if connected

People’s unofficial use at work of personally-bought smartphones will lead to personal devices and personal information being managed by corporate IT departments. RIM has just announced BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, a new product to help companies manage the proliferation of employee-bought smartphones and tablets connecting to company networks.

Fusion has support for employees to use a single device for both work and home, the ability to manage multiple devices per person — critical in an era where individuals routinely use smartphones, tablets and notebook PCs in tandem — and self-service for individual employees to lock their phone if it’s lost or stolen.

But consumer smartphone owners already routinely have many of these abilities, even if their smartphones are not used for work, or provided by their employer. While RIM has been slow to extend its core expertise into the consumer market, other than with BlackBerry Messenger (BBM),  numerous other companies have jumped into the fray and offered consumer versions BlackBerry’s enterprise features upon which RIM’s phone success was originally built.

The ‘ITization of the Person’ is already well underway. Here’s a selection of the many examples where consumers have corporate-style IT tools to manage their digital lives:-  Read the rest of this entry »

If you buy an unlocked iPhone you’ll see why “SIM-free” won’t be like freedom, to misquote a famous Apple superbowl advert.

Unlike other manufacturer’s SIM-free phones, “unlocked” iPhones continue to behave differently based on the network SIM inserted — see the screenshots below. This sets a precedent for future iPhones that may dispense with any need for a physical SIM card.

An unlocked phone allows a consumer to use their phone with any operator. Such iPhones have long been on sale in many European and Asian countries and Apple US has just started selling unlocked and contract-free iPhones on the online US Apple store. As consumers pay the full unsubsidized price for these iPhones, buyers expect to have complete control over their devices. Network operators should have no say on how they’re used. But that’s not the whole truth.

Apple has just secured a patent that will allow them to ship an iPhone with no need for the for the tiny operator-provided smartcard known as a SIM. This is being widely reported as an attack on operators by threatening their customer relationship.

If operators are smart, this won’t be the outcome. Instead, end users will be the ones whose freedom is squeezed by such a future iPhone.

Why? Current “unlocked” iPhones show that Apple is prioritizing their carrier relationships over end users, even for those that buy iPhones at full price, with no operator subsidy or contract lock.

On these “unlocked” iPhones the network settings available to the phone’s owner depend on what operator SIM is placed into the phone. Read the rest of this entry »

After ten years as a joint venture, Sony has bought out partner Ericsson to take sole charge of mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson. The split appears amicable. Sony gains full control of the products plus access and/or ownership of numerous patents. Ericsson receives Euro 1.05bn ($1.45bn) for its stake.

This move is even more important for Sony group than for Sony Ericsson itself.

Mobile phone technology is becoming ubiquitous. Similarly, digital media is becoming personal as smart mobile devices are a mainstream way of reading, viewing, and listening to media. Mobile phone connectivity is being integrated into everything from eReaders, tablets computers, to portable games consoles and beyond. Soon, no area of consumer electronics will be untouched by mobile’s reach. Sony group makes many of these consumer devices, including the upcoming PSP Vita handheld games console that includes a 3G mobile phone radio and eReaders that compete with the 3G-enabled Amazon Kindle.

The future is mobile and personal. Sony needs the competencies that Sony Ericsson has worked for years to nurture. Equally SonyEricsson needs the unreserved commitment of Sony to ensure that its smartphones — now 80% of Sony Ericsson’s shipments — intelligently tie into all of a person’s digital life: on Sony TVs, on notebook PCs, tablets, music, gaming and other media.

HTC demonstrates the importance of digital media for smartphones and tablets:

Read the rest of this entry »

Just eight months after Nokia announced a complete reversal of their smartphone strategy, Nokia unveiled the first new phones to result: the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710. And, impressively, the Lumia 800 is already shipping and will be available for sale in six European countries in November.

On the eve of Mobile World Congress 2011 — the mobile industry’s main conference — new Nokia CEO Stephen Elop overturned Nokia’s previous smartphone strategy. Rather than building smartphones based based on in-house Symbian and MeeGo software, Nokia instead embraced Microsoft’s Windows Phone. Nokia’s future rests on the success of this decision, at least in developed countries across Europe, Asia and North America.

Alongside their initial Windows Phone handsets, Nokia today announced a new range of smarter feature phones aimed at emerging markets. This new Asha range includes more dual SIM devices, more full keyboard designs, and more touch screens. “Asha” means hope in Hindi but Nokia’s real long term hopes rest more with the new Lumia smartphones than with these evolutionary Series 40 handsets.

With Windows Phone, Nokia hopes to regain market share in the high end part of the mobile phone market because today’s high end technology and features become tomorrow’s mid market mainstream. If Nokia loses to Android and Apple in the high end, then the danger Nokia faces is that it will lose in the mainstream just a few years from now.

Early signs are that Nokia has regained credibility and is on a path to recovery with its Nokia World announcements:

• Dual SIM is now a foundation of Nokia’s emerging market strategy. Nokia was slow to offer consumers the ability to switch SIMs — essentially run more than one number on a phone with different pricing — compared with LG, Samsung and numerous small phone makers. In the second quarter of this year their phone shipments suffered dramatically: down 34% compared with the previous quarter. But the arrival of dual SIM enabled a full recovery in Q3, although admittedly with lower average price per handset. Nokia shipped just 2.6m dual SIM handsets in Q2 but 17.9m in Q3 and has launched five new dual SIM handsets since June. Across Asia, the Middle East and Africa Nokia phone unit shipments rose 32% in Q3.
• Nokia is finally executing quickly. The Lumia 800 Windows Phone is already shipping from Nokia’s factories just eight months after the major strategy change. It will be available in November. By contrast, Nokia unveiled 2010′s flagship phone, the N8, in April but failed to ship in time for Nokia World 2010 that September. Read the rest of this entry »

[updated October 19 with the latest Q3 Apple results and the official name of the new Nexus]

A new version of Android will be available in November, initally on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone. Much of the analysis of this Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android is focused on the implications of it running on both smartphones and tablets, where older versions of Android ran on one or the other (1), as well as shiny new gimmicks such as face recognition to unlock a handset.

This unification of smartphones and tablets is a red herring. Other things matter much more for Android.

Android tablets are failing in the market, while Google’s smartphones sell in enormous numbers. This is a major issue for Google.

In tablets, Google’s own numbers show the extent to which Android is struggling. There are approximately 3.4m Android tablets running the official version of Android intended for tablets (2). This is small compared with the tablet market leader from Apple. Over 39.9m iPads were shipped up to the end of September this year. In the third quarter of 2011 alone, Apple shipped over 11m iPads, almost three times that of all official Android tablets to date.

Android smartphones are a massive success. Given the above Android tablet figures, the vast majority of the 550,000 Android devices activated each day must be smartphones. Google has already caught Apple in smartphone adoption. There are 190m Android devices in use compared with 250m Apple iOS devices. But in smartphones the adoption numbers show that Android is already ahead: Apple has shipped a total of 146m iPhones to date (end September 2011) — some of those units are over three years old and will no longer be in use — while there are approximately 180m Android smartphones (3).

Google is succeeding with smartphones, but not tablets, as a solid media strategy isn’t essential for success in the smartphone market.

Why?

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s round-up of recent wireless, smartphone, tablet, and other mobile data.

There’s a summary of the data at the top with more figures, analysis and links to all of the sources included further down after the break.

1. comScore: August 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share

In one of its key countries, the US, RIM is really struggling. RIM sees a decline of 1% in share of the mobile handset market and a dramatic 5% fall in share of smartphone OS platforms in just a three month period. But these figures pre-date the introduction of RIM’s completely new portfolio of low end Curves and higher end Bold’s and Torch’s all running BlackBerry OS 7.

Despite widespread sentiment that Apple is losing out to Android in the US, the company’s share of the total US mobile market edged up by 0.7% between May and August. This reflects continued strength for the iPhone 4 although the handset design is a year old.

2. Apple: Latest iOS, iPhone and other Apple statistics from the “Let’s Talk iPhone” event

Apple’s own figures from the iPhone 4S launch re-enforce how well it was doing on the eve of Steve Job’s death. Some of the many metrics (many stats further down after the break):

• 250m iOS devices sold, including iPads, iPhones and iPod Touch models.
• 18m total app downloads cumulatively.
• 500,000 iOS apps in the store, of which 140,000 are for the iPad.
• 67m Game Center users.
• >16bn songs sold by the iTunes music store.
• $3bn paid out by App to app developers to date

3. Nielsen: In U.S. Market, New Smartphone Buyers Increasingly Embracing Android

Data on new smartphone buyers shows that Android is growing dramatically and now represents 56% of recent smartphone acquirers. However, Apple is maintaining its smartphone market share (28%) when comparing recent smartphone acquirers and all smartphone subscribers. Result: More bad news for RIM and Microsoft Windows Phone, it’s these other smartphone platforms that are being squeezed by the rise of Android, not Apple.

4. J.D. Power: The Right Blend of Design and Technology is Critical to Creating an Exceptional User Experience with Smartphones and Traditional Mobile Devices

Customer satisfaction is greatest for thin and light devices, even among smartphone users. Current feature phone owners demonstrate the same trend as smartphone owners for portable devices but have a lower tolerance for weight with their satisfaction levels dropping off when devices weigh over 4 ounces compared with a threshold of 5 ounces for smartphone owners.

My take: This explains partly the success of the iPhone 4. Apple’s handset is a particularly thin and light smartphone that has wide appeal to normal mobile customers, not just savvy users. J.D. Power data picks out the iPhone as the highest rated phone for satisfaction.

5. Nielsen: 40 Percent of U.S. Mobile Users Own Smartphones; 40 Percent are Android

Apple and Android are neck and neck in appeal for those adults that intend to buy a smartphone in the next year: Both appeal to 30% of prospective buyers. But among an “Innovators” group of early adopters 40% intend to buy an Android smartphone compared with 32% for iOS. My take: This data demonstrates that the iPhone has broader appeal across mainstream users than Android.

Read the rest of this entry »

While the new Apple iOS5 beta lacks Facebook integration (it only has Twitter) everyone else is building Facebook into their mobile phones. So far, INQ’s Cloud Touch has the most impressive interface: Facebook replaces the main screen with a completely Facebook-centric experience.

But HTC is creating phones with more visible Facebook branding, that makes advertising easier, they’ve included  a ‘post to Facebook button’ on the front of the phone.

Here’s a launch advert in the UK, and, like so many other recent UK smartphone campaigns I saw this on the side of a phone box. I love this combination of smartphone advertising and last century’s pre-mobile phone boxes:

Read the rest of this entry »