- IN THIS ISSUE:
- * Wireless IT Show by a non-Participant
- * ConnectThings – Great Potential, Born at Ericsson
- * What Has QoS to Do with Loyalty?
- * Visiting Saraide’s Website
- * Improvement Opportunities at Ericsson
I can see my discussion groups did not take off. Well, I thought it would be difficult. However, I will not give up, I will find ways to drive people there, at least to take a look. Just as a reminder, the address is http://webboard.ericsson.se/~webacademy.
- WIRELESS IT SHOW BY A NON-PARTICIPANT
Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to participate in the show in San Jose last week. (http://www.wow-com.com/convsem/wit/). Here are some things I found out on the Internet.
NeoPoint launched myAladdin.com, a location-based wireless Internet portal (http://www.neopoint.com/company/myaladdin1.shtml). They seem to have a reasonably impressive list of partners, including MapQuest and a hot unified messaging startup onebox.com. Siemens acquired last month 15 percent of NeoPoint. Companies believe that CDMA will short term take a lead in the smartphone-based mobile Internet market emerging in the US. Therefore big players like Siemens look for a CDMA-based entry to the market. Through the early mover advantage these companies will gain 1) branding benefits and 2) the possibility to pick up the most lucrative content and application deals and reap the value creation benefits out of those relationships. In the future Ericsson might want to consider pre-empting competition as an additional investment criteria.
SmartRay is a US-based new WAP portal which seems to start by collecting user base by offering services in the existing market of SMS-type services. The end-user play has been emphasized by their offering of a free, lifetime identity on their service (username@smartray.com). This type of strategy creates the potential for huge upsides and is highly relevant to Ericsson from our own portal strategy perspective. The company looks like a small 10-month old startup but the founders come from the world of Harvard and Razorfish. What is attractive to Ericsson here is that this company could contribute to the crusade for increasing the popularity of SMS in the US. But do we want to have other companies collect the market value attached to end-user data? Should we have part of that value? Anyway, CyberLab New York knows this company. http://www.smartray.com/home/corp_press_11-3-99.html
Set-Top.com has launched a very interesting Click-for-TV banner advertising service whereby individually targeted banners appear to users of “WebTVs” so that they can with one click view the related broadcast… and more… http://www.set-top.com/tvhypercode/index.htm
We should look at AmikaFreedom from AmikaNow. It is an email key content highlighter / forwarder that makes use of Artificial Intelligence technology to read and interpret your email, highlighting the key words and phrases as they arrive. These AmikaKeyContent™ highlights are then forwarded from your desktop PC to your mobile device. Beta trials are underway…
GTE and @mobile.com announced a 60-day wireless portal service trial in the SFO area. The @mobile technology features e-commerce and location-based service capabilities. http://www.atmobile.com/release5.html
SqueezeNet is (http://www.squeezenet.com) another wireless portal startup with content conversion capabilities resembling of those of Oracle’s Panama. This startup looks somewhat “funky” through the web pages, not necessarily a clear winner. Does someone know more about them and their background?
Ameritrade has rolled out a service that enable clients to conduct trades and manage accounts. The service uses the Sprint PCS Wireless Web. There are no additional charges either by Sprint PCS or Ameritrade to use the service. http://www.ameritrade.com/html/newrelease.html
Interesting news from one of our partners: Comverse Network Systems claims that its new InfoPeeler manages access to Internet-based information by wireless subscribers. It can link smart phones to Web-based information, corporate intranets and commercial content providers. In addition, the system supports push technology that automatically delivers user-definable information at pre-specified times.
CONNECTTHINGS – GREAT POTENTIAL, BORN AT ERICSSON
It is unbelievable how many inventions are made by Ericsson, some of them are even innovations, like the new ConnnectThings (http://www.connectthings.com) spin-off. The service is based on an invention developed by Ericsson (patent pending). Its core consists of a database, which when fully developed, can link billions of products worldwide to the corresponding Web pages with a minimum of delay. Existing bar codes are used to identify products. Using a barcode reader the code is sent via the Internet to a database which connects to the correct Web page. The Web page is then presented on your computer.
For future development, it might make sense to look at additional partners, particularly in areas like foods merchandising where (our partner on the enterprise side) Symbol technologies has progressed with related visions, particularly in the UK with Safeway and Tesco. (Symbol retail case studies) (Tesco Palm Pilot Scanner announcement). I would also look into the potential of enhancing our access to the end user (data) as an asset through this service – might be a goldmine.
WHAT HAS QoS TO DO WITH LOYALTY?
Possibly a lot. Loyalty programs normally consist of rewarding good buyers with discounts. Think about IKEA as a private label ISP. They want to secure that their shoppers get the best possible shopping experience and that that experience can be measured on an individual level – they want to brand their own ISP service. The quality of service IKEA should optimally provide an individual depends on how profitable that individual potentially is to IKEA: window-shoppers should not get as good a service as a regular customer who uses IKEA as a one-stop shop.
As a subset of this you have neural-net (learning) based personalization whereby the more you shop, the more your service gets personalized.
I think there is a HUGE trend hidden here. Merchants will use private label Internet access to devise “spiral shopping services” where the more you shop, the cooler your shopping environment gets – a self-reinforcing cycle. How can we design mobile Internet services according to this philosophy? And by the way, should Amazon give out two million WAP/GPRS phones for free?
When shall we give Jeff Bezos a call?
VISITING SARAIDE’S WEBSITE
I took a regular “safety check” and visited the Saraide website (http://www.saraide.com) for latest news. Saraide recently announced a pretty unimpressive content deal with BusinessWire, Tribune Media and ETAK. However, the press section reveals that they also have announced a deal with CriticalPath for outsourced wireless messaging and a global systems integration and service management deal with EDS. I wonder how synergistic this is with what we are doing?
Looking at the expanding Saraide management team it is interesting to see that their technology and product marketing leadership comes from Nortel but all the other positions are primarily recruits from HP/Verifone where the CEO comes from. All this has certainly implications for what Saraide can and will do in the future. A strong focus on mobile e-commerce would not be too far fetched. Their website and overall brand development looks fresh, no wonder when the VP of Corporate Communications comes from Regis McKenna.
IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES AT ERICSSON
Let’s WAP. Ericsson Business Consulting has launched the WAP developer activity “Let’s WAP” – what a great name! And Ericsson Business Consulting has a great one-liner “It takes experience to create a future”. If only they would learn to launch the new ideas on the web in a fashion which respects and exploits the potential of the media. Firstly, the website http://www.ericsson.com/letswap asks me which industry I come from and which country. Then it brings me a standard menu without any personalization rewarding the effort I just put in. I feel cheated. Anything available from here on are possibilities to order printed brochures and CD-ROMs. How innovative! Sorry, there are also “WAP in the News” press clips “updated twice a week”… I cannot browse back from the home page, Ericsson wants me to stay there forever – this is not the good form of stickiness, guys.
Yihaa! Ericsson Australia has teamed with Web search directory LookSmart to explore providing mobile Internet access to the Australian market. Reading the announcement further it is clear that we talk about WAPifying the entire LookSmart catalogue, worldwide. So why be shy about it? (THE LINK, ANOTHER, the site)
QUICK TAKES – mySAP.com launches new services and availability on Windows CE and Palm platforms. Are we and Symbian in control of the situation?… Kentech is another systems integrator joining the Phone.com Alliance in order to start offering consulting to build wireless extranet and intranet solutions. Check them out to see what Ericson needs to do in the very near future… IBM and Nokia have said they will work together to create speech- related products for Net devices. Motorola has a stake in Nuance. Who (Ericsson?) will be best in TTM (= time to money)?… Seen Motorola’s iTAP text entry technology and related alliance with Phone.com?… DoubleClick is going wireless! Donna?… CommerceOne joined forces with General Motors and launched world’s largest electronic trade exchange… Roku enables you to create a Personal Information Channel (PIC) that you can get to from anywhere using a Web browser, cell phone, or text pager… Clickmail allows anyone with an e-mail account to place graphically enhanced referrals in outgoing e-mails that recommend a wide range of products and services available through Internet retailers. Wow!… iChoose last-minute buying advisor is a neat idea… – (To view the embedded hyperlinks, view this section online at http://webacademy.ericsson.se.)
- SELECTED THOUGHTFUL READING - IBM has come up with a prototype for a 0.5 pound wearable PC. I think it is a joke… Voice-assisted surgeries done in the US? Maybe I have to revise my health care plan… A new market study on wireless Internet from Cahners In-Stat Group highlights highlights the potential in pull services. Has anyone got this study?… – (go to http://webacademy.ericsson.se for links to stories)
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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.
