- IN THIS ISSUE:
- * Marian Salzman - La Provocatrice Extraordinaire
- * Room33 - surviving through the chasm?
- * Plus a Special Gift: A trial subscription to 3G newsletters!
More than two weeks have passed and we are much richer with life experience and somewhat poorer as investors. Amid all this stock market gloom, it looks like Ericsson is getting it right with the introduction of mobile services to operators. Please check with your own EIP Service Network representative what our plans are for the hosted service network offering from DGS/IFM. That might be the missing link to a major success in the application area.
The IOW special gift for my readers is a three-week trial subscription to all publications of Informa Group, including 3G Mobile and Mobile Internet. User name: ‘free’, password: ‘trial’. Enjoy and talk to stephen.osullivan@informa.com if you want to subscribe. www.online.informatelecoms.com
Best regards
Tapio Anttila
MARIAN SALZMAN - LA PROVOCATRICE EXTRAORDINAIRE
I had a lunch with Marian Salzman, one of the teen marketing gurus on this planet, together with her partner Ira Matathia, another advertising industry luminary. She and her partner Ira Matathia left Young & Rubicam in December and are now doing freelance work. Both have been instrumental in making the AOL brand into what it is today. Marian worked also on the Ericsson youth strategy on the mobile phones side with variable success.
“In 1999 I brought to Ericsson the world’s leading body painting and body piercing artist Ted Polhemus. His suggestion was that Ericsson would launch a mobile phone ’skin’ which would allow ‘body piercing’. Executives in Stockholm gave him a pretty blank stare.”
So what did I learn? With my limited understanding I can only agree with Marian that Ericsson should approach the youth segment by really trying to understand where who the trend leaders are. Let me quote some of her thoughts here, rather than interpret them. Take them as food for thought.
“Richard Branson and Virgin Mobile will fail miserably in the US, he represents himself and not the target segment he is trying to address - he is not legitimate.”
Pierced mobile phones or not, we should deepen our dialogue with the market. The era of “Celine Dion for everybody” is sadly over. http://www.letstalktrends.com/Salzman.htm http://www.letstalktrends.com/Matathia.htm
ROOM33 - SURVIVING THROUGH THE CHASM?
I spoke recently with Room33, the famous WAP Portal which hired some talented individuals from Ericsson and predicted the demise of the operator (which did not make Ericsson happy, did it?). With the market downturn, even room33 has been forced into the mainstream and they are now selling their platform to operators. In their own words, they are pretty close to closing a deal with Orange for their teen portal. (Room33 was very close to signing Britney Spears for her WAP affinity portal - but Britney’s manager wanted too much money.)
On the platform side, Room33 is using the Lutris app server on the bottom of their solution (and so does Nokia!) but they have thoughts of moving over to iPlanet in order to gain scalability. “Why do you at Ericsson partner with iPlanet, it is your main competitor!” http://www.lutris.com/
Room33 is an example of a mobile Internet startup who understood quite early on to cut down burn-rate and in order to make the USD 40 million venture funding last longer.
INTERNAL DISCOVERIES
I visited the IWW show in New York. As you know it is one of the prime shows we attend as exhibitors in the US. The show was a moderate success in itself - suicidal to put something coincide with Cannes and one month ahead of CTIA and CeBIT. What was more alarming was the fact that e.g. in the area of media and entertainment we were giving stand space to partners which are rather competitors than anything else. As an example, we exhibited PacketVideo on the stand even if our cooperation with them is minimal and we rather work with RealNetworks and Emblaze (GEO). Reminds me of that little mouse who learned to crack the egg of a dinosaur… And again, Airflash was still there just like at Fall Internet World, and nobody has told me what our partnership is about. http://www.internetworld.com/wireless2001/
I don’t know how many of you read the Ericsson Internet Solutions Weekly Magazine. It’s good stuff. http://weekly.ericsson.se/eng/templates/normal.asp
MOBILE MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT WATCH
Nokia launched a new multimedia messaging system featuring music and images. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010224/bs/wireless_nokia_dc_1.html
Electronic Arts launched a new interactive suspense thriller Majestic which uses instant messaging an other real-time media to keep users engaged in the story. No mention on wireless yet, though. This would be a great opportunity for Ericsson to learn “mobile story-telling”. http://www.majestic.ea.com/
Motorola and UK-based Creature Labs are launching artificial life mobile games whereby you nurture sea lions and other pets on your phone and try to keep them alive. The applications are targeted for GPRS and 3G. http://www.creaturelabs.com/
MTV announced a deal with BT Genie to deliver MTV-branded content to wireless devices and mobile phones. The deal also looks toward GPRS and UMTS phones by including audio music clips and MTV broadcast video as potential channels to be delivered to phones.
According to the Japanese government, the market for third-generation (3G) mobile phone services in Japan is expected to grow to 42 trillion yen ($357.9 billion) by 2010, six times the size in the year to March 2000. Of this amount, 66 percent is expected to come from content and e-commerce services. http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010301/3/iqyl.html
QUICK TAKES
Seven is a new startup developing a hosted service network offering for mobile enterprise access. The founder Bill Ngyen sold Onebox.com to Phone.com for $900 million and now he is doing his next gig. Ignition and Greylock are financing this one. They have signed Microsoft as a partner and BT Cellnet as a beta customer. http://www.seven.com/index.html
M7 Networks is a San Diego -based startup launching a hosted service network service. Hans Davidsson ( (http://www.m7networks.com/about_bios/hans_davidsson_board.html) left Ericsson, joined IdeaEdge Ventures and swiftly helped execute the deal and form this company which he is the interim CEO of. Partners include Exodus, Qualcomm, Investor AB and Nuance. Ericsson is mentioned as a technology provider but according to my information that is premature. This somewhat steals the steam from our forthcoming similar launch (IFM) which is unfortunate. http://www.m7networks.com/
The new Outlook Mobile Manager beta with Intellishrink (TM) features etc. is now downloadable at http://www.microsoft.com/office/outlook/mobile/. Ushldtakealk.
Sonera and Intel are cooperating on the Intel architecture for wireless devices. Looks like Sonera is moving further and further away from the role of an operator.
Niragongo has developed a platform for carriers that aims to enhance navigation on the wireless Web and accelerate content delivery. AOL Time Warner pumped in $17.4 million venture money.
iSpeech has a technology that enables phone-based access to and interactivity with email, online information, calendars, address book, and other corporate applications in real time. Initially, the company is targeting the voice-based email market. http://www.ispeech.com/
Scan has an M-commerce application that allows transactions over 2-way messaging systems. Just enter “video matrix” on your SMS phone, and the Scan search engine will find the best price on the web. Investors include Investor AB. Operates primarily in Europe. http://us.scan.com/
Wireless content management space is getting red hot: AirMedia introduced a business-to-business marketplace for publishing, buying and selling wireless content online. In this space, providers can publish content and carriers can purchase it and re-brand it for their own use. Interestingly, their CEO is the ex GM of IBM’s Pervasive Computing Division. http://us.airmedia.com/pressroom_release022601.html
Please go and try this out - this will change the world of mobile communications! Beatnik signed a deal with Texas Instruments that will bring sound effects and music to the mobile Internet. Beatnik’s audio engine will be available in new handsets as soon as 2001. Ringtones for teenagers will soon sound all different. http://www.beatnik.com/
NTT DoCoMo and Vizzavi both chose Google as their default search service provider but FastSearch powers the Ericsson WISE Portal. The Norwegians have certainly great technology but now what is needed is the Vikings’ trading spirit… http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/pressrelease50.html http://www.fastsearch.com/
Take a look at Mobliss, they are developing a wireless advertising platform as a brand support service. This is a clear indication on emerging MVNO-geared services. They are a part of the Openwave Alliance and they just cut a deal with AT&T Wireless. http://www.mobliss.com/
Remember Thomas Anglero who worked at Ericsson in Norway and who was the global ‘gatekeeper evangelist’. His new gig is to make telephony free - through broadband Internet access. http://www.pulver.com/fwd/
And what else? Microsoft announced Stinger-based smart phones by Samsung, Sendo and Mitsubishi; Yahoo launched location-based directory services; The new Ericsson R520 will carry embedded Verisign digital certificates; Openwave accelerated its J2ME program by cutting an alliance with Sun; Openwave also signed a unified messaging development alliance with Cisco, IBM and KPMG; AT&T signed a mobile portal deal with Openwave and a unified messaging deal with Comverse; Sonera and Intel are cooperating on the Intel architecture for wireless devices; Motorola launched its Mobile Office Solution for mobile phones; NTT DoCoMo and Vizzavi both chose Google as their default search service provider but FastSearch powers the Ericsson WISE Portal;
- (go to http://webacademy.ericsson.se for links to stories)
- The 3G Portal - http://www.the3gportal.com/
SNS Newsletter by Mark Anderson - http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/invest/trends/6112.asp - FierceWireless Weekly Newsletter - http://www.fiercewireless.com/
- Mobile Media Japan - http://www.mobilemediajapan.com/ (*NEW)
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NAM 3G Homepage - http://www.exu.ericsson.se/EUS/R/NAM3G/home/html/index.shtml
DIA Homepage (in memoriam) - http://dia.ericsson.se/
EIP Homepage - http://internetapplications.ericsson.se/ - Internal MVNO homepage - http://mvno.ericsson.se
- MI Competitor Intelligence in Outlook Public Folders: \Company Information\EIP\CB/M - Marketing (*NEW)
SELECTED THOUGHTFUL BROWSING
David Almström at ETC is creating a good marcom presence for Ericsson China as “The Mouth” who “mainly resides in business class” and there are useful articles by him even on the web: take a look at http://www.mfcinsight.com/article/010209/oped3.html. Ericsson seems to have the Jeff Pulver of China on its payroll.
(go to http://webacademy.ericsson.se for links to stories)
IOW EVENTS CALENDAR
http://webacademy.ericsson.se/resources/majorevents.htm
IOW LIBRARY - RECOMMENDED READING
* * *
This is a 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 the Next Generation Mobility unit of EUS, based in New York City and San Francisco). The report will be published twice a month. For subscriptions go to http://webacademy.ericsson.se/elists.
