The winter has passed fast living in the ‘fast lane’ with the mobile industry doing extremely well. Hopefully the young ones will believe me when I say that this all will come to an end at some point. Cycles have not gone anywhere, they still exist. Wise are those who are holding a sustainable job 18 months from now. Having said that, there are many underlying conditions that enable a prolonged sustainable growth and extend venture capitalists horizon and patience to keep us all sucking the nectar. The biggest of them all is the fact that the broadband infrastructure is finally being used for what it was conceived for and multimedia is finally coming of age. I spent early March making a cumbersome transition from T-Mobile to Cingular. I believe the time is ripe to experience the revamped Cingular service portfolio which is characterized by newly discovered openness and a solid roadmap towards broadband services like HSDPA. Moreover, now I can finally buy all those mobile content items available via PSMS - hopefully, crossing your fingers is always useful if you live in the U.S.A. Two weeks into the transition I have almost got my WAP settings to work, spent hours frustrated on the phone with Cingular customer support and I will expect major issues with fraudulent billing from T-Mobile as a result of canceling my subscription. I am getting more and more warm to the idea of a ‘luxury MVNO’ like VOCE who will offer a high-end service experience at a premium. Having been a Starwood Platinum member for some years I can appreciate what a concierge service can do for you: you call one 800 number and stuff just works, painlessly and according to your priorities.

Warmest regards,

Tapio Anttila

www.anttila.net

3GSM - PREPARING TO MAKE MULTIMEDIA RELEVANT

3GSM in Barcelona was bigger than even I could have imagined - it is encouraging to see the magnitude and momentum behind the industry and the launches of new network generations. In my opinion the big news is the arrival of 3.5G network upgrades - and not the much-hyped mobile TV. Being a user of Verizon’s EVDO on a laptop and having tried Cingular’s new HSDPA in San Francisco I can tell you that first of all I see no reason to chase down WiFi hotspots any longer. It is all about quality of service meeting my expectations, being able to do what I need to do seamlessly and forgetting the tools I am using. HSDPA is a clear step forward from EVDO in laptop use: web browsing is really snappy and comparable to a WiFi-broadband experience. 2007 will be the big year of HSDPA and the majority of the GSM networks in the developed world will be upgraded to it. Funnily enough, W-CDMA as its first incarnation turned out to be a almost a commercial non-event.

Now the remaining question is where to find usage for phone-based applications of those broadband services? Even though laptops will increasingly reach the masses and even though they will certainly increasingly exploit flat-fee based mobile broadband services, they will not create a mass market for mobile services in the foreseeable future. In fact, they might gain competition when purpose-built connected devices and network computing will gain ground. Could the solution be seamlessly performing real-time push media, stuff like Everypoint (http://www.everypoint.com/) whom Yahoo Mobile just partnered with for FIFA World Cup 2006 mobile service? Let’s not forget among all this mobile TV hype that faster networks will make conventional data services work fast enough for non-technical users to be impressed - that’s why even WAP services are experiencing a renaissance…

Having said all that, it looks like mobile multimedia is getting more traction than I can imagine from a personal experience (am I getting old perhaps?). My friends at WiderThan are running the Verizon mobile music platform and they say the numbers are very promising and beyond all expectations.

What else was there then at 3GSM? You know, I am losing my ability to monitor startups and figure out which ones have a chance of survival. We are back in the era of VC-funded startups and the market is flooded with business plans 90% of which are going to die in the next shakeout. For example, the market is now flooded with mobile social software startups. Which ones of those will survice and prosper? All I can say that it is a relevant and sustainable phenomenon and MySpace certainly will survive. By the way, in many ways Myspace IS the American SMS phenomenon. The young generation had to roll their own digital culture, they refused to accept something from marketers (SMS). Well, they did adopt it but MySpace is the breeding ground of youth culture these days.

GDC MOBILE - PROBABLY THE BEST MOBILE EVENT IN THE WORLD

I attended GDC Mobile in San Jose and I cannot stop admiring how good an event Rob Tercek has been able to develop out of it. The sessions are informative and in some cases a real crash course to the state-of-the-art in mobile gaming. A case in point was the traditional presentation of the best in mobile game innovation by David ‘DC’ Collier and Matthew Bellows, a highly informative look into the latest stuff particularly from Japan. Please ask DC for the presentation URL: d3ntaku@gmail.com.

One of the leading themes was “made for mobile”, the need to develop content separately for the mobile platform. It is great to see Hollywood finally embracing this wholeheartedly. It is partly a result of mobile content now being seen as a major future revenue generator: Hollywood executives usually see all the right things when they can afford to come out from the hiding. Ricci Rukavina, the mobile studio head at Disney gave a brilliant presentation on the topic.

Overall, I really recommend you make GDC Mobile part of your travel plans for March 2007!

CTIA - THE SHOW WAR CONTINUES

CTIA in Las Vegas more ‘business as usual’ - the tide seems to raise all the boats. Unlike at 3GSM, the CTIA show floor had content companies and networking hardware companies mixed in happy disharmony. The mobile industry in the US is still relatively speaking less focused on content as they need to finish the war on all levels of infrastructure technology. In Europe the infrastructure is a given and the focus is on innovating for the end user.

The mobile content shows MECCA and MES continue the war for trying to kill each other. I attended both shows this time and I have to say both were useful - but what a waste of opportunity to split the audience this way! MECCA had a far better program and better organization but MES was more intimate and offered better networking opportunities.

Among the conference program there were presentations of the ‘untouchables’ - the heads of wireless data for US carriers. Michael Gallelli of T-Mobile confirmed (with enthusiasm) my earlier observation that the US mobile market at the moment is all about personalization and colorful faceplates. Jim Ryan of Cingular gave an animated presentation highlighting the traction on the US wireless market (according to him Cingular is nr 3 in the world in wireless data revenue). He went on to cheer the crowds by repeating what I heard an Openwave executive say three years ago: United States is not lagging behind in wireless innovation. That’s nonsense. The rate of adoption is high and US is catching up but just yesterday I heard from a developer how much more advanced Brazilian developers are because ‘it seems they have done most things already three years ago’. US is an import market and the carriers are well aware of that. It will actually continue be an import market until the pace of innovation in the US is so much fueled by VC money and those start-ups so well grounded that they can compete for carriers’ attention. That will take at least another year.

MOTOROLA RAZR - ANOTHER PIECE OF FINNISH INNOVATION?

Actually I am not sure I would want to credit this to my countrymen, RAZR is actually not that great of a phone… But the urban legend is out there - from quite reliable sources - that the Motorola RAZR technical hardware design was originally done in Heinola, Finland at the facilities of a global contract designer-manufacturer Flextronics. The design was then offered to Nokia who refused it mainly based on logistical problems associated with the manufacturing process for this type of a slim design where the components are stacked one after the other horizontally. After that Motorola saw the light and picked up the design, raising certainly some eyebrows in the Nokia organization.

SOME COOL COMPANIES

ShoZu. I met with Marc Brown, CEO of Buzznet. Buzznet is getting good traction for their affinity-based blogging service and mark demoed to me the photo-blogging service of their partner Shozu. Its thick-client approach seems to enable a more seamless blogging experience with faster interaction with content and with lots of uploading and downloading happening in the background. I need to get this on my phone and try it out. http://www.shozu.com/portal/ - http://www.buzznet.com/

Inmobia. The Danish company is focusing among other things on mobile content on emerging markets such as Africa. We have all heard about the buzzing Latin American market but making money with logos in Lagos… http://www.inmobia.com/

Cellfish Media. Lagardere Active changed its name to CellFish (I think this name would suite better a carrier, though… it sounds like ’selfish’…). Hmmm… a closer look at the press release reveals that the name is meant to highlight consumers’ thrive to express themselves. Never mind the name, this company is executing a very innovative brand strategy with solid investment behind and it is bearing fruit. The company is also organizing all international units to be managed from the New York office. This is the first time a non-US media company moves their headquarters into the US - the relative importance of the US market is certainly growing. http://www.cellfish.com/

BreakDesign. The South-African interactive design firm is focusing on mobile and particularly on FlashLite. They have created a very compelling UI customization partnership with a Swedish clothing brand and Nokia - I think we will see a lot more initiatives like this. Also, talking to people in the industry it sounds like FlashLite is starting to get traction within the carrier community even outside Japan. I am an advisor to a FlashLite-focused developer Omega Mobile (www.omegamobile.com), another good source to get you started with a FlashLite strategy. www.breakdesign.com - Emma Kaye, CEO - emma@breakdesign.com

GREAT GUYS & GALS OF THE INDUSTRY

Jaron Millner. This young gentleman has developed and is running most of the mobile interactive TV operations (a.k.a. participation TV) in Finland. His expertise would be really valuable in the US market - hopefully someone will hire him soon. Finland is roughly three years ahead of the United States in this area and another Finnish company IndigoTV (www.indigo.tv) is already launching a pioneering mobile-centric interactive show in New York City. Contact: jaron.millner@luukku.com

Troy Evans. It looks like Macromedia’s FlashLite guru Troy did not stay very long at Airmedia, now he is at Nokia as a Sr Manager, Branded Content. Nokia might be increasing their push into FlashLite content soon… Contact: troy.evans@nokia.com

Doug Britt. You may wonder how to get in touch with the much-hyped US MVNO Helio without possessing Korean language skills and cultural sensibilities… Well, the right person might be Doug Britt who started there as Sr. Business Development Director. Contact: dbritt@helio.com

Mario Tapia. No, we are not related but he seems to be a great guy. Mario recently started at Disney Mobile, heading up their content strategy. He comes to Disney from Playboy (who partnered with the unfortunate DIJJI) so he is poised to get a very different career experience this time around. I would say un-learning some things will be useful. Contact: mario.tapia@disney.com

EVENTS, BLOGS & SOURCES

MEM06. Just a heads up, this show in London on May 24-25 will probably be worth it, my friends who attended last year were very happy - this time around it should be even better. I might go there to see how Europe is doing. http://www.mem06.com/

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.