- The New Year is starting with a bang and many of us are gearing up for a successful 3GSM in Barcelona next week. The glacier is starting to finally melt and there are some major new technologies and application areas starting to take off. Many of those were invented in the late 90s when I was still at Ericsson and it kind of takes that usual 5-7 years… It is even more encouraging if one tries to predict how 3GSM 2007 will look like and how much the industry will have changed by then. One of the big changes will be the deployment and adoption of HSDPA, the fast version of UMTS technology which will give you a “WiFi-like experience” in laptop use. I tried it out recently in Cingular’s network and I have to say finally I have something good to say about Cingular: the performance is clearly better than EVDO - I totally concur with Walt Mossberg in his earlier analysis and comparison. Now Cingular just has to get it out in more than 16 cities in the US - and the world has to follow during the next year or so. We might really see HSDPA widely deployed in the world by February 2007. I believe the carriers have to make the upgrades as soon as possible because let’s face it, the first generation WCDMA networks are not up to the challenge to provide the end users enough value. What else? I have gained recently a few new insights into how the mobile industry works from a customer service and ecommerce fulfillment perspective. I needed to buy for my project the wonderful Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. What a great device - check it out: www.nokiausa.com/770. It is so popular it is sold out everywhere else except at the Nokia web store in the United States. That is probably because the whole service experience by Nokia is so poorly planned and executed that nobody would want to go there even if they knew about it (it is sold out on Amazon here). In 2006 we are now pretty used to a great online shopping experience by companies like Amazon. And in comes a newbie like Nokia who never dared to sell anything directly to the consumer in fear of alienating the almighty carrier. So I buy the device and call back a week later to find out they have them in stock but I should have called in to verify my identity! The staff shows no emotion, no flexibility, no service-mindedness whatsoever. Then I ask whether I am talking to a Nokia employee or an outsource service. They are Nokia employees. That’s the problem right there: all Nokia needed to do to do this right was to copy what Amazon has done instead of pissing people off and damaging their brand. It is the only device Nokia sells directly to consumers in the US. I heard the fight within Nokia was fierce to get past the internal resistance and to prevent this product being killed before it hit the market. It’s the usual story - people don’t innovate unless they have to… Not in design, manufacturing, distribution, you name it. Nokia is run under the gun of stock analysts expecting conservative behavior and flawless execution for high volumes. New innovation needs new structures, risk-taking, spin-offs, agility. We saw this at Ericsson some seven years ago, it’s an old story.
Warmest regards,
- Tapio Anttila
- www.anttila.net
3D AS A WEB SERVICE
I usually don’t write about my own projects but as these are certainly interesting to the wider community…
First of all, I am in the midst of a wireless strategy project for Mental Images, a leader in the area of 3D visualization software. (And not only is it a cool company but it also enables me to use the coolest email address: tapio@mental.com!) The company has developed a product called RealityServer which enables realtime interactive rendering of photorealistic 3D visualizations. In an optimal setting of high bandwidth and low latency networking (starting from UMTS/HSDPA…) this enables a highly scalable way to compute “3D video” in realtime and make it available on handsets and any devices capable of running merely a browser.
I would encourage you to review our presentation which we will keep available at least another two weeks under this URL: http://presentation.realityserver.com/rs-ssp.pdf (USER ID: pre, PASSWORD: sentation)
This approach is opposed to but also complementary to the trend of adding more computing power into handsets and specialized hardware and software for 3D rendering. If you were able to make available an equivalent highly scalable web service of this kind, adoption rates would be a lot faster, given the immediate availability of service-capable handsets.
Now the first questions needs to be answered first, though: what are the most attractive usage scenarios for this type of a technology? What is the mass-market application that can create a market quickly? There are lots of potential applications in design, construction, navigation and other productivity-related uses but what would be the potential uses in entertainment? I would very much like to hear your opinion after reviewing the presentation.
The first thing that comes to my mind is launching parts of a future feature film (with lots of synthetic 3D material) in advance of the movie launch on the Internet as an interactive game or an interactive world, enabling sneak previews of the movie and gravitating towards introducing more promotional elements prior to the box-office launch. The service could be a revenue-generating entity and it would naturally accumulate a user community, forming a direct B2C relationship to also measure the responsiveness of the various marketing programs. In fact, this is quite a lot in line with what James Cameron has announced doing with his future Sci-Fi movie “Project 880″. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_07/b3971073.htm
Looking forward to your insights.
OFFSHORE SERVICES IN MOBILE CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Another of my projects evolves around a supporting a Danish mobile development services company Touchlink Mobile with operations in Ukraine (www.touchlink-mobile.com). I am building up their business development office in North America.
I firmly believe that we are entering a fast and sustainable growth phase in the area of mobile content. Fast-maturing technologies will ensure that new generations of services will be introduced in large volumes by the majority of companies in the media and entertainment industry. This will simply mean that there will be a shortage of development resources who will be able to fulfill all those needs with sufficient quality. That will push a lot of the development into leading offshore development countries such as India, China and Russia, creating price pressure and limiting the competitiveness of those services. We can already see India becoming a relatively expensive market and some Western companies start reducing their investment there. This dynamic creates opportunities for those countries who have yet to enter the market seriously - such as Ukraine, the former center of the Soviet Space Program and home to a highly educated workforce in the country of 48 million people.
So what are the issues that prevent companies outsourcing their development to a country where invoicing cost of a skilled man-hour is around $25-30? The often-cited reasons are 1) fear of IPR theft, 2) poor delivery on-time and 3) quality issues. How can those issues be tackled in the best possible manner to secure that companies can give to offshore development not only simple routine procedures such as porting and QA but even entire development projects of a major 3D mobile game title? I am in the process of finding the right answers and I have to say I am very excited about the opportunity. After all, the Ukrainian market is in the proximity of the advanced Western European markets and offers e.g. a nationwide CDMA/BREW network. I believe that with Western management overlay we will be able to guarantee good service and improve our clients’ competitiveness tremendously.
I am curious to hear your views on the subject and whether you are ready to consider mobile development outsourcing.
So that was my little project update - somewhat self-promotional, for sure, but I need to pay for the newsletter hosting fees;-). I promise I will revert to my usual provocative mode for the remainder of 2006…
SOME COOL COMPANIES
Floating World Media is launching a true cross-media program to teach US high- and middle school kids US history and civics. This is a major undertaking spanning over various media such as TV, DVD, games and - mobile. As I am not an expert in neither US history nor civics I thought some of the readers might be better suited to take the opportunity and help build the mobile part. Please contact Kris Nybakken at kristof@newtonsecond.com. http://www.newtonsecond.com/bios.php?name=kris
The guys from ThumbJive (http://thumbjive.com) are applying their knowhow in wireless product design and development to a new mobile advertising venture - mVertex. The company is seeking an investment partner to help bring the product to market this summer. The core intellectual property is an innovative patent-pending method for integrating interactive advertising into wireless entertainment. Through the mVertex system, content providers will have new revenue opportunities from advertisers, and mobile subscribers will have low cost access to high quality games and lifestyle products. daniel@thumbjive.com
HeadZup is creating comic strips for video phones and iPods and feeding carriers with that sought-after data traffic and revenue. The idea is rather original (and it is rather hard to figure out from the website what they actually do): end-users use a camera phone upside down and build a funny mask around their mouth and chin to record a funny blurb. You may want to try this rather in the privacy of your home but I have to say the idea is great! http://www.headzup.tv/makezup.php. Please contact John Shay for the company presentation: john@headzup.tv.
BlogStar will be launching at 3GSM in Barcelona a celebrity mobile blogging site where A-list celebrities have actually committed contributing to stories. In the words of the folks at BlogStar “For now, BlogStar is the only place Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey can be found together.” The company is the brain child of Ted Field a well-known Hollywood mogul and founder of Interscope Records. http://www.blogstar.com/index.php
Dai-Biao. Duane Kennedy is launching a company to bring hip-hop culture and music to the Chinese market - including mobile content. http://www.dai-biao.com/ duane@dai-biao.com
GREAT GUYS & GALS OF THE INDUSTRY
Vesku Paananen, the inventor of ringtones works for Microsoft as their mobile evangelist. vesku@microsoft.com
Jim Beddows. Microsoft seems to be hiring also mobile media executives, Jim just started a gig there heading up MSN video business. jim.beddows@microsoft.com
Seth Skolnik, VP of Digital Media at Paramount left the company and is looking for new entrepreneurial opportunities. seth@skolnik.org.
Steve Hartford started as Director of Product Marketing at Visage Mobile. Visage seems to be doing well and Steve is one of the bright young stars in the industry. shartford@visagemobile.com
Andreas Lieber has recently started as a Senior Consultant at Detecon in the SF Bay Area. Andreas used to head up portal services at T-Mobile in Europe so he is two years ahead of everyone else in the Bay Area ;-). andreas.lieber@detecon.com
EVENTS, BLOGS & SOURCES
Wireless Scandinavia resource and community site opened by John Strand from Strand Consultants - learn all about wireless companies in the Viking Territory! http://www.wirelessscandinavia.com/sw153.asp
Christoffer Andersson, a resident mobile guru and executive at Ericsson has launched together with his colleagues his second book on mobile applications development. Called “Mobile Media Applications - from Concept to Cash”, the book is available on Amazon and has a companion blog at http://www.mobilemediaapplications.com.
My favorite news sources: I have only time for two these days: www.moconews.net and www.digitalmediawire.com. That will get you covered.
Of other news sources you should notice Wireless Watch Japan (http://www.wirelesswatch.jp/).
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Disclaimer: Opinions presented herein are those of the undersigned and do not represent the position or message of any company I might be affiliated with.
