Thinking of successful products that aren’t in Europe, what ever happened to Push To Talk?

Unlike i-mode that had little support from handset manufacturers, Push to Talk can be found in many recent handsets from Nokia and Motorola.  To be launched in 2004 and marketed as a premium product to the business community, Orange thought they had a lead on their competitors.  Unfortunately for Orange it rapidly faded as it was more expensive and proprietary than the successful US model. 

So will another network oblige?  At this rate I don’t believe Nokia customers will be popping the champagne anytime soon.

It must have seemed a sure fire gamble introducing i-mode into the UK, unfortunately O2’s punt resulted in a snake eye throw of the dice. 

In spite of the effort in bringing content providers on-board with the expectations of a successful repeat of the Japanese i-mode service, it seems that the handset manufacturers were not about to play the game.  Presumably O2 was too small a player for Nokia and others to put any effort behind another sort of WAP, in spite of millions of O2 customers around Europe.

Customers want the real internet not a busted one.

After months of disappointing sales and worse still, activations, O2 has finally responded to customers’ grouses.

The O2 iPhone tariffs were dreadful costing £120 a year more than their normal rates.  Customers obviously thought twice and bought the almost free high end Nokia’s and Samsung’s instead.  Great for O2, but not for Apple.

The tariffs, plus data allowance, now look like good value, and the £269 up front cost not too high when compared to the iPod Touch.  Now all O2 needs is an iPhone with 3G, a 5mpx camera, A2DP and push email.  Drat there is always something more.

Another study into mobile health reveals that insomnia may be caused by using a mobile phone late in the evening. 

A sample size of 71 would be ok for an A-level project but not one that tries to offer the holy grail of news by finding a real link to health, or lack of it.  There are many other stresses in life and receiving a call at snooze time just adds to the load.  

Calls between 10pm and 9am used to be bad news, but with mobile email interfering with down time there is little time to rest for any of us.

Don’t write Motorola off quite yet. 

I remember the days of the £1,000 StarTac, the must have phone of the 90’s especially imported from China.  Then there was the T260, BT Cellnet’s (O2) launch GPRS handset, followed by a wave of desirable clam shells that shook Nokia up, and ultimately the RAZR range.

Problem was that Motorola could never hold their market share; it is always boom or bust.  Great voice and network quality, and a footballer, doesn’t make up for a tired user interface and little of their old innovative ways. 

This has the whiff of another Siemens fiasco.

It’s been almost three weeks since “Boy Genius” broke Vodafone’s new business handsets for H1 2008.  The manufacturers are no doubt apoplectic about this release especially with the World Mobile Congress only weeks away. 

Palm’s range appears technically old hat, but the Nokia E71, E66 and BlackBerry 8xxx are attractive new devices that will hit the corporate sweet spot. 

Surprisingly a resurgent HP has a strong line up of devices in mid to late 08. 

But Vodafone does leave some unanswered questions.  Will Sony Ericsson launch a replacement to their P1i/P990 and what will the successor to the E90 be like?

Every year one of the networks tries to stifle handset choice in the name of efficiency.  Great mobiles launched with some fanfare by Nokia, Sony Ericsson and others, never make it to the catalogues.  The latest example of this is the Nokia N82 and Nokia 6267.

No doubt a limited exclusive deal was negotiated between O2 and Nokia for the N82, but it is frustrating that Vodafone ignore it in their “Coming Soon” section of their website.  Even more troublesome are the operators totally ignoring the 3G Nokia 6267.  Choose the colour of your dream because that’s what it will remain.

The release of a firmware update for the Nokia N82 is in itself is not of any great interest.  It offers no new features, just correcting some bugs.  However it does provide proof of a key technology working with real users.

Although users have had the opportunity of updating their own handsets without returning them to a service centre, remember the horror of the 7110, flash updates deletes all their personal information.  This is no longer the case for the N82 as the blogs are reporting successful updates without having to backup, though I still would.  A real step forward. 

Of course the network operators are creaming income from their customers. 

Why has SMS pricing been so high for so long?  Capital costs were written down years ago and there has been a distinct lack of support for newer innovative messaging services. 

The same is true for data.  There is massive misunderstanding of data costs, particular session orientated services when overseas, whether on or off a preferred network.  Charging minimum data amounts per use has caused many users great financial hardship.

If the EU wish to be seen as acting for the consumer it should not rely on bad press before instigating investigations.

A couple of years ago other handsets from Nokia, HTC and Sony Ericsson started to leave BlackBerry devices behind with their WiFi, GPS, big colour screens and cameras.

RIM listened to their critics and over 2007 released mobiles that matched their major competitors in all major hardware areas.  Now they have done the same for their software.

Along with HTML emails, remote email search and secure attachment handling, the ability to edit documents is the highlight.  This is a long time coming perhaps, but one that their competitors sewed up years ago.  Seems RIM is back to its dominant best.

After Benq broke the hearts of German workers, Nokia has now done the same. 

The town of Bochum in Germany, depends on Nokia and provided significant funding to boot.  It is obvious that Germany’s wages and social costs will make it an expensive place to manufacture, especially in comparison with Romania. 

But if BMW can still afford to manufacturer cars in Germany, why can’t Nokia do the same for mobiles?

Nokia now faces the wrath of the German population that feels betrayed and is already publicly demonstrating their anger on the streets, on YouTube and, worryingly for Nokia, in the shops.

Fifty years ago personal and valuable information was held on paper.  Little if any was stored on magnetic media, and that that was could be easily controlled by physical barriers.  Yet banks worked well, taxes collected, medical records retained, and the only information thefts were a relatively few individuals’ details through corrupt employees or break in.   Life is pretty much the same but the wider use of information and subsequent advances in technology mean that instead of a few copied or stolen notes, almost half the UK population’s bank details have gone missing on a few pieces of plastic.

It is not as if the technology does not exist to protect digital information.  Encryption of many sorts have been with us for centuries, and has steadily improved as the means of breaking encryption became cheaper and faster.  So it is difficult to understand how and why sensitive information under government control is not secured by multiple layers of encryption and authentication.  Or perhaps it isn’t. 

Cost, complexity and perfection are hindrances to widely deployed security.  Take the case of the personal pin.  It is widely known that with simple tricks pin numbers and card details can be discovered through ATM machines or corrupt retailers.  There are systems that will generate rolling unique pins which change in minutes and provide individual transaction security.  The cost for mass deployment is less that £10 a user; however the banks wanted a cheaper system that would not, presumably, burden their profits.  Yet the banks will be the first point of call for anyone who loses money through the loss of government data.

As systems, and data, becomes increasingly interweaved, and the technology for accessing it more capable and mobile, we have seen that ever more organisations are declaring loss or theft of personal information.  A simple mobile phone now has the capability of storing millions of highly detailed records with no obvious control.  Data can be transferred simply using a cable or Bluetooth connection from the PC ‘terminal’ and taken home.  Who would see anything suspicious in having a mobile phone plugged into, or near to, a laptop?  For instance a Nationwide employee downloaded a data base of customers to work on, but the laptop was stolen from their home.  It could have just as easily been a USB memory stick, mobile phone or PDA, and who hasn’t lost one or more of those?

Of course any organisation holding sensitive information has or is looking at security.  The issue is that a perfect solution is desired yet immediate problems are not tackled.  It often takes many years to approve and purchase systems.  But the threat is here now.  Stables are being bolted too many times after a theft or loss has occurred, yet systems are widely available to provide practical everyday security. 

There is a mature range of products which can centrally control, report, encrypt and lock down access to information.   Such systems can operate over any fixed or wireless bearer and protect PC’s, laptops, terminals, mobile phones, USB connections, Bluetooth & WiFi and encrypt to the highest levels any information on a device. 

For example it is a simple matter to steal a mobile phone and remove the SIM.  No SMS command to lock the handset remotely will get through.  If the user, or organisation, has not specified a default lock, installing a deactivated SIM will allow access to the content of the handset.  Thousand’s of personal details then become available through the phone’s memory.  Even worse, the memory cards in the handsets can be flipped out and analysed for interesting information.

Due to the complex nature of the security threat and information leakage a mesh of products are required to provide end point security.  By For instance Pointsec (encryption), Condico (mobile device management and consultancy), fSecure (mobile anti virus), SecureWave/PatchLink (access and application control) and Citrix for virtual data access.

Instead of announcing that a stolen laptop had password security, would it not be better to say that it was encrypted and traceable?  Or is the loss of information just another sign of penny pinching by organisations that seemingly no longer care about their customers?

MacBook Air was the highlight for me from Macworld 2008.  Ultra slim, stylish, fantastic screen and with superb specifications it could not fail to impress. 

But something bugs me.  OQO, Sony and other purveyors of super light weight laptops have been able to fit HSPA & WiMAX technology for truly work anywhere abilities.  Yet Apple users will have to rely on an unwieldy dongle or a Bluetooth connection to their, non iPhone, mobile. 

Yet could Apple be right?  3G technology is evolving so rapidly at least Apple users will only have to buy a new dongle, not replace their whole laptop.

I was really hoping that Apple would amaze me with a new 3G iPhone at Macworld 2008, but all I see are new features that the iPhone should have had when it first launched.  Yes it all looks very stylish but some of these are fundamental, and other manufacturers have had them since the late 90’s.  Delete a message, reset your iPhone, assign a ringtone, set a passcode, send an SMS to multiple contacts!!!  Nokia is lambasted when it launches firmware updates, yet Apple gets praised. Every year other manufacturers push technical boundaries, yet Apple did not inspire this time.

Tom Alexander has a tough year in front of him.  How does he bring the flare of Hans Snook, Orange’s original chief, into a company now mired in France Telecom’s Jurassic management style?

Under Alexander’s direction Virgin Mobile built a solid customer base and some innovative services.  Orange went the other way by losing key technologies such as Wildfire, confusing customers with its ‘animal’ tariffs and becoming just another bland mobile operator.

 Alexander has to regain Orange’s quirkiness that endeared it to its customers and rediscover the innovation and style it sadly lost.  Perhaps a management buyout beckons?

With Mark Squires, the face of Nokia UK, moving to Finland and the break up of the happy crowd in Godmanchester what does Nokia have in store for the UK? 

It seems a strange decision to alienate the very people that created Nokia’s UK presence, and to strip the tight family team apart from its base near half of it’s biggest customers (Orange and T-Mobile). Nokia will face some extremely tough challenges this year from Apple’s iPhone(2), BlackBerry, let alone from Samsung and Microsoft. 

Let’s hope that the late opening of Nokia’s flagship store in London is not a presage of future problems.

Although the glamour of the iPhone has ensured it’s initial “must have” gadget status, many more canny buyers are taking one look at the outrageously expensive O2 contract and walking away.  Brit’s know a good deal when they see one, unfortunately, combined with the lowly spec, the O2 iPhone package isn’t it. 

This could all change with version 2 though.  If Apple’s iPhone 2 wraps up the technical feature set of the Nokia N82, and basic software omissions corrected, we will surely see customer resistance crumble and wallets opening faster than ticket sales for the Take That reunion concerts.