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Cellphone Makers Realize: It’s the Software, Stupid

Wired Magazine – Cellphone Makers Realize: It’s the Software, Stupid

To cut a long story short, the software running on a mobile terminal is becoming a key asset and a competitive advantage. From a technical perspective the iPhone is not rocket science. No 3G, no GPS, no WiMAX, no 3D chip, etc. The strength is the software running on the iPhone and the brilliant ideas behind the user interface. I mean, you could compare this step with the movement from Dos to Windows. Usability is a very big issue for the adaptation of the mobile Internet.

Worth to mentioned that three 800 pound gorillas are fighting for the domination of the smartphone OS.

  1. Nokia – Symbian
  2. Micorsoft – Windows MObile
  3. Google – Open Handset alliance

Do not under estimate the power of Google! Even if the Android OS is far from maturity, they could/will leverage their installed base of “cloud computing services” like Gmail, GTalk, Youtube, GMaps, etc.

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Deutsche Telekom launches Project “Helios” Open Platform similiar to BT Web21C SDK

Deutsche Telekom will launch a service creation platform for developers in the next couple of days, that is probably similar to the BT Web21C SDK. So far i have only seen this press release on the public internet. Here the official quote (in German):

Helios – Open Development. Helios öffnet Dienste der Deutschen Telekom zur Verwendung in Webanwendungen durch Drittanbieter. Ziel ist die Schaffung einfacher Schnittstellen für Entwickler, die diese Dienste zu neuen Angeboten kombinieren können. Ãœber das Developer Portal werden Entwickler Teil der Community, erhalten Zugang zu offenen Programmierschnittstellen und nutzen bei Bedarf das Software Development Kit.

The internal press release on the corporate Telekom intranet was also very short. Besides BT there are a couple of other carriers who have or plan to introduce such SDKs: Orange UK , Orange Isreal, Vodafone Betavine.

Google Android SDK

Other interesting SDK’s in the mobile arena are the upcoming Apple iPhone SDK and the already available Google Android SDK.

I think it’s a perfect testbed for so called meshup services. Developers can easily integrate telecommunication services (e.g. initiate a voice call, send a SMS) into their web applications. As soon as i get more information on the subject i’ll make an update. Stay tuned!

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Google Talk Adds a Chatback Widget

Google’s engineering department is pretty busy. They are releasing a tons of new services, incremental updates and features every week. The newest feature, called “Chatback Widget“,  is an extension for Google Talk.

Google Talk Logo

If you are a Gmail and/or Gtalk User, you can now integrate a widget on any external website, that allows visitors to start a chat session with you – directly from the website.  The visitors do not need any extra application nor a Google account. This means ANY! website visitor can have chat with you. Another advantage is, that there is no need to run Google Talk. Having Gmail open in the browser is sufficient. A pop-up message will inform you that someone has started a chat session. I have added the Chatback Widget on this blog, please scroll down to the bottom of the page and see if i’m available for a chat session.

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Interesting Article: The Economics of Free

I’ve discovered an interesting article on Wired.com titled “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business“. The author is Wired’s editor-in-chief Chris Anderson. Chris is probably well known for writing the book “The Long Tail“. The article now on Wired is just an excerpt of his new book, to be published next year, about the idea of “free” in the old and new economies. The article is quite fascinating. Right after i finished reading the article, several ideas came up in my mind. I think there are some pretty good examples of freeconomics business models in the telecommunication industry. Voice over IP for example has dramatically changed the business for long distance calls. A VoIP call is free, if both parties are connected to the internet. Or think of Blyk, the ad-funded MVNO in UK. Subscribers are getting a certain amount of voice minutes and SMS for free in exchange for their attention. Advertisers are paying for the mobile services, not the end-user.

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