MWC: GSMA Primer and its CEO Rob Conway

February 16, 2008 at 12:38 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Events + Conferences, Mobile World Congress, MWC Barcelona

The GSM Association, aka “the GSMA”, is the power behind the Mobile World Congress, and the prior “3GSM”, the former “GSM Congress” and the first “GSMA Plenaries” over the last 20 years of its existence.

The ramp up of the organization’s reach and influence has been under the leadership of Rob Conway, a former Motorola executive, the CEO of the GSMA since 1999. It is Conway that deserves much of the credit, as well as taken the heat of criticism of, for what the GSMA has become–the sine qua non global trade organisation for the mobile world. Given the initiatives he has pushed forward over his tenure he rightfully deserves part of the credit of the domination of GSM as a standard ( 840 GSM opertors and only 160 CDMA ) providing service to 85% of the world’s mobile phone users. Much is often covered of the bitz and bites of technology and whatever is new, but the GSMA is a reflection as much about harvesting the power of technology as it is about power politics and the influence of large companies. The board members consisting of the governing body of the GSMA reflect the largest operators in the world including Vodafone, China Mobile, Turkcell, Orascom, Bharti Airtel, NTT DoCoMo, Telefonica O2, SingTel, ATT, KTF, and TIM.

The central voting membership of the GSMA is GSM operators only, but more than 180 manufacturers and suppliers are members of the Association’s initiatives being key partners as “Associate Members.” Verizon and Sprint of the US are not members, but other original CDMA operators are such as NTT DoCoMo of Japan, and SKT of Korea are now since they have GSM apsects of their 3G networks. Even the first ATT Wireless, a TDMA operator as part of MaBell actually petitioned for special observer status back in the early 00s since it didn’t want to be on the side line of the global mobile industry body.

Clearly, Conway’s vision is the major driver behind the financial success of the GSMA’s sponsored events around the world which includes the control and production of the Mobile World Congress events in Barcelona and Asian-angled MWC Macau launched last November. Shifting the focus of the events from the original carrier limited engineering and international roaming discussions, Conway moved the emphasis to a traditional trade revenue driving event to be held in Cannes soon after his arrival in ‘99. The 3GSM events exploded there, and the limiting confines of Cannes quickly posed a barrier to larger commercial opportunities, which controversially shifted the event to Barcelona starting in 2005. Simultaneously he clawed back GSMA events control from the global conference and research provider Informa, and now the MWC events are fully a profit center within the GSMA. A massive one in fact which probably eclipses the membership fees which are a sliding upwards scale based on revenues generated.

What was initially considered a staid, operator engineering “talkshop” (after attending my first plenary in 1997, I ironically characterized it to my boss, as “Congress without its swift consideration of issues.”) Now the MWC is THE mobile industry event, and through the regional series for developing markets the ComWorld Series no one misses the opportunity to engage at a GSM oriented event.

Nothing comes close to the scale, breadth and depth of analysis, and variety of attendees literally from every corner of the globe as the GSMA’s Mobile World Congress, now with celebrities the likes of Robert Redford, Isabella Rossellini, Bollywood actress Sherlyn Chopra, and Black Eyed Peas founder WILL. I. AM as part of the mobile industry fabric. As a personal reflection of that, through serendipity on Wednesday I was within 15 feet of Redford as he spoke of the impact of mobile on film and his initiatives to capture mobile film making talent through his Sundance Institute. Later that night I fell into a spontaneously organized tapas dinner which included industry executives from the US (me), South Africa, Dubai, Zimbwabe, UK, Czech Republic, Brunei, China, and Australia. Interestingly we all had a common connection beyond the mobile industry. Its a great business if you’ve got a global perspecitve.

At this year’s GSMA’s CEO Keynote, Conway covered what are the GSMA’s core messages: impact of social nteworking, LTE (long term evolution), mobile broadband, data usage factors, protecting young consumers, and the ever present “Green.”

Framing his comments with the continuing huge growth experienced in the mobile industry globally, Conway’s highlights include a view that despite changes in the surounding economic climates around the world, GSM’s growth is “propelling wholly new dimensions from social networking and enterntainment to environmental” arenas.

Reflecting the core technology, he reiterated that the GSMA Board’s strategy is to use LTE to deliver mobile broadband and that the GSMA will embarce all who do so, including CDMA operators. He referred to WiMax as a “niche access technology that he trusts will be complimentary” to LTE. Proof that the technology wars still have their skirmishes.

It is the GSMA’s belief that the tipping point for HSPA Mobile Broadband has been reached not only in mature markets but also in emerging ones. He pointed to over 160 operators having already deployed the technology and another 160 operators having already deployed the technolgoy and aontehr 67 set for deployemtn providing access speeds of 3.6Mb/s, with another 420 HSPA enabled devices already available, and growing fast. If you sitll wonder if WiMax has any big play traction, check out KTF’s differentiated services in Korea as a reflection of the power of HSPA vs WiMax as well as how in South Africa MTN’s mobile broadband connects the unconnected.

On innovation, Conway identified the GSMA achievement of working with Microsoft to identify the global untapped market for the sub $1,000 notebook market with embedded HSPA, blazing a trail for a “whole new device category - mobile broadband networks.” (Although a significant piece of that is also due to the likes of Intel that are working with banks around the world such as HSBC in India to provide low monthly payment rates to purchase a laptop). He also highlighted the establishment of the GSMA Innovation office being established in Atlanta last year.

The GSMA loves these initiatives — they deflty enable them to help shape and define the regulatory market by forcing industry players to take action and thus shape public opinion back on the regulators and the market. Be proactive not reactive when it comes to dealing with standards bodies and governments. The Association’s new Horizon Phone initiative, and the new Mobile Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Content are two new ones this year. Past initiatives including dotMobi top line domain registration, personal instant messaging initiative, and mobile money transfer.

He concluded on two different points that reflect how far things have changed since the original GSMA efforts to promote the GSM standard as the global brand tended to focus the event on carriers, handsets, and infrastrcuture providers. Outlining how mobile is making great strides as an entertainment platform, he announced the launch of the Mofilm initiative which he called a “unique forum” to connect with the film industry ecosystem.

The GSMA is partnering with Mofilm to present a short film showcase for mobile phones, including cutting-edge new films from world-leading film festivals and content providers.
The partnership follows the success of last year’s experimental Sundance Film Festival – Global Short Film Project–a collaborative pilot between Sundance Institute and the GSMA that stimulated excitement in the opportunities for independent, cinematic short films for the 4th screen.

Mofilm has uniquely brought together the Festival De Cannes Short Film Corner, Sundance Channel, the Shanghai International Film Festival, and the Festival del Film Locarno, as well as leading Bollywood content provider Hungama Mobile, to showcase an international collection of short films on mobile devices. Covers all the regional bases of the globe there.

A closing note on environmental issues, the GSMA is using its Development Fund to catalyse action and raise awareness of what the industry can do for the benefit of the environment. (This was a major aspect of China Mobile’s CEO comments as well.) Given that we are close to 3.2 billion mobile communicators in the world, where do you think those handsets are going after two years use?

The GSMA isn’t about HLRs, base station subsystems, and IMEIs anymore.

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Discounted passes for Emerging Communications 2008

February 14, 2008 at 12:45 pm · Filed under Events + Conferences

The inaugural Emerging Communications 2008 is fast approaching and conference chair Lee Dryburgh has been kind enough to extend the offer of discounted passes to Mobile Messaging 2.0 readers.

A full conference pass would normally cost $1495, but our readers will be able to apply a 15% discount and pick up the pass for just $1271, a saving of just over $224! Simply register at http://ecommmedia.com/ with the discount code ‘messaging08‘.

The speaker lineup is looking amazing with Google’s Rich Miner, Twitter’s Blaine Cook, thought leaders such as Norman Lewis and Sheldon Renan and exciting companies such as Bug Labs and Yuvee covered previously at Mobile Messaging 2.0.

(Disclosure - I’m an unpaid member of eComm’s advisory board).

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Emerging Communications 2008

December 26, 2007 at 2:04 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Devices, Studies + Research, Usage + Usability, Events + Conferences, iPhone, Twitter, Video Conferencing, Openmoko, Communication, Voice, Research

With the sad cancellation of O’Reilly’s Emerging Telephony conferences, it seemed that the unique melting pot of traditional telcos, cellcos and bleeding-edge disruptive innovators, hackers and entrepreneurs would dissipate.

Thanks to the efforts of one of the former ETel advisory board members, Lee Dryburgh, the unique conversation between these communities will move beyond telephony into ‘communication’ in all its forms - social media, telephony, ethnographics and - of course - mobility.

Lee is hosting the inaugural Emerging Communications 2008, conference next Spring in Mountain View at the Computer History Museum. The conference wil also be accompanied by an unconference day, providing a mix of traditional conferences with the energy of a parallel BarCamp-style event.

Though the lineup isn’t finalised yet, there are some interesting speakers lined up already, including sessions on Building Twitter from Blaine Cook,  Emerging & Usage Patterns from Intel’s Dawn Nafus, OpenMoko’s Michael Shiloh and thought leaders such as Norman Lewis and Sheldon Renan.

One of the underlying implicit themes from the current programme of speakers seems to be the potential in the intersection of telephony and social networks - issues which speak to the future of mobile messaging, a topic covered by MM2.0 contributors just recently.

Though not focussed exclusively on the mobile industry, eComm 2008 promises to surface some interesting directions for messaging and communication. As such it’s a community that we need to watch closely, listening for the weak signals that’ll give clues as to what happens next in the industry…

{ Disclosure: I’m a member of the voluntary eComm 2008 advisory board.  }

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VCs Tim Chang and Vineet Buch weigh in on the Future of Mobile Messaging

November 20, 2007 at 7:05 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Mobile Tech, Events + Conferences, Mobile Email, mobile social networking, Instant Messaging, FOMM, Venture Capital, Under the Radar, 3Jam

Venture capitalists Tim Chang, Norwest Venture Partners, and Veneet Buch, Blue Run Ventures, speak from an investors perspective on “The Future of Mobile Messaging.” While attending Under the Radar - Mobility last week at Microsoft’s Mountain View campus, I had the chance to ask Tim and Vineet about their predictions on the future of mobile messaging. They have different ideas about what will be the most critical aspects of messaging and the role of mobile network operators in those developments.

To toggle between the two interviews, click on the “Play Now” link associated with the interview you wish to listen to.

 

 Tim Chang on FOMM [6:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Vineet Buch on FOMM [6:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Facebook, Microsoft and the new Messaging: CTIA Podcast

October 25, 2007 at 12:30 am · Filed under Devices, MMS, Events + Conferences, Podcasts, iPhone, Mobile Advertising, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Convergence, CTIA

The second day at CTIA IT and Entertainment 2007 in San Francisco, and Debi, Paul and I meet up at the end of the day to discuss the major issues as we see them. In this podcast, we’re talking about the resurgence of voice, but in applications; the new forms that mobile messaging could take; monetisation and making mobile payments; why aren’t we talking about MMS as the new message?; Microsoft’s $240 million dollar deal with Facebook; what that deal means for Google and their opening up of mobile; and a few points about hype.

 

 MM20 at CTIA pt 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Mobile Messaging 2.0 at CTIA IT & Entertainment

October 19, 2007 at 3:10 pm · Filed under Events + Conferences, CTIA

A few of the MM2.0 bloggers, Ewan Spence, Paul Ruppert and myself, are attending CTIA next week. We’ll be reporting on a number of developments and applications around messaging: Participation TV, multi modal messaging (voice, video, text), mobile payments via SMS, along with mobile marketing and advertising, are all potential topics.

There are some other areas that will no doubt be of interest to MM2.0 readers. Personal navigation, for example, might not be a killer application, but it’s at a minimum the top manslaughter application in the US mobile data market; more iPhone - we need more iPhone; and touch screens for all. The rise of touch screens is great news for haptics technology companies like Immersion, and M2M (machine-to-machine) messaging offers a new and lucrative application area. So there will be much to see, touch and hear. Podcasts will be a continuing component of our coverage for the event, the evening parties and a couple of press only demos. Photos? Oh yes, there will be lots of photos from Ewan, Paul and me.

You can subscribe to our feed to ensure getting the lastest messaging related news and analysis coming from CTIA next week.

Also, if you’re a reader of the blog, I’d love to meet you. Leave a comment here and we can meet at one of the many planned events or let’s do an impromptu blog dinner Sunday evening. My flight arrives Sunday afternoon in SF and will be attending the MoCo News mixer Monday evening. There are plenty of options for connecting.

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Apples + Oranges

September 29, 2007 at 7:23 pm · Filed under Events + Conferences, Orange, Mashup

France Telecom’s citrus-y mobile operator, Orange has just opened registration for a trio of mashup events due to take place in various European cities this coming Winter; this ‘roadshow’ comes hot on the heels of Orange’s San Francisco R&D labs successful mashup event earlier this year.

I’d like to think the timing of the registration is a canny attempt for Orange to capitalise on its flailing negotiations to carry iPhone in France - but as a former Orange employee, I know for sure that they’re not that smart…

However coincidental or accidental, Orange has cautiously been embracing the developer community and Web 2.0 culture for a number of years - in sharp contrast to the joint Apple+AT&T bitchslaps recently delivered to iPhone users.

Orange’s Pikeo and Bubbletop services, though hilarious imposters of Flickr and Netvibes, were designed from inception as vehicles to engage the developer community with Orange APIs. Though Orange’s execution has often been unimpressive - their sincerity in seeking to navigate unfamiliar territories of open development is laudible, relative to other mobile operators, though sadly unremarkable in a wider sense.

So, if you feel mobile operators are needlessly closed platforms, events such as these are your opportunity to impress upon them the value of participation…register for Orange’s London, Paris and Madrid Mashup events at the Orange Partner site…

{ Disclosure: I used to work for Orange and I am quite literally allergic to Apples! }

UPDATE: Oops…looks like BT’s collaboration with Coghead might actually be more ambitious than Orange’s mashups. BT plan to equip the Coghead authoring environment with access to core APIs such as call control, location lookups and conferencing. Wow…scriptable telephony?

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Tech Crunch 40 Podcast - Discussing the Mobile and Communications Applications

September 21, 2007 at 7:26 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Devices, SMS, Software, Events + Conferences, Podcasts, Mobile Applications, GSM, Mobile Email, Carriers, mobile social networking, Nokia, Ovi, Instant Messaging, Communication

As mentioned in our previous post from Tech Crunch 40, Debi and I sat down to talk about the five companies who won through to present on stage - namely Cubic Telecom (www.cubictelecom.com), Yap (www.yapinc.com), Trutap (www.trutap.com), Ceedo (www.ceedo.com) and Loudtalks (www.loudtalks.com).

There’s a lot to discuss, from business model, geographical challenges (both in distribution and acceptance), the might of the carriers and the handset manufacturers, and all the issues that a start-up in the mobile are going to have to deal with.

 

 MM20 at Tech Crunch 40, pt 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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mobileCampLondon

September 6, 2007 at 1:12 pm · Filed under Events + Conferences

The final weekend of the Summer will see the first mobileCampLondon, a very hands-on unconference for designers, developers and entrepreneurs working on mobile applications, devices and user experience.

The impending launch of the iPhone in Europe and the advent of open platforms such as Trolltech’s Greenphone and the Openmoko project, is suddenly making grassroots innovation, of the sort experienced by the Internet industry, finally possible for mobility.

The weekend’s proposed sessions look really interesting - from hacking hardware to VoIP, gaming, widgets and GPS as well as social networking, payment systems and advertising.

The weekend has been organised by Fjord’s Victor Szilagyi - a graduate of Milan’s prestigious and now defunct  Interaction Design Institute Ivrea - and Christian Lindholm, formerly of Yahoo! And they’ve attracted an impressive roster of speakers and attendees, ranging from Nokia+Orange’s Chris Heathcote and FT’s former VP of Technology Research, Dr. Norman Lewis and Openmoko’s William Lai…who’ll kindly be bringing out some Neo1973 development kits for attendees to play with.

Signup at the camp wiki and find out who else is coming at the Upcoming event listing.

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Nokia Go Play - Impressions beyond the N81 and N95

August 30, 2007 at 9:25 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Events + Conferences, Mobile Applications, iPhone, Carriers, Apple, Nokia, Mobile Music, NGage, DRM, Ovi, Microsoft

Nokia needs to find someone other than their executives to put on stage for these launch events. Showmanship isn’t a Finnish strength. The devices and new direction of Nokia could have been an exciting event, and they’re talking about entertainment to the press. However, the execs struggled with the English language causing stutters and stammers, and they make Al Gore seem animated.

Ever watch someone totally uncool try to be cool? That’s the same awkward and uncomfortable experience of hearing a Nokia executive say that a phone made him think of “Funky, and ah, ah, and fresh.” These guys do a great job of running the market leading mobile device company, but when it comes to charisma, they are more Erkle than P. Diddy.

I had planned to continue live blogging through the Music and Game panels, but couldn’t hear the Music panel, because the first five minutes of the presentation contained repeated US industry bashing mostly from Rob Wells of Universal. The cliff notes version of the moderated discussion:

• Music Industry struggling
• US bad, UK/Europe good
• Digital only 10% of the market
• US bad, UK/Europe good
• Mobile is the answer
• DRM, DRM, DRM
• Not everyone wants only Britney Spears
• US bad, UK/Europe good
• iTunes no DRM solution?
• US bad, UK good

You’ll recall that Universal was the one music producer, and the world’s largest, who balked at Apple’s no DRM offering and single pricing model. Many people speculated about where Universal would go for digital distribution, and now we have that answer. The US bashing shut down my hearing and I couldn’t live blog the discussion. Sorry. Of course, there wasn’t any new territory discovered from the discussion or the Q&A, so the cliff notes version goes like this:

• DRM, no DRM?
• Stealing bad
• DRM good
• Why Windows DRM?
• Stealing bad
• DRM good
• Compete with Apple
• DRM interoperability?
• Stealing bad
• DRM good
• DRM device independence?
• Stealing bad
• DRM good

Got it? That pretty much characterizes any discussion of digital music with music industry executives.

Several money quotes from the presentations.

1) From the Q&A in response to a question on the similarities of the new UI and iPhone’s UI

We don’t know what is copied, but if something is out there that is good, we will copy it with pride and if we are the inventor, then we have the inventor’s pride.

Long ago, when asked about Apple’s use of Xerox Parc’s GUI invention in the Macintosh, Steve jobs quoted Picaso: “Artists copy, but great artists steal.”

2) The goal [of Xpress Music] is stated as providing a superior service to Stop Stealing.

While I understand that the phrase “stop stealing” is music to Universal’s ear, this is a false narrative. The size of losses from digital copying of music is dwarfed by the physical CD counterfeiting losses that have plagued the music industry for years.

3) Push back from operator customers and how have operators done with their own services of this same type?

Different operators have different strategies, we are definitely trying to help operators in their strategies. Phones, devices are not enough anymore - often service is needed including ease of use. The way we have cooperated with operators in the past we will cooperate with them with the experience. This has not happened in stealth mode. This is complimentary.

Apparently, Orange doesn’t agree. Most tier one operators have their own music stores, navigation and maps applications, and even gaming catalogue. The new Nokia - the software and services company - expects operators to abandon their own deals with content providers and buy devices that are preloaded with competing services? Really? Unless I’m reading this wrong, Nokia is taking a huge risk that operators are happy to become the carriers of Nokia services.

As Apple and Microsoft continue moving into the mobile industry from a PC base and Nokia moves into the PC space from a mobile base, a comparison of the strengths of their strategies and positions makes sense as a next step.

Ewan Spence a contributor to MM2 attended the event and caught up with Rob Sears, Chief Architect, Multimedia Experiences at Nokia USA, and has an excellent podcast interview with Sears on the implications of the new Nokia.

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