Disruptive Telephony

On tomorrow's Squawk Box podcast, the other topic we'll cover is the funding of WiMAX venture Clearwire by the major US cable companies - and Google and Intel! Om Malik again kicked off the discussion with "U.S. WiMAX Save by $3.2 Billion Infusion" which lays out the deal in simple terms. Other coverage:

• Google provides a statement on its blog: "Investing in the future of the open Internet" (TechCrunch has commentary)
• Wall Street Journal
• AP: "Clearwire, Sprint Nextel to form $14.55B wireless company"
• Brough Turner thinks this is great for competition and US mobile Internet
• Larry Dignan at ZDNet says these folks are determined to make WiMax a reality
• Paul Kapustka lays out who are the winners and losers
• Clint Boulton at Google Watch ponders how this could drive Android along
• The Washington Post wonders about how this impacts net neutrality
• PC Magazine believes this deal hides even more delays for WiMAX

What do you think? Is this the cable companies attempt to get into the wireless world with a competitor to the telcos move toward LTE? Can they do it? What about Google's role? Will this succeed?

Please join us on tomorrow's Squawk Box[1] (May 8, 2008) at 11am US Eastern time to discuss/debate the matter. (Or, if you can't join us, feel free to leave a comment here.)

[1] Note that to join a Squawk Box call, you do need to have a Facebook account and install Iotum's FREE Conference Calls Facebook application.

Technorati Tags: alec saunders, squawk box, voip, telcom, telecommunications, phone, carriers, skype

Yesterday we had a fascinating conversation on Alec Saunders' Squawk Box podcast/conf call about "Is the Mobile Web Dead?" This all came about because of Russell Beattie's piece (and the resulting conversation) about shutting down Mowser and declaring that "the mobile web" is dead in light of new phones like the iPhone that allow users to see the web through a "regular" browser. Mowser was a company that existed to help companies make their websites work better on mobile devices/phones and he ultimately found that the market never really appeared.

The discussion was a good one although I think the truth is that we are all violently in agreement that at the end of the day there is just "the Web" these days and there is no need for a separate "mobile" web as the devices we use continue to evolve. We also spent a chunk of time talking about the iPhone SDK, fring and the long-term prospects for apps that use the Jailbreak installer.

All in all I think you'll find it an enjoyable conversation - give it a listen! And note that you are always welcome to join into the calls that happen most weekday mornings at 11am Eastern US time. Watch Alec's blog for more info. P.S. By the way, Russell is looking for work.

Technorati Tags: squawk box, wireless, mobile, mobile web, web, internet, apple, iphone, mowser

Over the weekend, Pat Phelan posted about a sign in the UK that asks "What if someone with several (mobile phones) seems suspicious?" (Click on the image to the right to see the sign larger.) The paragraph then reads:

Terrorists need communication. They often collect and use many anonymous pay-as-you-go phones, as well as swapping SIM cards and handsets. If you're suspicious of the number of phones someone has, we need to know. Let experienced officers decide what action to take.

On one level, I do understand the point they are trying to make. But on another level, I just think of all the people I know who travel to trade shows and conferences with a whole range of cell phones!

Technorati Tags:
security, mobile phones, terrorism, UK

Over on his Saunderslog site, Alec Saunders previews the new phones announced by Nokia today over at the Mobile World Congress (formerly "3GSM") in Barcelona:

When you think of companies who really understand mobility and mobility use cases, there's only one contender, and it's Nokia. Even Apple's iPhone, as pretty as it is, is a sophisticated expression of ideas that others pioneered first. If you want to know where mobile is going, the company to watch is Nokia.

So it was with a great deal of anticipation that I accepted the invitation to sit down with a few of Nokia's product managers to preview their announcements for today - the Nokia 6210 Navigator, 6220 Classic, and the newest members of their multimedia computer line, the N78 and N96. These products are at the confluence of the two major mobile trends today - social networking and multimedia. They represent, in my opinion, both the future of mobility and the next logical expression of many trends that have been emerging for the last several years.

Alec goes on at some length explaining the new features of the various handsets and the new applications that are coming out along with the handsets.

Alec also discussed the new phones in his daily "Squawk Box" podcast that should be up on his website soon (and I'll provide a link here when it does). It all sounds quite interesting and I'd suggest giving Alec's post a read.

Technorati Tags: alec saunders, mobile world congress, 3gsm, nokia

Courtesy of Pat Phelan, I learned of this TV commercial from Telstra about the shutdown of their CDMA network tomorrow:

Obviously the intent is to make sure you have moved over to their NextG network. Being no fan of CDMA (and pretty much stuck with it where I live in Vermont), I just had to laugh. Kudos to Telstra for doing something "funny" in the world of telephony!

Technorati Tags: telstra, wireless, humor

Fascinating development on the Apple frontier... in late December some developers posted information about a SIP phone for the iPod Touch! They included this helpful demonstration video:

The team has obviously received a lot of questions and has therefore released a lengthy FAQ list. If you have an iPod Touch, you can download the software. Of course, you really need a microphone to use it... which the Touchmods folks are building.

All in all an interesting development. I look forward to seeing how it moves along!

Technorati Tags: apple, ipod touch, sip

By way of a ZDNet blog, I learned of "Tryphone" a site that lets you "try out" various new mobile phones online. It currently just has the Apple iPhone, LG Muziq, Blackberry Pearl and Samsung Juke... but of course lets you buy the phone immediately after trying it if you wish. I don't know that something like this can ever replace the experience of actually holding the phone in your hand, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless.

Technorati Tags: iphone, mobile, phones, tryphone

"It's about an open platform, stupid!" While I didn't include Google when I first wrote my post about how voice is really all about application platforms, I did note in the comments that I had intended to do so... and today's announcement really shows that they should be in anyone's list of telephony application platforms. As announced on the Google blog with "Where's my Gphone?", Google today announced the Open Handset Alliance and the associated set of forthcoming software called Android. The front page of the Open Handset Alliance provides a rather compelling (to me) statement:

What would it take to build a better mobile phone?

A commitment to openness, a shared vision for the future, and concrete plans to make the vision a reality.

Welcome to the Open Handset Alliance™, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies who have come together to accelerate innovation in mobile and offer consumers a richer, less expensive, and better mobile experience. Together we have developed Android™, the first complete, open, and free mobile platform.

We are committed to commercially deploy handsets and services using the Android Platform in the second half of 2008. An early look at the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) will be available on November 12th.

The list of partners in the Open Handset Alliance is quite interesting... handset manufacturers, semiconductor companies, software companies... but also cellular/mobile operators such as Sprint and T-Mobile as well as NTT DoCoMo and the giant China Telecom.

Also intriguing to note that eBay is listed as a partner. Would this be for eBay itself or could it perhaps be for Skype? Adding Skype into this mix could be interesting as well.

The Google blog page contains this text which gives some insight into Google's interest:

Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications -- all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation. We have developed Android in cooperation with the Open Handset Alliance, which consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders including Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC and T-Mobile. Through deep partnerships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers, and others, we hope to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.

We see Android as an important part of our strategy of furthering Google's goal of providing access to information to users wherever they are. We recognize that many among the multitude of mobile users around the world do not and may never have an Android-based phone. Our goals must be independent of device or even platform. For this reason, Android will complement, but not replace, our longstanding mobile strategy of developing useful and compelling mobile services and driving adoption of these products through partnerships with handset manufacturers and mobile operators around the world.

In the end, Google wants a platform upon which they can offer their many services. With this plan, they are hoping to turn a zillion mobile phones into a platform which Google - and many others - can use.

Fascinating move... and one that is naturally getting a ton of coverage in the blogosphere. I've not had the time to read much of it, but did catch Scoble, the NY Times article and ZDNet's take. I'm sure we'll all be reading much more about it in the days ahead.

Right now, all we can really do is speculate until next Monday when the (apparently open source) SDK becomes available. We shall see... although the initial signs are certainly that this could indeed cause some disruption.

P.S. One of the commenters on Scoble's blog wondered why there wasn't equivalent attention being given to http://www.openmoko.com/ , especially since it is out already with a product. My quick reaction would be that from what I know of OpenMoko, it is about an open platform, but from a single vendor and on a single hardware platform. This Google announcement would appear to transcend both the vendors and the hardware platforms. It's also an announcement from Google and it has impressive backers.

Technorati Tags: android, apis, applications, google, openhandsetalliance, wireless

The big news out today in the world of Skype is that Skype and the mobile carrier called "3" have released the "3 Skypephone" that lets Skype users take Skype truly mobile. Skype-to-Skype calls and IMs are "free" provided that you are on "3"'s mobile network. I say "free" in quotes because of course you have to have a wireless plan through 3. There are actually two options in the UK, which is the only country in which it will initially be available:

• Monthly - With this plan, the 3 Skypephone hardware itself is free and the rates are 12-17 British pounds per month. Apparently you have unlimited data connectivity with this plan, so you can in fact make unlimited numbers of Skype calls or IMs.
• Pay-As-You-Go - With this plan, you pay 50 pounds for the 3Skypephone phone itself and then keep your account filled with credits. Apparently data usage decrements this account (but it's not clear by how much), so you have to wonder how often people will need to recharge the account. (UPDATE: Julian Bond, who is in the UK and has a 3 Skypephone to experiment with, informs me that there is apparently no charge for data usage on the Pay-As-You-Go, but it is only available for "30 days after your last top-up". So as long as you top up each month you would apparently get the data usage for free.)

These plans also factor into your non-Skype calls, i.e. calls to regular PSTN phone numbers. The phone does work just like a regular cell phone, but calls you make do not go out via SkypeOut but rather through 3's mobile network. So if you are: 1) calling other Skype users; and 2) on 3's wireless network; then all your calls are "free" (subject to your calling plan).

All in all an interesting play. We won't see it in North America for some time (and I probably won't see it in Vermont until the next millenia) but it will be available in the UK on Friday and by the end of the year in Australia, Italy, Hong Kong, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the Republic of Ireland.

The phones themselves look quite nice. There are three colors (or two colors with one of the colors having two different color bands):

Luca Filigheddu also notes that the 3 Skypephone has a "Web 2.0" component to it in that you can easily access various social networking services:

I understand from folks who were at the launch event in the UK this morning that 3 Skypephones were made available to reporters and bloggers this morning, so we can expect to see more articles appearing in the hours ahead. In the meantime, here are some links to other sites that have been covering the launch:

• Skype Journal: "3 Skypephone for 50 pounds on 2 November"
• Skype Journal: "The 3 Skypephone is a test"
• Alan Williamson: "The 3SkypePhone Arrives ... first thoughts
• Blognation UK: "Skypephone unvieled - an interview - includes an audio podcast
• Engadget: "3 Skypephone is free in the UK"
• ZD Net: "Skype and 3 launch mobile phone"
• Tech Crunch UK: "Three to launch Skype phone today"
• CNN Money article

Information directly from Skype or 3:

• Skype blog post
• Skype product page
• Buy 3 Skypephone page
• 3's page on the Skypephone
• 3's "Fast Guide" for the Skypephone
• 3's information about the 3skype.mobi website

Naturally, YouTube videos are starting to appear. Here's a 9-minute overview from an Italian Cellular Magazine (in English):

Stay tuned for more info in the days ahead.

When I first heard from Jim Courtney and then Alec Saunders that RIM had released an official Blackberry application that let you use Facebook, I naturally went to look at the information and then downloaded the app (which you do on the Blackberry itself after you go to m.facebook.com).

I was initially extremely excited... and then almost immediately incredibly disappointed...

First, I have to say that I applaud RIM for putting this application out. I think this can be a great tool for those of us who use Facebook. I realize this is its initial deployment, so hopefully feedback like this can help the folks at RIM improve the app so that it is truly useful to us.

Before I get to the main screen, let me address the major source of my disappointment. After you have installed the app, you start getting notifications such as friend requests. Here's the problem:

You MUST act on the friend request (Confirm or Ignore) before you can access the rest of the app!

So when I just wanted to zip into the app to change a status message, I was suddenly confronted by the fact that I had to act on a friend request (click image for larger view):

Now I don't know who Paul Sorge is and I don't typically just confirm a friend request if the name isn't immediately familiar to me. However, there is not a choice offered to defer the action until later. I assumed that I could just hit the "Cancel"/"Escape" key and it would take me back to the main Facebook app menu. It didn't... it took me out of the app entirely back to whatever I was in before. When I went back into the FB app, I was back at this Confirm/Ignore screen. Here are my choices (apologies on the image quality... it turns out to be harder than I expected to take close images with the MacBookPro camera):

So I can poke Paul... write on his wall, send him a message, view his profile or confirm/ignore him. I did go look at his profile which strangely didn't show much at all.... and then I just didn't have time to do more. I wanted to use the app - so I just hit "Ignore" and the screen went away. (Sorry, Paul... if we do know each other and I'm just having a mind blank I will be glad to add you.)

This is to me a fundamental flaw. It assumes that people will act on a friend request immediately, before doing anything else in Facebook. I don't know about you all, but I often don't have time to look at friend requests and so if I don't immediately know the person I let some linger until I have some cycles to investigate further. With the regular Facebook interface (either the main one or the m.facebook.com mobile interface), I can let friend requests just sit there until I have the cycles to deal with them. It would be great if the RIM app had some way to cancel out of the friend request and let you just see the main app.

[UPDATE: Some time later I had the main Facebook app screen open and received another friend request. It showed up in the app main screen as one of the new items, so it did NOT lock me into acting on it. However, the moment I entered the friend request I seemed to be locked in again, which surprises me.]

Okay, so once you've confirmed/ignored all queued friend requests, here is the main screen you see:

Going left to right, here are what the icons across the top do:

• View Status Updates - This screen is genuinely very useful. You see your recent status update, can enter a new one and can also see all your friends' recent status updates.
• Upload a Photo - Utterly useless for me. I have a BB 8830 because Verizon (my only choice for a carrier) does not support any of the 83xx series that have cameras. So I can't really see any value here.
• View Friend List - Useful. Shows you a text list of all your friends along with their status msgs. If you click on a friend you see their profile.
• Invite a Friend - Useless to have on a small screen. How often do any of you actually invite someone new to Facebook? In all the time since I started using Facebook in the Spring I've invited maybe 2 or 3 people because they asked about it. Why take up real estate with this?
• Poke Someone - Utterly useless to me. I personally don't like Poke and see little point in it. If I want to say hi to someone, I'll send them a message saying Hi! (Call me old-fashioned, I guess...)
• Write on a Wall - Very occasionally useful. I guess I'm just not a huge fan of writing on walls.
• Send a Message - Useful way to quickly send messages. Start typing a friend's name and you'll see potential matches.

That's it. Those are all the features of the application. You can use the icons, the menu, or keyboard shortcuts... but those are the things you can do. However, let's take a look at what is missing:

• Inbox - This is a rather stunning omission to me. You have no access to your Facebook Inbox! Huh? Given that messages form a significant part of Facebook communication (or seem to at least for me), it seems odd that you can't access your message inbox. Now, you do see messages that have arrived since the time you started using the app (although I haven't tested what happens if I receive a FB msg while the BB app is not running), but there seems to be no way I could figure out to see the messages that are already in there.
• Your own Profile - It seems odd to me that there is no menu command or other way to easily view your own profile. You can see your profile, but it involves going into View Friend List, going to your name and then doing the menu choice to view the full profile. A number of steps to go through. Given that you might want to see your own wall (if you like writing on walls) or other items you have put on your profile, this seems a strange omission.
• NewsFeed - No access to your news feed of changes within your circle of friends.
• Groups - No way to get to your groups.
• Events - No way to get to events - given that your likely to be using your Blackberry on the road when you might be going to an event, this would be quite useful to have.

Now, granted, this BB app is just RIM's first version of the app, so on one level perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on them. However, there's this one minor detail:

All this functionality is AVAILABLE NOW through m.facebook.com!

Given that m.facebook.com works well on the Blackberry already, the bar has been set for RIM with their app... and for me this first version fell short.

In fairness to RIM, they seem to have recognized that they don't have all the functionality yet and so they have a "Go to Mobile Site" option in their app menu that takes you over to m.facebook.com. However, it begs the question... if I need to go to the m.facebook.com site to have much of my Facebook interaction, why should I use the RIM app for Facebook?

So kudos to RIM for coming out with an app that shows the promise of making Facebook more useful on the Blackberry... hopefully we'll see more improvements over time that make it truly useful.

Technorati Tags: applications, blackberry, facebook, rim