monthly subscription basis, companies do not need to make upfront investments in equipment and can avoid the ongoing costs of managing and maintaining complex systems and hardware. This allows them to improve their productivity, increase business agility and reduce their operating costs significantly.

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Telcel launches mobile app store (Mexico)

On 03.23.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Mexico’s Telcel has introduced its Mobile Application Store named Ideas Appstore, powered by Appia. The store offers Telcel subscribers with various mobile content and applications across Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Java mobile operating systems.

It includes both paid and free applications such as social media, news, weather and sports apps in both Spanish and English. Appia’s open app marketplace service aims to provide the content for Telcel’s mobile application storefront, as well as the platform for storefront merchandising and commerce.

The app store is integrated with Telcel´s billing and customer care systems. The storefront is optimized to match applications to each subscriber’s device, offering thousands of applications across all major mobile operating systems.

App developers interested in distributing their applications through the Telcel Ideas Appstore, and Appia’s other distribution channels can visit the Appia Developer Program at the Appia website.

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Nokia already working on first Microsoft based smartphone

On 03.21.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Nokia’s CEO, Stephen Elop has stated that the company has already started work on the company’s first Windows Phone 7 based smartphone, just a few weeks after the company announced its shift from Symbian to the WP7 operating system. Although the company aims to deliver a handset by the end of this year, the first sales are still not expected until next year.

Elop squashed rumors that Microsoft could launch a takeover bid for the company. He stated that he is not aware of a strategic interest that Microsoft would have in the rest of the business. To the extent that a partnership has been formed around what they’re really interested in, then what would an acquisition bring other than a good year of anti-trust investigation, huge turmoil and delays.

He also dismissed rumors of a further shake-up of the senior management team following the recent reshuffling of the directors.

As recently noted, the final terms of the Microsoft-Nokia alliance are still being sorted out, but Elop stated that he expects the final deal to be signed within the next couple of months.

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Yuilop rolls out messaging app for free texts, chats

On 03.18.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Yuilop has introduced a new app for free texts and chats between schoolchildren and students. The app is currently available for Android devices, with versions for other operating systems to follow.

It can be downloaded from the Android Market to Android smartphones, with a version of the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch to become available shortly on the iTunes App Store. Versions for BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 and Symbian smartphones are being prepared and will be available in Q2 2011.

 

 

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Android overtakes BlackBerry in mobile web usage (US)

On 03.09.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Google’s Android mobile operating system has surpassed RIM’s BlackBerry globally for the first time on a monthly basis in February. A research has found that Android recorded 15.2% of the worldwide market compared to 14.5% for BlackBerry. Nokia’s Symbian still leads the global market with 30.7% with Apple iOS in the second place with 24.6%.

The use of mobile to access the Internet compared to desktop has more than doubled worldwide from 1.72% a year ago to 4.45% now. The same trend is evident in the US with mobile Internet usage more than doubling over the past year from 2.59% to 6.32%.

According to researchers, the momentum is certainly with Android which has almost tripled its market share over the last 12 months from 5.4% to 15.2. In the same period, iOS fell globally from 33.9% to 24.6%.

In North America, Android at 26.4% in February also overtook Blackberry at 22.2%. iOS leads the North American market with 37.5%. Compared to its global presence, Symbian is well back in North America with 5.7%.

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Nokia leads in Pakistan

On 03.09.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Nokia is considered the market leader in terms of mobile handsets being used to access the Internet in Pakistan.

According to a research, of an estimated 5 million mobile customers using GPRS/EDGE services in Pakistan, a sizeable 74% use phones based on the Finnish company’s Symbian operating system.

While Nokia is struggling to retain market share elsewhere in the world new statistics from a research company showed its Western European market share fell by six percentage points on-year to 33% in Q4 2010 its position has remained relatively solid in Pakistan; the vendor lost just two percentage points of share in the year to February 2011, despite growing competition from the likes of Apple.

Apple’s iOS is Symbian’s closest rival in Pakistan, but with a share of 8% in February it remains a long way behind. Sony Ericsson comes in third with 5% of the market.

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Android users browse more mobile websites than iPhone users – survey

On 02.16.11, In Mobile, By Editor

­A recent survey has unearthed that there are significant variations in between different operating systems in terms of mobile web activity. The research method analyzed mobile behavior via operators’ IP traffic.

According to the survey, Android users were the most ‘web intensive’ with an average of 9.1 daily site visits per user, compared to iPhone (8.0), BlackBerry (5.7) and Symbian (5.2), the latter utilized more as a feature phone as opposed to a smartphone.

It was also revealed that variations in mobile usage in terms of handset screen size; <2″ displays saw an average of 2.8 site visits per day per user, whereas >4″ displays exhibit a marked increase, with 10.4 visits per day, per user.

Social networking sites continue to dominate the mobile internet picture, with a 28% share of all site visits. The importance of Facebook for example depends heavily on the operating system utilized. For users with a Symbian operating system, Facebook accounts for 24% of all visits while elsewhere the significance is lower; iPhone (17%), Blackberry (16%) and Android (13%). Similar variations were found for other popular sites; Google for example is hardly used at all by users with Symbian phones.

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O2 to pre-load eBay app on UK smartphones

On 02.16.11, In Mobile, By Editor

eBay, an online auction and retail service, has signed a deal to pre-load its mobile apps into phones sold by O2 in the UK.

This is the first mobile pre-load deal agreed by eBay anywhere in the world, and the first time Telefonica has selected an app to make available to its O2, smart and feature phone customers across the board. eBay’s mobile app is one of the most popular shopping destinations for O2′s customers who are already responsible for a significant proportion of eBay’s UK mobile traffic.

O2 customers in the UK will be the first to benefit from the arrangement, but eBay’s mobile shopping experience is expected to launch to other Telefonica markets worldwide.

Starting later this year, the eBay mobile app icon or a link to the mobile site will appear on either the home page or two subsequent pages of most Android, Windows Phone 7, Symbian, RIM and bada devices sold by O2 in the UK over the next two years. The company will work with device manufacturers to pre-install the application.

According to Glyn Povah, Head of Content at Telefonica O2 Europe, deals like this are great for customers and great for brands. They allow them to bring their customers best-of-breed content & services from the brands they know and love, while also helping brands stand out in the increasingly cluttered app marketplace.

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Nokia considering setting up a head office in the US

On 02.09.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop is considering setting up a shadow HQ in California to position it more closely amongst the growing smartphone market.

According to sources, Elop is considering shifting the executive centre of gravity to Silicon Valley, creating a virtual HQ in the United States. The move would therefore require Nokia’s Executive Board to spend most of their time outside Finland, accelerating a process of de-Finnistration, that may have started with the weekend reports of a cull of senior directors at the company.

The company is expected to announce a major shift in its handset strategy this week, which could involve starting to support either the Android of Windows Phone 7 platforms in addition to its own Symbian or MeeGo platforms.

However, mobile networks are reportedly uncomfortable with the growing domination of the Android platform and would prefer Nokia to stay aloof from the ongoing convergence so that the consumers retain some choice in the handset market and that the operators can reduce the risk of becoming dumb pipes and losing their value added revenues to Apple and Google.

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Smartphone shipments beat PCs

On 02.09.11, In Mobile, By Editor

A research report has revealed that manufacturers shipped more smartphones than personal computers in the fourth quarter of 2010, crowning mobile devices as the computing platform of choice much earlier than many industry-watchers had expected.

According to reports, makers of mobile devices distributed a total of 101 million smartphones in the last three months of the year, showing a gain of  87% from the same period in the year.

The earlier reports also suggested that PC shipments reached 92 millon units in the fourth quarter,showing a  mere gain of

less than 3%.

Analysts had expected smartphones to take the lead at some point in 2011, but the transition happened more quickly as a wide range of manufacturers of mobile devices embraced Android, the malleable open-source operating system from Google.  Android continues to gain by leaps and bounds, helping to drive the smartphone market. It has become the cornerstone of multiple vendors’ smartphone strategies, and has quickly become a challenger to the market leader Symbian.

Android passed Apple’s phone software and Nokia-backed Symbian as the most widely adopted program for smartphones at the end of last year. Since Google’s software is used in devices made by other groups, Nokia, which makes smartphones as well as the Symbian software, is still in the lead in terms of smartphone shipments.  The Finnish company’s unit share widened to 28% from 20% in the quarter.

Apple’s iPhone, meanwhile, nearly doubled its share from the final quarter of 2009 to 16% in the final quarter of 2010, passing Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, to gain the number two spot.

In revenue and profit terms, Apple does much better per phone, as many Nokia products are less expensive and offer fewer functions.

The market for PCs continues to grow, setting another shipment record in the  recent quarter.The increases are much smaller than in the past year due to their higher average price relative to phones and slower innovation in the segment.

Apple alone sold about 15 million iPad tablets in 2010 and more than 7 million in the fourth quarter, which would have brought the PC category close to level with smartphones.

Many more companies are introducing tablets this year and their sales are expected to go more than double as a whole in 2011.

The growth in smartphones will continue to surge as the high-end models improve constantly and the middle tier gets more affordable.

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