December 29, 2006 – “ENN Year in Review 2006: Top Ten Tech Trends,” Sylvia Leatham, ENN

• If you thought loud, irritating, rinky-dink ringtones were the height of bad manners, 2006 saw the tentative launch of Mobile TV in Ireland, and already people are complaining about seeing and listening to Eamon Dunphy pontificating from someone's 3G mobile on the bus.
  
• Recent analysis from Jupiter Research forecasts that revenues from mobile games and mobile TV will have overtaken those generated by mobile music by 2011. The global mobile entertainment market, which includes adult content, mobile music and TV, will be worth USD77 billion by 2011, according to Jupiter, so be careful of who films you naked on their phone -- truck drivers in China could be paying to watch it.

December 21, 2006 – “The Seven Top Mobile and Wireless Trends for 2007,” David Haskin, Computerworld

• The top mobile and wireless trends that will emerge in 2007 wouldn't be possible without the two biggest stories of 2006: the advent of the cheap smart phone, and Sprint Nextel's bodacious announcement that it is building a nationwide mobile WiMax network.
  
• The other top mobile and wireless story for 2006 was Sprint's announcement that it would build a $3 billion nationwide mobile WiMax network, which it expects to start rolling out by the end of 2007. Sprint will use an enormous chunk of wireless spectrum it inherited when it merged with Nextel in 2005. No other U.S. mobile operator comes close to having that amount of spectrum available, making it highly unlikely that any of Sprint's competitors could launch a competing network.
  
• Cheaper devices and more mobile access options will mean that more people will use more mobile applications. The most popular of these applications is likely to be mobile e-mail.

December 11, 2006 – “Top Trends for 2007: Marketers’ Influence Grows Even as Customers Demand More Control of the Message,” Kate Maddox, B to B

• As marketing becomes a much more critical function in organizations, chief marketing officers are gaining more influence at the executive table. This trend is certain to continue next year, and the industry may see more CMOs ascending to the CEO spot.
  
• Another trend to watch in e-mail marketing next year is the use of mobile marketing. MarketingSherpa found that 29.4% of marketers are following mobile marketing but won't be allocating resources to it in 2007, while 7.6% are allocating resources to test mobile marketing next year.

• ClairMail, Inc., the leader in mobile phone-based customer interaction solutions, today introduced its breakthrough answer for securing all banking transactions by utilizing mobile phones for account access, multi-factor authentication and transaction verification.

• The ClairMail system utilizes the mobile phone’s familiar text messaging functionality as the means to authenticate online banking sessions and virtually all other at-risk transactions. For instance, the system can be used for on-line banking session verification.

• Alternatively, an out-of-band mobile verification can be used when either online or offline at-risk transactions are performed.

• A text reply from the customer is used to acknowledge or request additional information pertaining to the transaction.

• Today, banks are forced to call the customer or stop a credit card when transactions are in question. With ClairMail, the cost and inconvenience of this customer interaction is dramatically reduced. The ClairMail system also provides bank customers with secure on-demand mobile access to account information, facilitates a variety of transactions and delivers no-hold access to customer service.

• Importantly, ClairMail’s multi-factor authentication exceeds the regulatory requirements mandated by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) for improving online security, while also assisting institutions to combat the growing number of check and credit card fraud issues.

• ClairMail system is more cost-effective, convenient for customers and requires no special software to be installed on the customer’s phone; it works on any mobile phone regardless of device type or carrier.

• Finally, while other vendor solutions require complex integrations, ClairMail’s turnkey system seamlessly integrates with existing back office and security infrastructure and customer contact systems (e.g. IVR and Online) – thereby empowering financial institutions to rapid deploy an inexpensive, non-intrusive and highly secure mobile banking solutions.

• Cell phone shipments worldwide could exceed 1 billion this year, according to IDC. Because of strong third-quarter numbers, IDC is keeping intact its previous 2006 forecast of 998 million cell phone shipments this year, compared with 833 million a year ago. However, if the market is only slightly healthier than anticipated, the 1 billion-per-year threshold would be surpassed for the first time.

• Cell phone shipments rose 21% in the third quarter, putting the industry within reach of exceeding 1 billion mobile phones worldwide this year, the technology research firm IDC reported Thursday.

• Because of the strong third-quarter numbers, IDC is keeping intact its previous 2006 forecast of 998 million cell phone shipments this year, compared with 883 million a year ago. IDC expects 273 million phones shipped in the fourth quarter.

• As the complexity of the mobile phone continues to ramp at a near exponential rate, it was only a matter of time before the need for sophisticated device management solutions emerged.

• Now, the industry is all abuzz with talk of ‘mobile device management’(MDM) which touches a number of technologies to back-up and restore user-generated content (contacts, photos, etc.) email synchronization and device diagnostics and security.

• "In the future, handset vendors will need to have a sound software strategy in order to market their products successfully," said Bob Egan, service director, emerging technologies, for market research firm The Tower Group.

• "Smartphones - those that take advantage of the new data capabilities - make up a small portion of the cell phone market now, but they are a market segment that has been growing and offer vendors a way to maintain product pricing," The NPD Group's Strother told TechNewsWorld.

• South Korean engineers recently unveiled a prototype of a wireless network that they hope will revolutionize Internet access.

• In August, Samsung, the South Korean electronics company, gave the first public demonstration of its version of the network that will hopefully let users open a laptop anywhere, and without attaching a cable or looking for a Wi-Fi hot spot, immediately surf the Internet or download music and movies as fast as the fastest broadband.

• Many in the industry seem split over whether the technology, known as the fourth generation wireless, or 4G, will usher in a new era of instant Internet availability or become a multi-billion flop. Skeptics, many of them on Wall Street, point to a string of previous failures to turn wireless, still predominantly used for speaking on cell phones, into a challenger in the market for Internet access services.

• Even proponents are having a hard time defining exactly what they mean by 4G. About the only thing most agree on is speed: to be considered 4G, a network must be able to transmit a gigabit, or 1 billion bits of data, every second. That is fast enough to download an entire movie in less than six seconds.

• To showcase its leading role, Samsung gathered in 50 industry executives and academics on Cheju Island for a conference on 4G. A highlight was Samsung’s first demonstration of a working 4G prototype, which included a ride on a bus to show that the system functioned over distance and while the user was in motion.

• The technology appeared to get a boost when Sprint Nextel announced in August that it would spend up to $3 billion to build what it called a 4G network, using technology from Intel and Samsung as well as Motorola. The network is intended to reach 100 million Americans by the end of 2008.

• The four largest mobile phone operators in the U.S. will incorporate ads and short commercials into their cell phone networks after years of balking at the idea.

• Advertisers will spend more than $11 billion by 2011 on mobile marketing, with half of that going to telecoms, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. Telecoms are expected to provide subscriber information to advertisers in order to let them develop targeted marketing campaigns.

• A poll conducted by a market research firm in February 2006, 20.8% of the female respondents said they had purchases with their cell phones, mainly of such goods as clothing and shoes, CDs and DVDs, and books and magazines

• Improvements in services made possibly by advances in cell phone technology are behind the market growth. NTT DoCoMo Inc., laid the groundwork for easy mobile phone shopping when it began offering unlimited access to its FOMA internet services for a fixed rate. FOMA software that enables users to take a virtual tour of a fashion building and the many brands carriers there also contributed to the trend.

• The future of GPS technology in locating children is anybody's guess, said Lisa Rountree, director of marketing and strategy for Disney Mobile, but the same type of platform could be used for a variety of things. Families may use GPS technology on mobile phones to find the closest pharmacy or emergency room while traveling.

• Walt Disney Internet Group announced that its new family-oriented Disney mobile service will enable parents to tap into GPS location services to determine their children’s whereabouts.

• Parents can locate their children – or at least their children’s phones – on their own Disney Mobile phones, or online at a password –protected Disney site.

• “Amongst teens, 60% are on their parents’ mobile plans – and even if they’re not, their parents tend to pay for their mobile use,” claimed JuniperResearch Senior Analyst in Wireless Julie Ask.

• The Western European mobile services market will show a compound annual growth rate of 6.2% in the 5 years to 2011, according to a report from Analysys, based in London.

• The proliferation of 3G phones and media services such as music and TV is expected to power the market growth, despite a drop in revenues for some carriers for voice services.

• A new survey by The Yankee Group, the Boston-based research firm, indicates that there are a number of wireless trends that are shaping spending for the industry.

• The report, called 2006 Transatlantic Wireless Business Survey of Europe, said that this year, large enterprises plan to spend the most on mobile data services including e-mail, remote access/mobile VPN solutions and sales force automation applications.

• 50% of small business employees are classified as mobile workers in Europe, spending more than 20% of their time away from their primary workspace. The figure grew from 48% in 2005.

• The Western European mobile services market will show a compound annual growth rate of 6.2% in the 5 years to 2011, according to a report from Analysys, based in London.

• Awareness of the technology grew fastest amongst 25- to 39- year-old men. “This is an encouraging development and adds to evidence elsewhere in the latest survey that 3G is now being considered by a much wider target group than teenagers who download music,” Jody Loughlin, associate director of Nielsen Media, said.

• A new research report, by Boston-based Strategy Analytics, demonstrates that more than 100 million people around the globe are now using the WCDMA and CDMA2000 1x EV-DO 3G technology on their mobile phones.

• The firm is predicting that 3G will reach 106 million users by the end of the second quarter.

• “This is an encouraging development and adds to evidence elsewhere in the latest survey that 3G is not being considered by a much wider target group than teenagers who download music, Jody Loughlin, associate director of Nielsen Media, said.

• The survey of 6,000 people, also found the number of Australians using mobile phones grew by 229,000 in the first quarter to 13.8 million.

• The Western European market is forecast to grow by more than 6% per year to reach €198.4bn in 2011, according to a new report, The Western European Mobile Market: Trends and Forecasts 2006-2011, published by Analysys. With mobile penetration close to saturation, growth will primarily be driven by rich-media services including music and television.

• “Although voice ARPU has been adversely affected by falling termination rates and aggressive pricing strategies, this trend is forecast to reverse from 2007 as 3G adoption increases,” adds Holden. “Operators are beginning to take advantage of 3G’s greater capacity to offer low-cost bundles, thereby accelerating fixed-mobile substitution.”

• Total mobile services revenue is forecast to grow at a compound average growth rate of 6.2% from EUR 138.4 billion in 2005 to €198.4 billion in 2011.

• Active mobile penetration in Western Europe was 96.2% at the end of 2005 and is forecast to grow to 108.8% by 2011, driven by operators’ efforts to penetrate under-served customer segments (such as older demographics), as well as by increased ownership of multiple SIM cards and more machine-to-machine communications.

• ARPU levels have now bottomed out and will continue to recover, rising by 20% from €31.3 in 2005 to €37.5 in 2011.

• Navigation vendors are approaching a "strategic crossroads," so to speak, as strong, but latent, demand for low-cost, basic route guidance is increasingly required. New car vendors across the U.S. and Europe indicate that at least 18 % of drivers require maps or directions more than 20% of the time.

• A research study indicates that at the right price, cellular phone companies and traditional automotive system supplies are positioned to present a serious competitive response to the low-cost, well-branded navigation products from TomTom, Garmin, Magellan and Lowrance.

• “There are now indications that portable navigation device [PND] growth is slowing, and the demand from the smaller but highly significant segment of consumers who require route guidance on a regular basis but practically been met by low-cost PNDs,” said, Joanne Blight, director, automotive practice, at Strategy Analytics, a research consultancy based in Boston.

• Investment and competitive pressures are expected to drive consolidation among portable navigation vendors in the next 21 months, driving down process further.

• New car vendors across the U.S. and Europe indicate that at least 18 % of drivers require maps or directions more than 20% of the time. The majority of consumers, over 60%, only spend 5% of their travel time going beyond familiar destination, the research demonstrates.

• Mobile browsing will take off in the U.S. when the data rates come down. When we hit a certain threshold, the scales will tip and people will rush to buy,” JuniperResearch analyst Joe Wilcox told TechNewsWorld.

• Personal computers may dominate Internet usage today, but mobile phones are poised to invade that territory with wireless browsing capabilities, a new study says.

• Indeed, Internet browsing via a wireless device is showing robust growth in many global markets. France and U.K. are exhibiting the strongest growth, while Internet usage via mobile phone in Japan also continues to grow rapidly, according to the report. 4 in 10 adults browse the Internet on their wireless handset in Japan, double the rate from 2003.

• In emerging markets, consumers are more likely to own a cell phone than a computer, so they get to the Internet through their phone,” JuniperResearch analyst Joe Wilcox told TechNewsWorld. “Data use is not as advanced in the Unites States.”

• Its data shows that growth in Internet browsing on a mobile phone is flattening in other leading markets, such as the U.S. and Canada, where wireless Internet access via notebook PC appears to be emerging as the stronger out-of-home Internet platform.

• Globally, the trend is strong, with 28% of mobile phone owners worldwide telling Ipsos they have browsed the Internet on a wireless handset. That figure is up to slightly from 25% at the end of 2004.

• Growth of this behavior for 2005 was driven by users who were at least 35 years old. This indicates that surfing the Internet on a mobile phone is emerging as a mainstream, activity, no longer dominated by the traditional early adopter segment – young males – typical of many new consumer technologies, Ipsos concluded.

• This year, sales of in-vehicle navigational units will jump to 1.9 million, dedicated navigational products to 1.35 million and smartphones/handsets to 1.3 million, according to Phil Magney, principal analyst for the Telematics Research Group.

• In 2005, 1.4 million in-vehicle navigational units were sold, according to TRG figures. There were sales of an additional 800,000 dedicated navigational portable devices, along with 700,000 smartphone/handsets that incorporate navigational functionality.

• This year, according to Magney, sales of in-vehicle units will jump to 1.9 million, dedicated navigational products to 1.35 million and smartphones/handsets to 1.3 million.

• “By 2011, the entire catergory will number 25 million units, with 5 million installed in vehicles, 3.2 million as dedicated navigational [devices] and 17 million phones.

• 51% of respondents in a new AP-AOL-Pew Research Center Mobile Lifestyle Survey release Monday, reported either wanting to use or already using mobile maps on their cell phones.

• In Japan, greater Asia and Europe, as well as in North America, it is still unclear as to what specific types of content will play best with mobile TV consumers. However, it is unlikely that the same programming already available on regular TV is going to cut it, Yankee Group Senior Analyst Mike Goodman told TechNewsWorld.

• Backers of the service – which include NTT DoCoMo, rival KDDI and Japanese television companies – say it will become more significant when it begins offering programming designed specifically for mobile devices, as well as location-specific content.

• In Japan, greater Asia and Europe, as well as in North America, it is still unclear as to what specific types of content will play best with mobile TV consumer.

• TV has been among the world’s most successful media for the last 50 years, Ovum Vice President of Wireless Telecoms Roger Entner told TechNewsWorld. Compelling content will be the key to success for mobile TV, he agreed, adding that in the U.S., much of the video offerings available currently are limited to clips.

• Mobile TV is still very new, however, and technology as well as content is expected to improve, Entner added.

• The University of Michigan polled more than 80% of a nationally representative sample of 752 Americans age 18 and older who said cell phones are a major safety hazard when used while driving, and almost 90% said a police officer should indicate on accident reports whether drivers were using cell phones at the time of crashes.

• 30% of those polled agreed or strongly agreed that people should be reachable any time or any place, according to the survey.

• 64% of those surveyed were somewhat or very concerned that using cell phones made them vulnerable to the theft of Social Security, bank account and other personal identification numbers

• One in nine Americans (11% of those surveyed) said they had none of the devices or access to cell phones, computers, personal digital assistants, VCRs, digital video players and recorders, and Internet access at home, while one in five (19%) had four or five.

• Nokia and Virgin Mobile USA unveiled a jointly developed easy-to-use handset targeting the youth market dubbed "Shorty," featuring changeable Xpress-on color covers, downloadable polyphonic ringtones, a flashlight, text messaging, a wireless WAP 1.1 browser, voice dialing and commands and voice memo recording, and will retail for under $60.

• Sprint plans to have repair shops in more than half of its 800 retail locations across the country by mid-March to fix customer problems in-store.

• Cingular Wireless, on the other hand, is phasing out its in-store repair shops in favor of letting customers with malfunctioning phones call a toll-free number and get a replacement phone sent to them overnight.