- IN THIS ISSUE:
- * Sony: Time to Court the ‘Significant Other’
- * Disney Internet Group: Going Global from the Start
Spring usually means planting the seed for new ventures and also removing the old baggage one created while hibernating. I will leave it for the management to decide who actually would merit liposuction and instead try to boost my spring spirits with the positive. This time around we seem to have some real reason for excitement in the new Sony venture. Hopefully you all can come to the party - we will start with some sit-ups….
This New York lack of mobile culture is getting to me. A few days ago I spoke with a young lady who had taken a job at a new teen magazine Elle Girl. She went on and on raving about the Motorola two-way pager being the coolest device among teens. And during the same week I had meetings with media company executives who sat on the most amazing opportunities to launch our mobile story to the consciousness of the average consumer worldwide. America is a lucrative mobile oxymoron.
I have put my iWirelessWorld presentation up on my private website at www.anttila.net. The Finnish discount store chain by the same name (we are definitely not related) has got the .com domain.
Best regards
Tapio Anttila
SONY: TIME TO COURT THE ‘SIGNIFICANT OTHER’
Great that we got this new Sony handset venture in place. Now two things are required: Firstly, go back and read the press release about the venture. It sets a lot of expectations about the new venture helping Ericsson’s customers make the mobile Internet happen. We need to act on the marketing level accordingly and follow up with a broad enough market message. Secondly, the divisions at both Sony and Ericsson which were not involved in the deal offer a lot of synergies to complement the venture. Marrying our Internet solutions and Sony’s content offerings could kick-start launches of GPRS and 3G, even before the handset JV gets off the ground.
Sony Pictures (the movie arm of Sony) has a Los Angeles -based team called Advanced Platforms Group (APG) which is their business development arm for cross-platform ventures (combining wireless, broadband and other media). They have wonderful projects underway in multiplayer games (StarWars version of Everguest underway), interactive TV as well as multimedia content creation and collaboration platforms for end-users. APG cooperates with Sony Digital Media Ventures, one of the four VC funds the company has, in pursuing wireless business opportunities. Their focus is today very much on trying to establish relationships with the operators for entering 3G trials, particularly in Europe. So far their best partner in doing this has been PacketVideo which they have made an investment in. Robert Tercek, the head of content efforts at PacketVideo, comes from Sony Pictures.
Sony Music is focusing on making music downloadable and streamable over the Internet, including the difficult DRM (Digital Rights Management) challenges it entails. Their download services are today outsourced to www.reciprocal.com. They also work with HitHive (www.hithive.com), a middleman selling private label value-added music services (HitHive works closely with Sprint PCS.). This ‘b2b’ side of music is an important future revenue generator: music used as a support in other contexts such as in the retail industry. Looks like the music industry is still trying to figure out how to proceed with a commercial approach to digital music delivery. Just look at the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) website at www.sdmi.org - not much happening there. By the way, take a look at the Sony eMarker, a music recognition device. www.emarker.com
ACTION POINT: Sony would love to know what kind of music trials are underway in various countries. Could you please help me cover this action point by reporting to me of any existing or planned 1) Ericsson trials or 2) trials competitors are involved in?
On a broader scope, we could envisage a more ambitious cooperation with Sony as follows.
Sony Ericsson Content and Applications Joint Venture:
1) port Sony wireless and broadband content over Ericsson application platforms
2) sign Sony as a preferred IFM hosted service network partner
3) give Sony preferred access to operators and prepare them for an MVNO role to speed up 3G take-up of Ericsson operator customers
4) move MAI and IFM into this new JV and have Sony co-finance these operations (which seem to lack financing)!
5) reap all the marketing benefits for being able to back up a comprehensive MI market development vision towards operators
6) secure faster buy-in from operators for the handset JV through expanded application support vision
Your comments are encouraged and appreciated.
DISNEY INTERNET GROUP: GOING GLOBAL FROM THE START
While in LA, I used the opportunity to meet with Disney Internet Group on a private basis and pass on the good word about Ericsson. Here are some learnings. Please let me know your comments.
For a description on what DIG encompasses in terms of services and brands, please go to disney.go.com/investors/wdig. The brands range from ABC and ESPN to the traditional Mickey and Winnie-the-Pooh. Of those, the entertainment brands have the largest international relevance (which means Disney US and Disney Int’l are two totally different cases!).
DIG International is making serious inroads in Japan as a content provider for imode. I am in the process of collecting more data on the actual service and experiences. DIG plans to take the Japanese experience and roll it over to Korea fairly soon (IS-95 A&B). This includes Java applications developed by Disney and their outsource partners for the Japanese market.
Disney is in extensive talks with operators worldwide, particularly the big ones such as BT Cellnet, Vodafone, TIM, Telefonica, DT etc. to offer content and applications packages consisting of mainly ring tones and icons. The focus is on operators’ GPRS launches which DIG estimates to be 6-9 months away due to handset shortage.
Regarding business models, DIG would like to move into subscription models as well as transaction-based models as soon as possible. They have a strong focus on revenue generation as opposed to using mobile services for promotional purposes only (such as movie promotion) - a clear distinction from Hollywood studios. They dislike intemediators such as Infospace and prefer to negotiate directly with the operators. They were quite receptive to managed service concept such as the Ericsson IFM.
Disney has an active interest in MVNOs, although they would hesitate at this point to take on a full MVNO role including billing. There are some 2-3 million “Disney Club members” in the US alone out of whom 300,000 are categorized as “Disney cravies”.
INTERNAL DISCOVERIES
Bengt Henricson at EIP has started writing a regular newsletter on the developments in the service network PU. Please send him email to get on his list. bengt.henricson@eip.ericsson.se.
Karin Gartzell at BIC Library tells me that they would like readers to review and comment market research studies Ericsson has purchased. I think this is a great idea, we would need to share knowledge and learning more than we do today. Please contact Karin and volunteer.
QUICK TAKES
WebTV founder Steve Perlman has unveiled his new startup Rearden Steel Technologies which is developing something revolutionary in the area of home communications. They recently got a $67 million venture round with AOL among investors. http://www.rearden.com
I had dinner with the management of a mobile service quality measurement company MSpect. By replicating the end user experience across devices, Mspect provides insights into the quality of service of wireless data applications and networks on a worldwide basis, by region, in real-time. SMS and WAP monitoring is conducted 24 hours a day, seven days a week via testing nodes located in major metro areas in the U.S. and Europe. GPRS and 3G will be monitored in the future. IFM should consider building this functionality in its offering. (Moreover, their VP of Business Development Patric Carlsson is remotely related to Nokia top exec Sari Baldauf. For the first time I heard a Swede boast with his ‘Finnish rolodex’.) http://www.mspect.com/
SmartSherpa from LogicChain is an interactive mobile application which by associating data with a location delivers targeted information directly linked to the worker’s surroundings. LogicChain also seem to be a leading MicroJava developer. They would be a great developer partner for BLIP! http://www.logicchain.com/smartsherpa
The VPN solution from Columbitech enables seamless secure roaming between wireless LANs, mobile networks and Bluetooth. Even data compression is being supported. http://www.columbitech.com/
Blue Iguana Networks develops secure end-to-end system solutions for in-service reconfiguration of optical, wired broadband, and wireless Internet infrastructure equipment. Their patent-pending technology combines a smart network processor with an Internet application server for device automation, control, and security—all without taking the device off line. Hmmm… I wonder what we are doing in this space? http://www.blueiguana.com/home.shtml
The animated character based mobile messaging services are popping up everywhere. What FunMail started is now getting company from at least BeepScience in Norway (working with TeleNor and Sonera). Some old Ericsson friends can now be found at BS. http://www.beepscience.com/
Bill Joy financing a Swedish enterprise application management start-up?!?!? Wow! They are called TwoByFour. http://www.twobyfour.com/
Openwave signed a deal with Hutchison Telecommunications of Hong Kong to install a WAP-enabled entertainment tool on Hutchison’s Orangeworld GSM network. The Openwave Download Fun application is a WAP-based platform allowing users to download and implement such handset personalization features as three-chord ringing tones, background images and animated screen savers. Oh, by the way, rumors say that Openwave is in the process of negotiating a major application standardization effort with the GSM Association in order to facilitate the adoption of GPRS services…
GRIC Communications partnered with SkyNetGlobal to develop wireless broadband roaming services. By forming a wireless alliance, GRIC aims to provide global business travelers the ability to access the Internet from wireless LAN “hotspots” in airports, hotels and convention centers. Just for your information: this type of development is very important!
Rumor mill: Portal Software is close to signing a deal with Napster for a billing solution.
- (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/ - MAI - http://www.mobileapplicationsinitiative.com
- Internal MVNO homepage - http://mvno.ericsson.se
- MI Competitor Intelligence in Outlook Public Folders: \Company Information\EIP\CB/M - Marketing (*NEW)
SELECTED THOUGHTFUL BROWSING
South by Southwest was an annual industry happening for the music industry. This kind of places would offer Ericsson real understanding on how to differentiate and leapfrog Nokia. But now we need to differentiate by cutting costs. http://www.internetcontent.net/ReportDisplay.asp?ReportID=371
Wow! The Reverend Stefan Heinze of the Hanover Evangelical Youth Church wants you to know that SMS is not your mom’s text messaging service anymore. The German minister will be conducting what is thought to be the world’s first sermon over SMS. The 45-minute services will be broadcast over wireless text messaging technology because Heinze wants to reach out to more young people. (WirelessNetNow)
(go to http://webacademy.ericsson.se for links to stories)
IOW EVENTS CALENDAR
http://webacademy.ericsson.se/resources/majorevents.htm
IOW LIBRARY - RECOMMENDED READING
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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). The report will be published twice a month. For subscriptions go to http://webacademy.ericsson.se/elists.
Disclaimer: Opinions presented herein are those of the undersigned and do not represent the position or message of Ericsson. This newsletter is produced on writer’s own initiative, outside work hours and independent of any organizational supervision.
