IN THIS ISSUE:

* Web Academy Forum – Address Correction and a New Kick-Off

* Phone.com – Buy or Die?

* AXE Is the Future

* Follow-Up on i-Mode

* MISE Business Model Seminar Ramblings

* Improvement Opportunities at Ericsson

I know, I am late again with the newsletter, I will be late also next week. Maybe I should start publishing it at the end of the week – but then I would probably postpone it until the beginning of the following week… Anyway, interesting things seem to happen, lots to think about.

WEB ACADEMY FORUM – ADDRESS CORRECTION AND A NEW KICK-OFF

The Internet Opportunity Watch Web Board has been set up and unfortunately I gave you last week a wrong address. The correct one is http://webboard.ericsson.se/~webacademy, it will take you to the registration page. You can go to the IOW Forum where you can start or join a discussion on any of the topics in this newsletter as a follow-up. The initiative to start a discussion is yours – I want to see first if we can get a discussion going without my initial involvement..

You can also join the discussion on business models which serves us who are driving the MISE Business Model project. For example, you can post there concrete business modeling issues for mobile Internet you would like to have some advice on. I am sure one or two of the 500+ readers of this newsletter could give you some guidance or share a similar problem in some other part of the world.

PHONE.COM – BUY OR DIE?

I spent four days last week in San Francisco and ran into my neighbor – you remember the one from Credit Suisse First Boston who took Phone.com public. Two months ago we discussed Phone.com and he said they must start acquiring companies. Since then they have bought part of Apion. I asked my neighbor: “Was it you who went and suggested that to them?” “Yes.” “I see, what’s next then?” “They will need to acquire a location-based technology company, either Airflash or Snaptrack – or at least form a strong strategic relationship with one of them.” http://www.airflash.com/,  http://www.snaptrack.com/

Believe me, Phone.com has to grow through acquisitions in order to utilize its low cost of capital (i.e. inflated stock). There will be enough investments banks knocking on their door and offering candidates. Secondly, the company needs to develop a business model, with recurring revenue streams I would suggest. Thirdly, they need to do all of this with the right timing, too early execution will naturally result in a huge pancake.

May I suggest we go and discuss this at the Web Academy Forum? The direct link to the discussion should be this: http://webboard.ericsson.se/read?2451,276.

AXE IS THE FUTURE

Sorry, I did not mean our AXE. AXE Digital Television is approaching high-end streaming video with an interesting business model. Their affiliate-based VOD and live feeds run through multiple, demographically-specific broadband portals, enabling their partners to serve a targeted, mass audience through online brands focused on content aggregation.  For example, a film studio may distribute individual home video content to targeted broadband Internet portals: an action film would naturally reside on the College Broadcast portal, while a chick-flick would be better suited to Women.com’s typically female audience.  Sounds like something for the Internet Advertiser PU at Ericsson. Just like the Rocket Radio business model does as well, by the way.

The AXE video comes beautifully through our firewall. Please don’t take down the whole ECN;-). http://www.axedigitaltv.com/pc/samples.htm.

FOLLOW-UP ON I-MODE

Here is an  email I got from our friends at Ericsson Japan (I am keeping names away from my publishing unless you request to be identified so you don’t have to stop sending me email in fear of finding yourself in my newsletter). I think the description below illustrates what Ericsson needs to do in order to take on the i-mode challenge: strengthen the focus on business, keep it simple and practical.

“In Japan, sp’s (notably NTT DoCoMo) do not work from the technology side when developing the future. They look to the mass market for what they want, what they currently are hot for (eg. in video, audio,..) and what the terminal OEMs are thinking/doing. 3G is about advancing services and greater potential for mobile users. IN CONTRAST, in Europe, TECHNOLOGY LEADS – operators & definitely suppliers talk of paradigm shift, GPRS, and EDGE: technologies!! In other words, in the west we think/develop in terms of technology, and then convey these future ‘technology wonders’ to the mass market – and then after the fact many ponder on what future applications will be in demand, based on the new technology (3G).”

There is a possibility for an i-mode debate at the Web Academy Forum, as part of the IOW Forum. The address is: http://webboard.ericsson.se/read?2380,276.

MISE BUSINESS MODEL SEMINAR RAMBLINGS

The Fotonation (http://www.fotonation.com) presentation on enabling technologies for networked photography was an interesting one. As a follow-up you might want to read the ZDNet update on the online photography market. The teaching of the Fotonation case is that the company has a great technology vision but can they pull it off? Is the management team good enough?  http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_4013.html

Following up on the Livemind presentation, you should read the Salon Magazine story on Sunil Paul, one of the founders of the company. The teaching of the Livemind case to Ericsson is that the company probably does not have an extraordinary technology but it has a hand-picked, most well-connected management team. Therefore, the company cannot loose. http://www.salonmagazine.com/tech/view/1999/11/01/sunil_paul/index.html

IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES AT ERICSSON

Ericsson has placed an ad in Wired, selling GPRS and EDGE (http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/) . At least you can find a web page with colors behind the banner (http://www.ericsson.se/get/internet/default.shtml). However, we still don’t know how to do excellent web advertising – first of all there is no interactivity in the message. It’s like Ericsson descended from heaven and told you this, now go home and wait for the geniuses to bring the product to you at their earliest convenience.  I wonder whether the people who placed this ad have thought of the fact that Wired has a consumer audience? How about trying to sell some phones, even on the side? Or would such a commercial message weaken the celestial technology liturgy?  Besides that, hacking back and forth on the site two minutes already brought into daylight a dead link: The Anywhere Internet.

QUICK TAKES – Have you read about Linux on small footprint devices (CNET article), such as PenguinRadio?…  To speak about web radios, the Ericsson HomeCom people should look into SonicBox and the Internet Advertiser people should perhaps partner with RocketRadio…  Did I already ask you: what is your opinion on Indiqu wireless portal, previously called ScreamingMedia? I don’t have time to study it right now… WebOnPhone is another wireless portal company to watch, very early stage…  Tradeum is an infrastructure provider for business-to-business and financial exchanges on the Internet, might be an interesting company to look into…  iExplore, an online adventure travel service, is an excellent partner candidate for Ericsson focusing on the travel and transport vertical and the outdoor/active consumer segment…  Partner relationship management company PartnerWare is a company to check out for solutions in building partner extranets…  HiddenMind Technology develops Java-based messaging and workflow applications targeted at the mobile business environment, BellSouth seems to be the pilot customer. This is ‘must-reading’ for folks dealing with GPRS, iPulse, IP messaging or our partnership with Categoric…  American copy Scandinavian innovations: Letsbuyit.com gets a competitor, Zwirl.com…  Sun Microsystems launched Asia Java Fund, based in Singapore, NTT DoCoMo participated, no wonder…  Free-PC business model gains ground, SoftBANK leads a massive $65 m second round for PeoplePC…  DriveThere.com, a vehicle services and information portal, announced its launch. The service will be also available on mobile devices. Useful lead for our travel and transport vertical…  iScribe, a new healthcare technology provider, introduced its first product, a mobile, hand-held, wireless technology that enables healthcare professionals to enter and transmit prescriptions, order laboratory tests and capture
billing charges at the point of care…  Thinking Media, a developer of enabling technologies for Internet devices, said it raised a first round of $5 million. CyberLab New York works with these guys…  The Nokia-funded TalkStar changed its name to eVoice…  S3 is following a true Internet strategy by spinning out RioPort which started as the manufacturer of the MP3 Rio player but expanded into a full-blown MP3 play…  Tellsoft launched a solution for telephone-based voice publishing and broadcasting…  My readers report Opera browser for EPOC is in beta tests…  – (To view the embedded hyperlinks, view this section online at http://webacademy.ericsson.se.)

SELECTED THOUGHTFUL READING – Angeltips.com is a new company which enables you to find the right startup to invest your private money in…     – (go to http://webacademy.ericsson.se for links to stories)

* * *

This is a weekly newsletter describing the non-confidential part of my work during the past week and how I see market evolution affecting Ericsson (as interpreted my me in my role working for LME/DMA in San Francisco as a business developer with a focus on Internet applications and enablers). The report will be published every Monday. For subscriptions go to http://webacademy.ericsson.se/elists.