Management, Technology and Startup - by Cristobal Alonso

Bite Lietuva: Fastest Lithuanian Mobile Internet gets 3 times faster!!!

2010-09-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

Yes we are! Yesterday it was Latvia (Latvija). Today is Lithuania (Lietuva). The power of working as a Group efficiently!!!

After completing another successful stage of the network modernization project, we have tripled the speed of our mobile broadband. After this upgrade still fastest in Lithuania, Bite Lietuva's mobile internet service now is one of the fastest mobile internet connections in whole Europe.

Bitė is the first mobile internet provider in Lithuania offering broadband mobile internet of such a speed. Tripled speed is supported in all Bitė’s 3,5 G network available in 41 towns across the country and covers more than 65 percent of population.

In the middle of September Bitė‘s maximal mobile internet speed increased from 5 Mbps till 15 Mbps and average speed reached 6 Mbps.

From the middle of September new "Vodafone Mobile Connect" modems supporting new speed are now available at Bitė’s outlets. Our customers may choose from 7,2 Mbps, or 21,6 Mbps modems. Actually all our customers, that are in 3,5 G will notice improvements on their speeds regardless of their modems. Also all our customers accessing the internet thought the smartphones will also be able to browse at faster speeds.

What are you waiting for? Join Bite

Bite empowers Latvia to be among top 5 European countries with fastest mobile internet

2010-09-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

Wanted to include here our press release launched today on the recently launched upgrade on our mobile internet service, reaching speeds and quality not see in Latvia until now. In the coming days I will be publishing a white paper on this topic, covering both the mobile internet development both in Latvia and Lithuania

Also please find some links to some of the media coverage (in Latvian & Russian)
Link to article on pozitivaszinas.lv (Latvian)
Link to article on russina business daily
Link to article on Delfi.LV (Latvian)

Well done Bite!!!!

Press Release

After modernization of all 3G base stations in Latvia, Bite is launching the fastest mobile internet speed in the country, ranking Latvia among top 5 fastest in the whole Europe. Bite mobile internet speed in urban areas is on average 6 Mbps (download) – doubling the existing available speeds on the market in Latvia and reaching same level of the Mobile Broadband leaders in Europe. Tests carried out for two weeks by a group of active internet users prove that download speeds overreaching even 11 Mbps are available in Riga.

“We are proud to see that our network modernization puts Latvia on the map of fastest mobile internet speeds in Europe. And even more – we hope that our clients will enjoy the ability to download a song just in 1 second or watch a Youtube video with no interruptions on their phones or using mobile internet modems for laptops,” comments Fred Hrenchuk, CEO of Bite Latvia.

According to Akamai, the state of the internet report Q1 2010 out of 109 mobile providers operating in Europe, only 4 operators (in UK, Slovakia, Poland and Russia) have average speeds above 3 Mbps. With the mobile network upgrade, Bite is joining the group with average download speed of 6 Mbps. Which means that for example a song in mp3 file format can be downloaded in 1 second, whereas streaming of Youtube video would be without any interruptions.

14 European mobile operators have average connection speeds in the 2 Mbps or above range, while 35 have average measured connection speeds of 1 Mbps or more. Average download speed of mobile internet on Latvian market so far has been ranging from 1 to 3 Mbps.

Latvia is ranking also among the first European countries to have the new generation mobile internet modem on the market. This modem has theoretical capacity of processing 21 Mbps download and 5.8 Mbps upload speed. Whereas previous models available in Latvia and Europe have had capacity till 7.2 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload speed in ideal conditions.

As we’ve already announced, Bite has started most advanced network modernization project in the Baltics. The project is still in process, but all 3G base stations have been already modernized providing the first tangible benefit for Bite customers – higher mobile internet speed. The network modernization investment is using the latest technologies and solutions that will provide Bite customers with wider network coverage, faster data transmission speeds, and a higher signal and voice quality. All new equipment by Huawei is ready for future upgrades to 4G and LTE, if there is customer demand and as soon as it is allowed by the license conditions. New technologies are very environment friendly and will help Bite to reduce its energy consumption (and therefore CO2 emissions).

Be Aware: Why is Apple so silent about itunes accounts being hacked?

2010-09-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

Past July (july 4th/7th) there was an initial alarm on the websphere and social media sites (facebook and twitter mainly) that several itunes accounts have been hacked and we being used by some to buy different apps for the iPhone (mostly linked to a vietnamese developer called Thuat Nguyen).

There was no official announcement from Apple, no patch releases, no advice indicated
Official position goes into "400 iTunes accounts were compromised in this attack. That sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that's out of 150 million registered iTunes users, or around 3 ten-thousandths of a percent"
As the story has developed, the problem has grown far more serious than initially thought – not just that one particular developer and his apps - the Apple App store is filled with App Farms being used to steal.

Furthermore If you go a bit deeper into the investigation you will see that more and more cases have been reported and the seriousness of the cases have been increasing. What I mean by this? Well many itunes accounts are linked to a PayPal account which is linked to a credit card account. 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 you get it? Lots of people has reported this and we are talking about thousands of dollards in fradulental transactions

PayPal response: PayPal has acknowledged the fraudulent charges and is currently reimbursing customers.   However, the company continues to insist that the security breach is "happening on the iTunes side."
Apple response: "But if your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes, we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about canceling the card and issuing a charge-back for any unauthorized transactions. We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately."

Judge by yourself
Yes people is not careful with their passwords and yes that may be pure password robbery, however the fact that itunes is not addressing the security issue is worrysome and not worth of a company that portraits itself as a customer advocat. There is some obvious security vulnerability that Apple can't or won't address. No other account from other reputable sites has been reporting such issues these days

BTW the case is far from close. Andrea told me yesterday that her account has been hacked. Fortunetly the only money there was from aple gift card (150 USD) so chance to get into PayPal, but be aware. Change your passwords and maybe time to stop buying in itunes with yor credit card until Apple does address the issue
Remember in Apple eyes, YOU ARE GILTY NOT APPLE

Related sources:
Link to thenextweb - sotry on app store hacked itunes
Link to tg daily - story on Apple itunes and the plague of scammers
Link to apple forum on itunes hacked

Dell Streak: my own review

2010-09-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

I have been trying different Android lately and I go tmy hands into the Dell Streak lately. Until now most of the alternatives to the Ipad were Chinese Android devices, including the Huawei S7 which I was using for a while. Many of them were good devices, but to beat the Ipad specially when you don't have a brand you need more

So I took the Dell Streak, no expectations but excited (and 1 month later I am still using it quite regularly)

Hardware: beautiful, elegant, slim. Very sexy
Size and weight: Very light (220g). Fits on my trousers back pocket beautifully
Screen: crispy, however size seems like a big phone. No way I can use it to do presentations or prepare documents. Mostly great for web browsing, messaging and email reading
Software: my unit has Android 1.6. Not enough. It needs at least 2.1 (which supposedly is coming any time on the coming weeks and will be using frodo (2.2) before the end of year). You notice mostly on the screen transitions. Most of the Android apps are working. What it is nice is that if you are familiar with Android there is no learning curve
Battery: one of the weakest points of the unit. Gives you at the most 2 hours specially if you use the phone functions
Phone: obviously you are not going to use it to talk using it as a normal phone but it does a good job using a bluetooth headset or headphones. The speakerphone is not as good as it could be
Camera: great picture camera, one of the best I have seen but weak video

Verdict: I love playing with this unit and doing my newspaper browsing while having breakfast. Or watching some youtube videos. But as one of the bloggers in Latvia asked me the other day "what do you do with it?", there is no clear usage. It could replace my laptop on the weekend, but for that it needs a better battery and android 2.1. Or it could replace my Blackberry on the weekend (even during the week), but it is not that easy to write quickly (having said that after several months I am starting to type rather quickly at the HTC desire unit that I usually play with)
And with a price tag of 500 Eur I believe it can't be a mass market. (it needs to be on the 250-300 Eur range)
furthermore having a unit as the Samsung galaxy coming along

BTW as the Samsung Galaxy gets a lot of press these days, this is a great review and comparison of both the streak and the galaxy (which I hope to be testing very soon)
Link to Know your mobile.com comporison galaxy vs. streak

Product Features
Screen 5'' WVGA (gorilla Glass Display)
1GHZ Qualcomm processor
5.0 MP (rear)/VGA (front) camera
3G (modem 7.2/5.76)
Bluetooth
Battery 4.7 W
Memory Internal 16gb + Micro SD (external)
Measurements 152.9 x 79.1 x 10 mm

More details on features, I like this site

Link to gsm arena Dell Streak detailed product features

Bite starts cooperation with EMC (Media Coverage) - INcluding some quotes

2010-09-01T12:57:00.001-07:00

Bite has launched a three-year cooperation project with data storage and management corporation EMC. EMC in cooperation with its partner, Bull Baltija, will provide data storage and maintenance services to the telecommunication company. "The amount of data used and processed by mobile connection operators is growing every year. Hence, we must efficiently use data storage technologies. EMC solutions we have upgraded our infrastructure with will help optimise data storage and use available resources more efficiently," Cristobal Alonso, Chief Technology Officer at Bite Group, says.

Below you‘ll find media monitoring results (with active hyperlinks) from today's Bite – EMC press release. Press release were published in three biggest Lithuanian news portals (delfi.lt, lrytas.lt, balsas.lt), business daily portal vz.lt and in other target media channels.

Bite invests in data storage.Vz.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC.Kauno.diena.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC.Klaipeda.diena.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC.Vz.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC.Balsas.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC.Diena.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC.Lrytas.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC.Bns.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC.Elektronika.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC.Technologijos.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC in data storage.Delfi.lt 2010 08 31
EMC to provide data storage services to Bite.Balsas.lt 2010 08 31
Bite to cooperate with IT giant EMC. ELTA 2010 08 31
Bite to start cooperation with corporation EMC. Investar.lt 2010 09 01

Thomas Friedman, The need for a greener world and some latest developments (II)

2010-08-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

Second development I was interested on touching base is what Mr. Friedman describes as the Smart Black Box, or basically the devices capable of managing the smart grid on private houses. The way it is described on the book it makes you believe we are talking about a science fiction movie, but the reality is that the technology, companies and users are already here. What we need is just some regulatory push and a clear push on objectives settings by companies. The market and the users will do the rest

Smart grids is composed of those communications technologies that increase the level of efficiency to allow operators to balance supply and demand across the network. The intrinsic intermittent nature of renewable energy sources , such as wind power makes this development key for the future of such energies. Furthermore so called "advanced" smart grids will allow electricity companies some control over customers’ appliances, for instance by turning on washing machines at night when electricity was cheaper and wind plentiful, or turning down fridges at times of high demand.

The beauty of this concept is that it is here and now. Reading the FT on August 10th, on the online comments section we read a description of how the EU smart grids are developing (from Masa Serdarevich). This include:

the EU setting a target to have 80% of the household with smart meters by 2020.
To move from today's EU installed based of 53m meters to more than 200m by the end of the decade
To the development of different companies competing for this market,
How already in Italy Enel together with california based company Echelon has already implemented 27m units!!! and it is on the making to launch a project in Spain for another 13m roll out.

Optimistic? Maybe but clearly moving into the right direction.
One more sign for optimism and in the right direction? We can read on the online edition of the FT on July 26th how "...Ofgem is to change its rules to make it easier for energy companies to raise from customers the £32bn needed to help modernise the electricity grid, in an abrupt reversal of the principles of post-privatisation regulation"
The UK is clearly of the European countries far behind so time to react

Link to FT online edition news on Ofgem smart grid decision

Sweet moments at our call center

2010-08-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

I have always hear many legends around what happens once in a while with a particular customer at a mobile operator call center. Many of these stories they become legends and they pass over the years as part of the company history or culture

When sometimes somebody in our team sends us one of these stories, it always touches you. Our customer care quality manager Terese Kanapiene share with us such a story today

I do my little translation to English and I keep the lithuanian orginal from her

"So an old lady called our customer care (Justina Sakalauskaite) wanting to get a phone (a prepaid one from Labas). However she is very old and could not pick it up from one of the locations. Furthermore she asked if we have a phone with big buttons as he has problems seeing clearly. Such a phone is not on our range but the team was touched and decided to make it ahppen. Our logistics team did find an old phone used for testing (don't know the model but I can remember the size of the first 3G phone from Siemens for example, it was huge!!!!) that was huge and had big buttons. One of our guys do live close to the lady and he offered to take the phone to her

When he come to her house she wanted to pay for the delivery and the phone. We told her that it was our pleasure, But somehow she managed to put the money on Arunas' pocket. He found out when he got home and our team offered to credit her labas card with the money she gave us. She told us "I forgave you to do such a thing. Get the money and buy something nice for the ladies in the team". So here we are, the team did go our a buy some cute blankets (see picture) ahead of the winter soon to arrive

Love you guys and love how we put our customers first

In Lithuanian

Turim tokią LABAS klientę ponią Jadvygą, kuri naudojasi mūsų paslaugomis jau 3 metus, jai sugedo telefonas. Kadangi maloni ponia Jadvyga jau su amžiumi ir atvykti i BITĖS saloną jai sunku, todėl paklausė ar galėtų kas nors atvežti jai telefoną į namus, bet tokį su didesne klaviatūra.

Arūnas surado telefoną iš logistikos nebenaudojamų testinių telefonų fondo ir nuvežė jį poniai Jadvygai. Klientė primygtinai siūlė pinigus ir nejučia įkišo pinigus į kišenę. Grįžus dar buvo mėginta klientei pasiūlyti įdėti pinigus į jos LABAS kortelės sąskaitą, tačiau ji kategoriškai mums uždraudė tai daryti.

Už ponios Jadvygos įduotus pinigus mes CC nupirkome 9 pledukus, kad galėtume šildytis šaltom rudens dienom.
Poniai Jadvygai nusiūsime padėkos laiškelį su mūsų nuotrauka 

Thomas Friedman, The need for a greener world and some latest developments (I)

2010-08-23T12:48:00.000-07:00

Lately I have read the entire and updated (2.0 version) of Thomas Friedman's book "Hot, Flat and crowded",
Taking it from his own website,

"...Now Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy—both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to all of us who are concerned about the state of America in the global future.

Friedman proposes that an ambitious national strategy—which he calls "Geo-Greenism"—is not only what we need to save the planet from overheating; it is what we need to make America healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive, and more secure"

In my opinion Friedman's book is still one of the most accessible but at the same time incisive and well researched books aound the problem and magnitude of the badly called (probably one of the worst naming strategies ever as the name does more harm that anything to the cause) Global Warming and to propose a number of initiatives, taking his points on how America (USA) can lead these changes

Being this one of my key personal and professional issues and having even as a company (Bite) taking a stand on green strategies I can recommend this reading

Interesting enough there a couple of development around 2 of the key ideas of Friedman's book: how to legislate on the US side (on the part of the book about Code Green) the Co2 emissions using price signals and secondly what he calls the "black box" or smartgrid

Chapter13 - The stone age didn't end because we run out of stones (you probably get the idea from the title right?) -
Basically the main point of the chapter is the need for the government to step in to make the polluting (and before some of you debates why, just think how the governments have stepped in to help people stop smoking - with taxes and education) fuels expensive enough and there are several options to do this, but at the end the options are a "direct" carbon tax or an indirect tax through a cap and trade system. As many of you know this summer the Obama's government failed to have approved through Senate the cap and trade proposed system

I really see this as a total failure of the US to see its won decadence and to recognize how f.... up they are and how this could be the only opportunity to get back at the lead (because the Chinese are going to take care of this issue in terms of leadership also). Furthermore while I am not happy really with Obama lack of strong stand on this one (did he used all of it on the health care reform battle) or if some of my friends the system (who designed a system that does not help your country to take or make the right decisions?), it is time to look at the future
First I don;t believe on the cap and trade as much as I believe the real effective measure is to apply a carbon tax. I think the cap and trade is dead, but I believe that the government will be back in 2 to 3 years and this time it will be with a carbon tax
Secondly is that most of the necessary regulation could come from the federal agencies imposing different measures and limits on emissions and other urgent and necessary regulations

By the way, on this point, I love the harsh and direct David Roberts blog post right after teh bill did not pass the senate and don't miss the follow up comments (really really interesting)
Link to David Roberts "On the death of the Climate Bill"

(Updated) Bloggers and journalist inform on Bite LAtvia Baltic's Most Advanced Newtork development - Partially In Latvian

2010-08-20T15:43:00.001-07:00

After our network expedition where we invited several journalist and social media / bloggers / twitter from LAtvia to see our kitchen (both the network and the real Bite kictchen) and also several phone interviews, there is a lot of coverage around it

Look at some the links on the right corner (including some youtube action)

This one from blogger Kristaps: Es biju dzirdējis, ka Freds un Kristobals jums ir riktīgi feini cilvēki, bet šodien par to pārliecinājos pats. [I had heard that your Fred and Cristobal are cool guys, but today had the chance to witness it myself]
This one is in Latvian from Latvian Telecom blogger and journalist Juris Kaza on NAzare.LV
(Thanks to our PR consultant, Zane Bojare from Hauska for the article and the voice over translation)
"Bite Latvija": Trešdaļa tīkla bāzes staciju drīzumā būs spējīgas sniegt 4G pakalpojumus
Publicēta: 17:03 19.08.2010.
Rīga, 19.aug., NOZARE.LV. Aptuveni trešā daļa "Bite Latvija" mobilo sakaru tīkla bāzes staciju līdz 1.septembrim būs tehnoloģiski spējīgas sniegt ceturtās paaudzes (4G) mobilā interneta datu pārraides ātrumus, bet 4G testēšana plašākā apjomā, visticamāk, sāks tikai 2011.gadā, sarunā ar biznesa portālu "Nozare.lv" teica "Bite" grupas tehniskais direktors Kristobals Alonso.

Alonso sacīja, ka līdz gada beigām "Bite" varēs piedāvāt mobilo internetu ar lejuplādes ātrumu līdz 21 megabitam sekundē (Mbps), kas ir tehniski teju ātrākā iespējamā datu pārraides jauda, izmantojot esošās trešās paaudzes (3G) standartus un frekvences.
Alonso skaidroja, ka apmēram nedēļas laikā būs pabeigta līdz pat 125 "Bites" bāzes staciju nomaiņa pret jaunām "daudzpakalpojumu" spējīgām ķīniešu telekomunikāciju infrastruktūras ražotāja "Huawei" bāzes stacijām. Tās var ieprogrammēt darboties pēc dažādiem standartiem - parasto GSM balss un datu pārraidi (2G), 3G un dažādiem 3G tehnoloģijas "paātrināšanas" paņēmieniem, un 4G, kas sniedz datu pārraides ātrumus līdz pat 100 Mbps.
Drīzumā nomainīto bāzes staciju skaits atbildīs apmēram vienai trešdaļai šādu ierīču, kas veido "Bite Latvija" tīklu. Bāzes stacija ir raidītāju/uztvērēju un citu elektronisku ierīču komplekts, kas noteiktā rādiusā ap savu atrašanās vietu uztur radio sakarus ar mobiliem telefoniem un citām konkrēta operatora tīklā autorizētām ierīcēm.
Kā stāstīja "Bites" tehniskais direktors, 21 Mbps datu pārraides testēšana jau sāksies tuvākajās dienas. Kā ziņo kompānija, "Bite" pabeigusi piecu jaunu "Huawei" bāzes staciju testēšanu Jelgavas apkaimē. Kopumā šajās dienās tiek uzstādītas vai ir jau uzstādītas ap 80 "Huawei", galvenokārt Latvijas rietumos, tostarp Talsos, Tukumā, Bauskā un Jelgavā, teica Alonso. Tuvākajā laikā tiks nomainītas Rīgas bāzes stacijas.
"Bite" un citi operatori nav gatavi sākt apjomīgus 4G testus vai pilotprojektus vairāku iemeslu dēļ. "Bite" paziņojumā medijiem par Jelgavas bāzes staciju testiem raksta, ka "jaunais aprīkojums ir pielāgojams gan 4G, gan LTE (būtībā tas pats, kas 4G) vajadzībām, kad to ļaus licences noteikumi un būs pieprasījums no klientiem. "
Lai varētu sniegt 4G pakalpojumus pilnā komerciālā režīmā, ir jāsakārto frekvenču lietošanas un operatoru licencēšanas jautājumi. Jau ziņots, ka Ministru kabinets (MK) augusta sākumā pieņēma noteikumus, kas paredz, ka radiospektra 2500-2690 MHz diapazonu no 2014.gada varēs izmantot 4G mobilā interneta pakalpojumu sniegšanai, to piešķirot vairākiem komersantiem izsoles ceļā.
Savukārt valsts iestādes vēl nav ķērušās pie 4G operatoru licenču izsniegšanas kārtības izstrādes. Neskatoties uz šādu vadlīniju neesamību, "Latvijas mobilais telefons" (LMT) ir jau veicis 4G testus jeb īslaicīgus pilotprojektus Liepājā un dažās citās Latvijas pilsētās.
Arī "Tele2" ir paziņojis par nodomu iespējami ātri ieviest 4G pakalpojumus, līdz ko būs sakārtoti frekvenču un licenču jautājumu. Kā skaidroja "Tele2" sabiedrisko attiecība vadītāja Vita Sirica, uzņēmuma tīklu veido "Nokia Siemens" bāzes stacijas, kuras visas var pārslēgt uz 4G ar nelielu programmatūras maiņu.
Sirica arī teica, ka "Tele2" plānojot drīzumā palielināt savu mobilo datu pārraides ātrumu līdz 21 Mbps no tagadējā, daudzviet pieejamā 10,2 Mbps.
"Bite" ir trešais lielākais mobilo sakaru operators valstī ar aptuveni 250 000 klientu, Latvijā darbojas kopš 2005.gada.
Juris Kaža Nozare.lv

Usual active social media in Latvia (II)

2010-08-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

This is really even more interesting and fun – some enthusiast has even made a web poll re who has created the navzonas.lv webpage.
Check the results:

Link to poll on who has created the navzonas.lv webpage

more votes are for the „average envious Latvian” or „independent enthusiast”.. from operators – Tele2 as you can see.

Vote and enjoy

Usual active social media in Latvia: post translated (I)

2010-08-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

The storms did hit Latvia and Lithuania during the past weekend so we were very busy

Today I was reading a little bit around the Latvian social media sphere (very active as usual) and the team pointed out an interesting post from Krizdabz, which I have posted his links once before.

Link to krizdabz blog posting on navzonas

The post relates to a project / website that has just been created called navzonas.lv, which aims to show where the coverage of mobile operator Bite is not ideal. I leave you with a translation to his article. Once more there is no need for such websites, we love to hear from our customers and to hear their feedback and complaints. On the network side you can go to Link to Bite web site area for network feedback . We can assure you we will listen and come back to you

This is a rough translation from parts of his post

".....In the description of the Project we can read the following...........

I have created this webpage so that me and other existent or former Bite clients could report on places/spots where the coverage of the mobile operator is not really complying with promises or where there are some problems with the network, ie, „the coverage pits” /Source – navzonas.lv

The principle of the Project is quite clear, there’s a map where anyone can mark a point where there are problems with Bite network, and can check what others have marked. The goal of the Project could even be called noble. But I am a typical sceptical average Latvian and consider this Project not an honest dealing with some person’s sadness and suffering, but an example of typical black pr campaign. Mobile operators in Latvia are on a competitive warfare, therefore it’s not a surprise that such projects appear. I just am sorry that such dirty methods are used and persons are not willing to take the responsibility for their work.

time for a short reflection: a quote I just read

2010-08-10T09:48:00.001-07:00

"to laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons...to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one's self; to leave the world a bit better...—this is to have succeeded.

~ ralph waldo emerson

Inspire by words of the "professional expatriate"

2010-08-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

I was just reading an interview with British journalist (and owner of a nice bookshop in Riga, Robert's books) Robert Cottrell on the Baltic Outlook magazine. The article is called "professional expatriate", where Robert relates to his experiences living in many countries since he left the UK more than 15 years ago
I can relate to many of his words but there is one sentence that I truly like
When describing than like anything else you get better a being a foreign the longer you do it, Robert says
"...The longer you spend traveling in different countries, the more you start to think that everything is special and everything has its own merit, it's own reason to be"
Amen Robert, well said and thank you for a wonderful reading

You can download the entire August issue of the magazine in the link below and read the full interview with Robert
Link to Air Baltic August Magazine

BITÉ REPORTS SECOND QUARTER RESULTS: strong growth in cash and EBITDA

2010-07-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

BITÉ REPORTS SECOND QUARTER RESULTS
Strong growth in Free cash flow in Quarter 2 2010
Quarter 2 EBITDA of € 11.0 million, increased by 39.2% from Quarter 2 2009
EBITDA minus CAPEX improved 173% to reach € 9.9 million
.
Quarter 2 results
Service Revenue1 for Quarter 2 reached € 38.9 million compared to € 43.2 million for the second quarter of 2009. Consolidated Earnings before interest, income taxes and depreciation and amortization (EBITDA)2 increased to € 11.0 million compared to € 7.9 million for the second quarter of 2009. EBITDA margin of Service Revenue grew to 28% for Quarter 2 of 2010 compared to 18% for Quarter 2 of 2009. Free cash flow3 is positive € 3.4 million for Quarter 2 of 2010 compared to negative € 2.5 million for the second quarter
of 2009.

Quarter 2 results for Bité Lithuania and Bité Latvia
Service Revenue for Bité Lithuania for Quarter 2 decreased to € 31.1 million compared to €
37.3 million for the second quarter of 2009. EBITDA increased to € 12.1 million compared to € 11.6 million for the second quarter of 2009. Service Revenue in Bité Latvia for Quarter 2 increased to € 8.1 million compared to € 6.2 million for the second quarter of 2009. Bité Latvia Subscriber base grew by 74% compared Quarter 2 of 2010 with Quarter 2 of 2009 to reach critical mass of subscribers as EBITDA improved to negative € 0.5 million compared to negative € 2.9 million for the second quarter of 2009.

Link to Bite Group Official press release

Rumours on the Indian 35 USD iPad (even if still at least a year away from hitting the shelves)

2010-07-28T13:37:00.001-07:00

Yes, you read that right. Nope, it's not a typo. £25 (actually, £23 on current rates). Rumoured features include colour, multi-touch 10.5" screen, 2Gb memory, Flash compatibility, Wifi, Ethernet connection, camera and an optional extra of a solar charger.
That means word processing, video conferencing, web browsing and yes, the ability to play Flash videos, games for less than the cost of the AppleCare warranty on an iPad (3 times less, if we're counting).
The Indian technology sector is developing a name for itself for throwing out the rule book when it comes to the cost of consumer technology. Witness the £1,900 Nano car from Tata and for roughly the same price, how's about open heart surgery.

The caveats? The device is still a prototype and the government is on the hunt for a manufacturer. Their aim is to have the tablet on-sale in 2011.
Finding a company to produce the device on what must be wafer-thin margins might be a challenge, although with a potential home market of 1bn people, there should be plenty of opportunity to make profit on volume sales.

Link to Chinwag blog posting

Link to Android Tablet forum including YouTube demo video

One of all time sporting idols Don Raul Gonzalez leaves R. Madrid after 15 glorious years

2010-07-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

Funny to think that for 2 weeks in a row I found myself writing about sports (as an spectator) and its influence on my life. Yesterday Mr. Raul Gonzalez, captain and Real Madrid player for the last 15 years announced that he is leaving the sporting club and will play his last 2/3 professional years in a foreign league, Germany at Schalke 04
For many of you who may not follow football or Real Madrid this may mean nothing. However for those football lovers (I don't even believe they need to be Real Madrid fans) Mr. Raul represent one of the se few players who stay on the club all their life and represent their values above all
For me Raul does and has represented many of the values that I respect and follow in life: passion, love for the shirt, professionality, commitmment, dedication
Obviously I will never forget his goals and the times that I jumped from my sit to celebrate them. Funny enough even if I like football since I was a kid I was much more of a basketball fun (specially when talking about Real MAdrid). However as I spent many years abroad, watching Real Madrid on the TV was many timse how I did re-connect with my country and Raul is in most if not all of those memories from Brazil, UK, Czech Republic, South Africa, etc... he will be part of my 20-35 life memories for sure

Link to MArca TV Video tribute to Raul career and goals
uff difficult to contain tears when reviving so many memories of joy

I remember how I did "strike" from the national team on the Euro 2008 (When we won!!!) as the national coach decided to not pick him even if he had been the second highest scorer of the League. For someone who did give so much for his country I am so sad he was not part of the 2008 and/or2010 national team achievements

I did join the entire Bernabeu each time when during the 2007/08 league he did score and we all shout "Raul Seleccion" (Raul national team) and "El 7 de Espana" (Spain's #7).

I remember how during your last 3 years I kept betting with my friend and another truly madridista Fran Gonzalez that you will score at least 15 goals and how you did each year except this last one. And how I felt that maybe it was better to not wait to buy a little key chain with the Real Madrid shirt, your number 7 and your name this year at the Real Madrid shop

A legend and an example of "madridista" leaves. Raul enjoy to the fullest your last 2 years and please come back. The biggest of this sport have only a place in this world and that is Real Madrid

See you soon (and I guess I will have to start watching now the German League)

Thoughts while flying Tablets + Mobile Operators role?

2010-07-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

I was just reading Wired magazine (July UK edition) and I run into a print add of the dell streak tablet advertised jointly between carphone warehouse + o2

It raises the question (in my mind) of what should be mobile operators approach to tablets? Taking into account that most of small countries mobile operators (aka like Lithuania and Latvia) will never be on the radar screen of Apple (and 90% of our users can’t afford an iPAd nor they may not have a reason why), should we mobile operators offer other alternatives, mostly around Android based devices and also create a local (language and topics/themes) android ecosystem around smartphones and tablets, which are in my opinion about to exploit in Eastern Europe ?

will love to hear from you

Bite keeps progressing on their network modernization and the bloggers are keeping up to date

2010-07-19T01:27:00.000-07:00

And we have some bloggers closely following up the action, as you may see the latest arrival of Huawei's shipment and some pics on the warehouse action by krizdabz, whom is one of the top internet bloggers in Latvia

Link to krizdabz post on Bite Latvia Network Modernization evolution

The feeling of having my country SPAIN being World Champion

2010-07-14T07:42:00.001-07:00

I still remember being in the streets of France during the past world cup in Germany after France and Portugal just made it to the semifinals. Lots of people in the streets of Paris (there is a large Portuguese colony in Paris) celebrating, just happy to be from their country and what their football team has achieved
I remember sending then an sms to 2 of my best friends (Philippe and Fran) telling them that "...one day the streets of Madrid will be having such celebration"
True that months later Spain become basketball world champion in Japan and we had a similar celebration but being basketball Spain's second most popular sport and probably also the world's second, it is not the World Cup, aka the football one

Little I knew that only 4 years later Spain will be World Champ. Yes not only we did pass the quarterfinals, our biggest enemy until date, not only we beat Germany on probably our best game and against probably the team that played best football on the world cup, but we WON THE FINAL
On this opportunity as with most of Spain greatest achievements in different sports in the past 4 years I was in a foreign country. So the celebration is mostly personal (apart from sharing it with Andrea and a couple of Lithuanian friends that were supporting Spain also)
I jumped after the goal, I screamed and I look at the sky. The last 2 minutes I was in my knees, all those previous defeats were on my head, I remember almost each of them since I was a child (the penalty from Eloy at Mexico 86, Raul injured in Korea and the ref invalidating 2 legal goals, and so for so on) but now tears (or cold sweat?) were there, and a feeling of great joy, of achievement or national pride. I knew that many years from now I will always remember where I was that day that Spain won the World Cup

I sent SMS to many many people, I responded to tons of friends' that send me congratulations messages (thank thank very much to all of you)and I did enjoy immensely seeing Iker Casillas, our great captain, raising the World Cup, an image I have many times envisioned on my head but never pictured me in Vilnius (Lithuania) happening like this
I have been wearing the Spanish National Team shirt (old one because the new one has now ONE start of World Champ :-) and the Spanish Flag around my neck for the last 2 days. I will keep celebrating and enjoying for a long time, the feeling of joy does not leave you

As my very good Brazilan friend Gustavo Fonseca says, "...enjoy it because it does not happen very often. I was born after 1970 so I missed Pele's 3 titles, so I waited 21 years for Brazil to win (and not only that but Argentina won 2 titles in the meantime). We won it twice but we never played as Spain did this time. Spain has revived the dogma that you need to play well (not pretty but well) to win the World Cup".

So here we are ready to enjoy for a long time (and hoping that the basketball team will win again the world champ in Turkey in September :-)

And singing "La copa ya esta aqui, la copa esta en Madrid" (The cup is already here, the cup is in Madrid) and ready to buy my new Spanish National team shirt that will have from now on and forever at least one star of World Champ

Thank you for this great memory for life

WOW: Bite (Latvia) flashmob among top 15 worldwide

2010-07-13T14:31:00.001-07:00

The joy of the day – accidentally via Twitter we found out that our flashmob from last year - featuring 1st Flash Mob Folk Dance in one of Riga's main squares - has been rated among top 15 worldwide by social media geeks Mashable!

A flash mob is defined by Wikipedia as “a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse.”Social media has greatly aided the organization of such events, and proof of their existence has been caught on camera only to go viral online via sites like youtube

The background of this was that it was also our own little present to Riga, and it was done in times of crisis to spread the joy and making Latvians a bit proud of the nation they belong to

Link to YouTube's flash mob video

Also I love some of the comments from YouTube users:

Fantastic! Best Flash Mob ever, more please
If only politics was this good in Latvia
I love this so much -- all the boring dances I was forced to learn as a kid -- and now I see people actually enjoying them in the way they were meant to be performed... spontaneously and joyously

BIte modernization nice printed mention

2010-06-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

New Android Tablets coming up: time to start testing devices, thus first testing impressions

2010-06-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

Probably since the WMC this past February there has been as much talk around the Ipad as it was around all other device manufacturers, from mobile phones (&network vendors) ones to PC and even some start-ups, working on creating different tablet concepts all running Google's android platform as OS

It is good to read several ZDNet articles on the topic
Link to ZDNet's Android tablet army starts to form), which clearly puts it "The big difference with the Android tablet army is that the Apple iPad doesn’t have much of a head start..." as it did on the case on the iPhone. Get used to this ideas as many of these tablets will be “...poor man’s iPads” on deck. Note these devices won’t be iPad killers or anything, but Apple legitimized the tablet form factor and the followers are lining up. There will be multiple Android tablets waiting in the wings". Price point seems to be around 199 USD (150 Eur) and I am sure that a number of mobile operators will subsidize the unit price around 12 to 18 months contracts

For an end subscribers I still remain a bit skeptical, in fact I think that I could share some of ZDNet blogger Christopher Dawso, Would I buy an Android Tablet?

But let's look at some of my impressions testing one of the upcoming devices (Huawei S7 Tablet, which it seems will be available in Australia by year end, and is already available for pre-order at Expansys websites in UK and US

In terms of weight and size (screen) I believe that most of the units coming from the mobile phone manufacturers will share (at least initially) a 7 inches screen and weight around 350-450 g. (see also Samsung tablet rumors http://www.androidjunkies.com/index.php/2010/06/14/new-details-leak-on-samsung%E2%80%99s-first-android-tablet/).The S7 has a 7-inch WVGA 800 x 480 resolution and weight around 470 g.
These units need to have Android 2.2. I tested my unit with 2.1. It was good enough, but we need an excellent experience to make users go here. 2.1 is sufficient for an smartphone but slow for a tablet (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/android-22-froyo-is-fast-and-flashy/2096?tag=mantle_skin;content), and it does not support flash on websites (which is a key to differentiate on this matter vs. iPad)
As of today, market apps are not ready for these tablets. I try to download many apps and mostly were not available for this device or were far from being optimized
Connectivity was very good, although sometimes I had difficulties on automatic mode and have to find the network manually. Furthermore embedded modem was 7.2 (not good enough as our network is today already on 21) but it gave a very good browsing experience and was streaming youtube without issues

UPDATE: there is a youtube video of Huawei demo of the device in Q1
Link to YouTube video on Huawei S7)

Overall it was a good start. Android 2.2. should be a powerful OS for tablets and I see lots of people wanting to have this type of device and the iPad not being an option for them. What I still struggle is seeing many people taking this device instead of their laptop when traveling. For me it has become something I bring when going for a coffee out (together with my blackberry) or to surf when in bed. For web browsing and email the 7' inch screen is great and also makes the unit fit into my coat pockets. I also believe in using skype with the front camera for video calls (which I will not do with my BB, but I do lots with my laptop)
However if I were to read a book here (which people seem to be taking this habit on the iPad) I don't think I will last long. However Android is still to take the ebook challenge as part of their areas of focus

There will be much more in the future

Not all feedback on Ipad from me is negative - 'He was wrong about the Ipad and he admits it"

2010-06-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

I did buy an iPAd when I was in the US in april for my good friend and former colleague at Bite Group Manju Kesani Manju Linkedin Profile
All I asked him in return (being a super geek guy) was a in depth review on the iPAD. And he has way deliver on my expectations. He was negative before testing the product, but now he is a convert :-) On my side, I am playing with a "rival" tablet that I believe does address some of the current iPAD gaps. In the mean time, please read Manju's assessment. Really interesting one

Manju wrote "I’ve been a gadget guy for a long time. Any new gadget that comes out, I have to test and play with. Usually own.   Having tested almost every smart phone and innovative mobile device in the last two years, I tend to be very opinionated and a harsh critic. This is why when the iPad was first announced, I like many people (including Cristobal), jumped on the bandwagon and became a “doomsayer”, prophesizing the impending demise of this product and potentially Apple itself in the long run…all without even touching the device. I questioned how many times a single company can keep creating revolutionary devices that change the way we do things? Surely they must fail at some point…and the iPad felt like it may be it. Like many,

I reasoned that the backlit screen, weight and battery life should clearly make it inferior to my Kindle for reading books. And, the lack of a keyboard should make it inferior to my Mac for surfing, word processing or almost anything else. For the first time I can remember, I really had no desire to own a new gadget.
But, when Cristobal was kind enough to offer to bring me an iPad from the US, my gadget obsession got the better of me and I bought one. 32GB WiFi model (3G model had yet to be released at the time). Living in Lithuania, without ubiquitous WiFi access, I quickly realized that WiFi only was very limiting. I wanted to use my iPad everywhere, just like I use my laptop, for which I have a Vodafone Mobile Connect mobile broadband card). After doing a bit of research, I quickly realized that I could turn several of my phones into mobile WiFi hotspots, using the 3G network and the SIM card from my VMC card. I currently use both an HTC HD2 and a Nokia E71 as mobile hotspots (Note: the E71 required a 7 piece of software called Joikuspot Premium – which I can easily recommend). Now that this problem was solved, and I could get both my Mac and iPad online simultaneously, I got on with seriously testing my iPad
My first reaction was surprisingly positive. I was impressed with the design, interface and functionality but I was (and still am) disappointed with weight (its a bit too heavy) and the difficulty this creates in holding the device for long periods of time. All in all though, I find myself spending more and more time with my iPad. To my own surprise it has replaced both my Kindle and Mac for most day-to-day functions. The small size, ease of use and always-on functionality makes me want to take it with me almost everywhere.
So what do I do with my iPad everyday?
1.   Surf: The iPad has become my preferred internet surfing device. Whether I’m laying in bed, sitting on the couch or sitting in a café. It really is a convenient way to peruse the web
2.   Read the Newspaper: I love reading the Financial Times on the iPad, using the FT app. Yes, FT is expensive, and has many VERY annoying limitations (like the inability to share articles with your friends). But, the fact remains that it is a great way to read the newspaper without getting out of bed in the morning 
3.   Stay Up-to-date with:
a.   the Markets: The Bloomberg iPad app is great. It gives me the latest business/market news, currency and stock quotes with a simple, great user interface.
b.   Twitter: I don’t tweet a lot, but I do follow a number of people/companies on twitter that enrich my life and give me a information which I would not have otherwise gotten. The twiteriffic app is perfect for this.
4.   Read Books: I love reading, and the iPad gives me a new way to read my Kindle books using the Kindle iPad app. While still nowhere near as convenient as my Kindle, the ability to allow me to mult-task on one device more than makes up for its deficiencies as a reader. Also, it’s nice to read and see pics in color. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, apps like Stanza, iBooks, BN reader and Zinio all give me additional ways of getting and viewing content on my iPad. I’m no longer linked to one source for all my reading material. Sorry Amazon.
5.   Take Notes: I love using Evernote…on all my applications (blackberry, Mac, pc and now iPad). I like taking notes and always having my notes with me. In fact, I’ve used a Tablet PC for almost 6 years now. The iPad+Evernote has effectively replaced my Lenovo Tablet PC + Microsoft One Note.
But there are still drawbacks…
1.   The iPad is a little too heavy to be comfortable holding for long periods of time and a bit slippery (perhaps the design is a little too slick). I live in constant fear of it slipping out of my hands and watching the beautiful display smash into a thousand pieces.
2.   I agree with Cristobal, from time to time I experience some WiFi issues. The handover and searching for networks isn’t as smooth as I would expect. This is not too big a problem, and I’m sure that a future software upgrade will fix this.
3.   The lack of support for flash videos is incredibly annoying. My primary internet device cannot play many of the videos on the web. Either Apple will have to start supporting flash, or the whole web will need to change. I’m betting on the latter.
4.   Where is the front facing camera? I’m disappointed that its not included in the iPad, while the recently announce iPhone 4 will have this functionality.
5.   Price…like it or not, it is still a bit too expensive
Conclusion
I love my iPad. Its become an indispensible part of my life for all the reasons I mentioned above. But, for me, most importantly, the iPad has given me a view on the future and two very important trends:
1. The browser is no longer my primary window to the internet. My guess is that more and more over time, we will not be reaching for Explorer, Firefox, Safari or Chrome to access the internet. We’ll be reaching for custom purpose built apps. Mobile apps are going to continue to grow in leaps and bounds.
2. Content is evolving from a static form to a more dynamic/interactive form. The Kindle was revolutionary for its time…it became an iPod for your books. The Kindle took heavy books, and moved them to a convenient electronic format. The iPad has gone much much further, it is changing the way content itself is presented. For those of you with doubts, check out these three apps (which are really books/magazines disguised as apps):
a.   The Elements: A lot has been said/written about this already. It truly is amazing
b.   Wired Magazine: Mags are evolving and Wired was the first one to realize it.
c.   Alice: Two guys and a vision of taking a classic book and making it more interactive. They were right it worked.
While these apps are still first generation, and have significant room for improvement, you’ll probably begin to see how content will evolve in the future.

Why I decided not to use facebook (at least for the time being)?

2010-06-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

I joined facebook about 3 years ago. I did it because everyone kept talking about it and it was also becoming a mobile web phenomenon.
Being an executive in the mobile industry and a former CEO and investor of a mobile content/platform company, I could not use/try/understand how facebook was being used. WIth time I did use it more and more, have more than 300 friends, posted about 200 pictures and at least 4-6 updates a week

On this point, I recommend you to read the last issue of Time magazine (may 31st 2010, vol. 175). There is a very good editorial article on facebook and also a very good commentary from Steven Johnson on his own choices on facebook usage. He does also introduced a movie/documentary I saw recently "we live in public" on late 1990 Internet tycoon Josh Harris (really recommended)). It does nothing to support or not support my thesis but it gives you lots of arguments on both sides on choices ahead. BTW found fascinating the reference to Zuckerberg's Law (Facebook CEO) that each year we will share twice as
much information as we did the year before

Suddenly after my good friend and former mmCHANNEL and Vodafone Colleague Damien Saunders decided to quit facebook (and just focus mostly on twitter and his blog)
I did my own examination on facebook usage.

Privacy (the most spoken topic about the danger on facebook) was not a concern as I have self-imposed a number of rules
on what I post and what I don't (which I can tell people should re-think a bit on this one). My key issue is that a lot of people is substituting the email and phone
communication (and in some cases blogging) for facebook. Yes it is real time, but in the majority of the cases it is short, impersonal, almost effortless. And for me friendships and strong professional ties have comed by investing heavilty (time and emotionally) on those relationships. IN fact the people who really invested time on
my facebook communication (through messages and not just comments and like/dislike) will easily transfer those skills into email. Furthermore I could use my facebook time for my blog, email communication, calling friends

So what I decide to do? I did delete all my pictures, and shut down the email notification and reduce my profile to a minimum. I will decide in the future If I truly delete the profile. I send messages
to those good "facebook" only friends to move to email, phone and blogging (will keep using twitter and linkedin) and start this experiment
This week I bother to send those pictures that I thought special to the people that will mean most (mostly Blackberry pictures using my email fucntion on share/send to) and I usually got a nice email back with comments or messages. Even so I will need to think if I want to maybe start using picassa or something similar for photo uploading (as the blog does only allow oen picture per text
And I feel I am using time for something else and not feeling OUT of the communication loop or the facebook so called ALWAYS ON stardom :-)

Will keep reporting on how does it feel so far

PS I know many of you, my friends and family love using facebook. I have nothing to say about this and I have no intention to have any influence on people usage
My only aim is about how do I coomunicate with my people and the choices I made when dealing with them

Bite keep adding "real" benefits to our internet customers: triple our maximum speed

2010-05-14T01:25:00.000-07:00

Telecommunications company Bite Lietuva is to increase the maximum connection speed of its mobile internet three times, from 7.2 Mb/sec to 21 Mb/sec. According to the company, the new mobile internet speed and new modems will be introduced to Vodafone Mobile Connect clients in July. Bite says that data transmission speed will go up almost four times.

Read the entire press announcement on Delfi (in LIthuanian)

More on the iPAD: time to laugh

2010-05-05T13:14:00.001-07:00

Yes, I am bias but you have to admit this is funny

Mobile Broadband across the Ocean – Notes from my trip

2010-05-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

I have spent a little bit less than a week on the US and I have tried as usual  to try to be quite observant of mobile usage ecosystem, from people handsets to shops, commercial and the impact of the app world on daily life.
I come to 2 observations through the trip Android vs. iPhone penetration and then also on speeds on experienced broadband and mobile broadband (US vs. Europe)

- Even if the numbers suggest that Android is growing rapidly on market share on the US, to the point that it may pass i-Phone very soon (see AdMob Mobile OS penetration in the US Q1 2010 figures), I did not see very many people using them the way I see people using the iPhone, aka as part of a new way of connected life and usage, from watching a baseball match live on the iPhone to a jazz fest app to follow all events around the jazz fest at NOLA.
This is even more interesting as AT&T is still the only operator selling the iPhone and the other operators have had to find commercial alternatives to the iPhone marketing push (most interesting one in my opinion have been Motorola and Verizon conducting a US$100m launch campaign around the Motorola Droid handset in Sep-Nov 2009, the Google released spoken word turn-by-turn navigation in the US only for free to coincide with the Droid launch – the ‘killer app’ that no other SP has, and Google launched their own Nexus One (built by HTC) in early January 2010 via on-line store and promoted this via links on various Google web assets)
- US Mobile broadband (and fixed broadband for that matter) trail in terms of coverage and speed in comparison with Europe (both western and CEE)
I am always amazed at how important is still network coverage on the ATL advertising from mobile operators. Both AT&T (“Fastest 3G network”) and Verizon (“largest and most reliable 3G coverage”) run ongoing network campaigns constantly
On this matter while putting so much emphasis on the network, it was almost impossible for me to reach 3G connectivity either on my Blackberry or my Laptop (using an HP Tablet EliteBook with embedded modem) neither in NOLA, Houston or Chicago (at airports, hotels, Coffee shops,…), having to rely only on EDGE or having to find a WIFI option (and I can tell you that broadband speeds also trail behind European speeds by far, in fact the US is only placed 18th in the world in terms of average connection speed, see Broadband speeds in the US Q1 2010 figures and world wide comparison, article from Ars Technica).
Funny enough the moment I landed at the UK I could be connected on 3G / HSDPA almost constantly in London. Obviously at home in both Lithuania and Latvia this is not a problem having wide 3G/HSDPA coverage in all major cities and roads (we have the fast mobile broadband service in Lithuania with average speeds of 1Mb/s or above and improving dramatically in Latvia day by day)

Some more insights on the Ipad (II) and records sales to prove me wrong again?

2010-05-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

With the iPhone we witnessed an interesting twist on PR. Case in points was the usage of the iPhone on a completely different manner (and intensity) did start creating notable problems to mobile networks. The cases of AT&T in the US and O2 in the UK did get lots of coverage. This was mean to explain how superior was the iPhone and how people did change their usage patterns and how unprepared the industry was. While there is some truth on the latter I always wondered how efficient was the iPhone on using mobile networks and/or WIFI resources.

This come to my mind again as I read just weeks after the iPad launch about some universities were having their networks collapsing with the arrivals of the Ipads on Campus.

While I could see the tone of the article trying again to tell us that “the next revolution was here”, I could not stop wondering why all these students already having laptops for years and all of them connected mostly through WIFI never created such a problem and now maybe a hundred Ipad was doing so. It clearly raise a question about the technical development of the IP connectivity on the Ipad (and its quality).

Certainly the fact that the Israeli government or Princeton university has banned the iPad on claims confirm my assumption that there is a technical issue on the Ipad connectivity developments.

I found this explanation note on the matter quite illustrative and interesting. It also calls for patience as it is one detail to be improve in the near future with new software patches

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/0420/First-Israel-now-Princeton-University-bans-iPad

And also I have said so far about not liking the Ipad, you may said “hey Cristobal look at the sales figures

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/05/02/apples_ipad_3g_estimated_to_have_sold_300k_on_launch_weekend.html

Well the jury is out and I still bet than the Ipad will not be even half of the success record that the iPHONE has been (which you may say it is still not bad at all)

Some more insights on IPAD (I)

2010-05-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

Before I start I want you (I am sure you are aware of if you read my blog) that I am not a huge fan of Steve Jobs and the PR around his products (and how they change industries on the supposed benefit of the end customer), even if I recognized its overall quality product portfolio and have some used some of them (mainly its laptops) in the past.

This week while in the US I have bought an iPad as a request from a friend of mine which gave me a very good excuse to try the product extensively on the store (furthermore I will ask him to write an extensive review for me to publish here). Once more I was drawn to my initial conclusion. It is an expensive toy for browsing. I don’t believe it is seen as a tablet at all but just a browser and viewer. It is just a complement and not a supplement by all means.

It is a large iPhone (So the big question is if you need another bigger one? –if you already have an iPhone. AS a pure media consumption device),

where it can’t really replaced the usage of laptops (case in point they are already trying to sell the complementary keyboard (at a nice premium as usual is the case with all apple accessories), lacking external connectivity by all means (not even a USB port), it is not a light product and it is expensive as it just add to the bill not replacing any other purchase. And it keeps the idea on not having a method to replace the battery or carry an external one. On the positive note I did like the virtual keyboard on the screen (but it takes then half of the screen space) and the image quality is very good.

In my opinion, a MacAir with a tablet functionality while maintaining its current weight is much more of a “killer” product than this iPad

Mobile Broadband Market in CEE post for huge growth ? But contribution margin?

2010-04-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

Interesting article from Frost & Sullivan in terms of Mobile Broadband development in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region (the cover 5 countries Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Slovakia)

Frost and Sullivan full article

In their opinion and although CEE markets differ considerably in terms of mobile broadband penetration, technologies, and network coverage, the common point would be significant market growth expected within the next five years.

Frost & Sullivan notes that the market earned revenues of euro 1.1 billion in 2009 and forecasts this to reach euro 5.2 billion in 2014. The service penetration is expected to grow from 2 per cent to 10 per cent within the forecast period.

"Due to relatively low overall broadband penetration, mobile broadband will be a complementary rather than supplementary service to fixed broadband in CEE countries,"

"Therefore, mobile broadband operators should initially focus on improving the service quality through sufficient network upgrades as customers expect the same download speed and data download limits as from fixed broadband internet. ..."

"Most of the market participants start mobile broadband service development from large cities' centres, where they can count on relatively quick return on investment,"

"... growth potential will be mainly visible within rural areas, where overall broadband penetration remains relatively low. Therefore, focusing on this target group can be a worthwhile consideration,"

It is interesting the observations made by Frost & Sullivan, however while revenues are important, we believe that it misses the point on margin contribution. CEE and overall Eastern Europe is way more competitive in pricing than Western Europe, therefore the revenue per subscriber being much lower while the investments to reach those customers are very similar and yes their expectations in terms of quality provided are very high

So yes we need to combine both complementary and supplementary access, while optimizing our network cost, managing to off load traffic and not forgetting that a lot of the Mobile Broadband growth could come from the small screen and not the laptop....
...because another area that it is not mention but F&S is that laptop and PC penetration is lagging far behind western Europe and the crisis has basically kill the growth trend here. Many people may go for the SmartPhone instead of the Laptop

On this regards Pyramid research believes that PC penetration will grow quite dramatically (from 12% in 2004 to over 50% in 2014) as "...the European Economic Recovery Plan aims to boost investment in predefined strategic sectors, including by contributing to broadband network expansion in rural areas of EU member countries in CEE"

Pyramid Research full article

But again internet strategy (for the mobile phone, for the computer and for the business) is a clear growth area and where Mobile Operators needs to be more focused and creative and find their clear value proposition

Bite at Darom 2010 VIdeo: Bite is Green

2010-04-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Even if many of us are still not very familiar with Lithuanian, you will enjoy this video. As part of Darom 2010 project, we (more than 100 Bite employees) spend a good amount of hours cleaning one of Vilnius parks.
Darom is an organized effort to lead the social environmental through a clearing/cleaning event. AKA getting many of us to help clean our cities after the winter
We Bite see this as part of our social responsibility and not only for all of us to participate as employees but also for the second year in a row Bite contributed to Darom by:

Composing a Green Map
Letting our customers know that this is important and we want them to participate. We sent 1 million SMS to let them know
Giving free calls to the organizers
Sponsoring the thanksgiving concert on past Saturday

We enjoyed doing so and contributing to our Green Strategy and our vision of becoming the most environmentally friendly Telco company in the Baltics

Enjoy the video (where I am voice over on my interview :-)
Link to youtube video"

New duties, modernization and rumours

2010-04-18T07:58:00.000-07:00

Part of my duties during my first 90 days is apart from familiarizing with the team, our main issues and defining and sharing a vision is to get together to our main vendors and discussing with others on opportunities to modernize and upgrade our infrastructure

One of the key areas (as even today Network is the main driver of CAPEX and one of the largest OPEX drivers) is the network, where also the strong efforts from Chinese vendors to enter Europe and NA has created a new wave of competition and opportunities for Mobile Operators. I took te opportunity not only to do so at the local/regional level but also at the HQ level by meeting them in Barcelona during the past WMC (Feb. 2010)

Interesting to note how Mr. Juris Kaza, by far the most active and well informed blogger on the Baltics' Telco space, makes a note of this and his understanding / reading of the rumors (which we officially commented with our position as of Today)

Juris Kaza on Bite Network Upgrade"

Green Network Deployment & Management

2010-02-23T14:35:00.000-08:00

One of my objectives on taking over the network management at Bite is to manage to get our company as the most sustainable one in the Baltics and Scandinavia, both in terms of energy consumption, waste management and usage of alternative energy

Obviously all vendors are looking at these development across different MNOs and have understood that for these propositions to be successful there has to be a win / win, aka they have to have a positive impact on the operators results while helping the world one way or another

Extracting from Jupiter research study 'Green Mobile Networks & Base Stations: Strategies, Scenarios & Forecasts 2009-on this topic, "... the green mobile base stations report which utilised scenario-based models to derive estimates of base station power consumption, CO2 emissions and implied electricity costs, found that under the 'transformational model' – wherein operators invest substantially in power reduction in the base station, and place greater emphasis on addressing issues such as cooling, network planning and power management – total base station emissions would peak in 2010 and fall to 15.6Mt by 2014, achieving a 30% reduction”

A very simple view on 3 developments that help society in different ways is the following (off Grid population, bad access to grid population, good access)

- Off Grid population: today's there is millions and millions of people in the rural areas of Africa, India and Asia that are Off Grid. Obviously lack of access to electricity means lack of mobile access. If one thing is being proven in the last years is that mobile technology have had a positive impact on developing communities. Examples such as Telenor in Bangladesh or M-PESA in Kenia (Safaricom/Vodafone) are clear illustrations of that positive impact.

An interesting read on this topic is
www.thetimes100.co.uk/downloads/vodafone

On these cases, the development of "mostly" solar powered units allowing BTS to be where there was not a chance before is the first example of combining renewal energies + benefits for the society + benefit for the operator

We have seen some of these units deployed successfully in South Africa (both MTN & Vodacom)

- Bad Grid population - The need to use generators and the usage of Diesel (gas) to power them has been typical in those cases where electricity may come and go. Most of these BTS need at least 2 generators. If we take a combination of alternative energies + 1 generator (instead of 2) there has been cases were savings are up to 20k liters of gas a year

Once again clear gain for the operator (less OPEX) + less pollution + more reliability

India is a prime target to deploy many of these units and Vodafone has done so already in different pilots

- Good Grid - Here is where most of developed countries based operators are. Combining renewable energies BTS (solar + wind turbines) as one option, green oriented software (that is capable of managing emissions, switching off BTS when traffic is null) as another or the deployment of new equipment with radio links (making unnecessary the need for cabinets, therefore no need for Air Con thus less pollution (and aka less OPEX) are just examples on how quickly the equipment vendors + MNOs are realizing on the opportunity for them to combine OPEX reduction while being more responsible with the communities they live in

Will you as a consumer wanted to be associated with a mobile operator talking steps in this direction? Once more there is proof that green oriented operations could be a win / win proposition for all

Time to act

IPad - Who are you looking for? I don't think you know (II)- A netbook?

2010-02-01T13:32:00.000-08:00

If Mr. Jobs is going to insist that netbooks suck (Steve just remember there were 33 Million Netbooks sold in 2009, so I hope you are going o beat that eyes close) and iPads are better, you can't seriously expect people not to test that claim by comparing the two. You let's try on my side
I like how Adam Turner's on his column "Gadgets on the go" at the Sydney Herald Tribune put it
"...If I'm going to spend north of AU$650 (aka 500 USD, 400 Eur) on any product, I think I'm entitled to ask how it fits into my current computing environment. If I already own a smartphone and a desktop/notebook, I think I'm entitled to ask what problems a third computing device will solve and how its features will overlap with the devices I already have. I'm also entitled to ask what alternatives are available and how they measure up in terms of price, performance, features and usability...." I really love his assessment and I can most agree with all his points. Well Done Adam

So which needs are the ones that netbooks have tried to cover / satisfy? The segment of the market where surfing, reading, game playing and emailing dominate the usage model at a very affordable price and very easy to carry with you device

So why I think at least this version of the Ipad misses the point as an netbook

- Lack of Flash - For 400 Eur Mr Jobs and his boys have not been able to incorporate flash into their browser, have you folks realized that today you basically use Flash every single time you browse, Heavy Facebook users won't look so kindly on the iPad over a netbook once they realise the impact of losing Flash.
To spend that kind of money, the iPad has to be better than the iPhone - not just bigger. When previous Apple launches did put together a winner hardware / software combination, this time he is just creating another screen (bigger one) for the App Store

- Lack of powerful OS: I won't be the one saying the windows rurles but remember the Ipad does not carry a MAC OS, don't even dream you MAc LAptop user (and I am a very happy owner of a Mac Pro (formerly) and a Mac Air) will be able to do what you wanted. Just go to i-tunes :-)
So you can't really multitask. Do you imagine a young fella these days just doing one task for longer than 10 minutes? I don't. Remember how early netbooks where a real problem to people as they were SSD-equipped Linux-based netbooks ( they wouldn't run the apps that their larger, Windows-based notebooks would)
On the same note the device lacks a camera, so clearly Steve is not looking at today's netbook users generation

- Lack of Keyboard (physical)- Can you really type while surfing with this device on your lap - As my friend Jorge Mtnez. Arroyo did put it "...not being a "freaky" I really find it pretty useful for home for all family and at a reasonable price..., and that is what reallly matters...It makes internet really enjoyable to all". Well let's see how much you find the internet enjoyable (not your kids) when you don't have a physical keyboard and you sit with your computer on your lap (which is how I used my Air when in bed or the sofa, aka 80% of the time I am using my small laptop at home)

- Price - this is pure math, Ipad at 16 GB is 499 USD and at 32 USD will be at 599 USD, in average between 100-200 USD more expensive. Still here is where maybe the premium is not hard, well I mean is there is something beyond being cool that justifies that premium. So far I don't see it, but hey I got it wrong with the iPhone

Other points Mr. Jobs did use on this criticism (and praise for his Ipad) such as the screen,
,which yes it looks super sexy but as Mr. Tony Smith puts on his blog on Reg Hardware objectively iPad's 1024 x 768 display isn't so very much more spacious that a netbook's 1024 x 600 screen or the speed (Jobs "... netbooks are slow.."). In terms of the speed, yes the HDD processors are slow (and in fact more prone to data loss) so the SDD seems as a great alternative until SSD options max out with a measly 16GB of storage space… 1/10th of what is available for a netbook with a HDD

Ipad will kill the netbook - Veredict - Not your target either Mr. Jobs, even if you may convert some of those users as they earn more money and they get a nice laptop and want to have a 3rd screen to play with

Some other options on this matter that I did read and assess for this post:

Read full article from Adam Turnet on "Gadgets on the go"

Some good data points on Fortune (and quoting Deutche Bank Analysis note"

Tony Smith on Reg Hardware

Some humour around the IPad (sorry in Spanish)

2010-02-01T07:38:00.001-08:00

IPad - Who are you looking for? I don't think you know (I)

2010-01-28T13:14:00.000-08:00

I am sure most of you were expecting me to say something about the recently launch Ipad and probably you expected me not to be too enthusiastic about it

Well I may say that it was impossible for the IPad to meet expectations. There has been so much talk in the market, so much hype (most of it feed it from Apple) that no matter how amazing the product would have been it would not have meet expectations

Furthermore I don't think Apple has gotten this right. Don't get me wrong there is enough Apple fanatics and sexy gadget lovers that I am sure they will do well in sales at least on the first year. However if the Ipod and the Iphone did change their industry or even create a totally new segment, the IPad won't
The product tries to be too many products in one and fails to excel on any

Out of the 3 options they chase (e-reader, netbook and tablet), let me comment today on e-reader and the comparison with the Kindle:
Mr. Jobs was probably not too happy with Mr. Bezos reinventing an electronics field (vs. him doing so) as the Kindle is the first "real" successful e-reader. I believe the Kindle is still far from being a market segment "creator" but so far they have done well and their improvements over several devices says that they keep listening and learning
Amazon(.com) have focused on what matters for an e-reader and what many e-readers fail to capture in the past
- Great screen to read for a long period of time
- Long Battery
- Lightweight
- Easy to use and easy to download
- Right pricing (not being too expensive so people will be willing to try)
- Great collection
Just analyzed the Ipad against on some of those key pillars (sexy screen but not good for continuous reading (are books printed in colour?), only 6 hours battery (you can't even read one whole book on that time), heavier and too expensive to try "just" as an e-reader and you will see Ipad will be far from killing the Kindle and dominate or re-invent this space

I could not disagree more with Ben Elowitz writing on Techcrunch about Top 10 Reasons The Apple iPad Will Put Amazon’s Kindle Out of Business (just check the comments on the article to see that I am not alone on this assessment). And I love one of the comments "...but this device is not made for real ebook readers, its really made for fanboys, that want others to think they read"

More tomorrow: Ipad as a netbook, Ipad as a tablet

Total Telecom Coverage: mmCHANNEL launches its own B2B API

2010-01-27T10:23:00.001-08:00

We have just got some coverage on Total Telecom Website, really exciting stuff
Read full article on Total Telecom

mmCHANNEL just launched our own API that allows to build your digital entertainment store and it provides a zero cost deployment solution so no new platforms or costly migrations

Visit our special website

Transitioning at work? New role, new organization, new peers? Read these books and shape your strategy

2010-01-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

I have been through different transitions on my professional life. New countries, new clients, new company, new roles… I have always approached them with optimism, passion, open eyes and high expectations. As you grow into more senior roles you start understanding first that the initial days (the famous 90 or 100 days) are critical into the job (more in my opinion in corporations than startups) and that there are a number of personal experiences that have worked for you in the past that may guide you. However I also realized that your personal managerial recipe that worked in your previous role may not work (or not fully) in your next one.

So I was eager to do some reading on the subject and structure my thoughts a little bit. After some research I landed on 2 books from Michael D. Watkins
Read Michael's profile on linkedin

His original book and claim to fame “Your first 90 days” – Critical Success Strategies for new leaders at all levels
Book reference in amazon.com

- His latest book on the subject “Your next move” – The leader’s guide to navigating major career transitions
Book reference in amazon.com

I am not going to try to summarize them but I can recommend their reading very strongly. I read first your next move where Michael tries to qualify the differences in the different types of moves (promotion challenge, leading-former-peers challenge, on-boarding challenge, international challenge and the realignment challenge). He uses examples of real life cases across different industries, both successes and failures which allow you to get closer to the examples and think about what you will do in such roles

On your first 90 days, he tries first to make a clear differentiation on his STAR framework (basically making a clear difference on when you join / transition into a startup, turnaround, alignment or sustaining success) as the way in which you make decisions, your define objectives, you balance listening vs. doing and overall expectations on your first 90 days are very different across those 4 scenarios

I found some of the exercises and some of the frameworks very useful on structuring your thoughts and strategies. Even if there was some ideas clear in my mind (do lots of listening, don’t come with recommendations too early, secure early wins, have a plan after 30 days, etc…) it was good to added a second level of detail or understanding on them and learn different tricks

For executives facing one of those transitions, for executive coaches involved on coaching similar situations, for managers trying to incorporate more skills into their playbook this is a MUST read

A great article (INC. magazine) and after thoughts: When and How to micromanage

2010-01-15T14:47:00.000-08:00

A while ago (probably almost 2 years) I wrote about how I found a magazine that could cover on my reading habits the departure (Closure) of Business 2.0, Inc. magazine. Unfortunately the magazine only gets print in the US, so I only get to read it 3 or 4 times a year (when I go or when someone from there bring it to me)
So I was reading the December/January number and this article caught my attention When and How to micromanage by columnist Joel Spolsky is the co-founder and CEO of Fog Creek Software in New York City, and the host of the popular and influential blog Joel on Software.

This is the part that got stuck on my head and I did underline it to write about

"...Doesn't micromanagement turn smart people into robots?

Yes, maybe. But here's my new theory: At the top of every company, there's at least one person who really cares and really wants the product and the customer experience to be great. That's you, and me, and Ryan. Below that person, there are layers of people, many of whom are equally dedicated and equally talented.

But at some point as you work your way through an organization, you find pockets of people who don't care that much. For them, it's a job. They just want to get through the day and don't find it upsetting that ...... (something important in your business not working right now) . If you're lucky, none of those people are employed by your company. But the minute you begin to rely on outside vendors, you expose yourself to their people, some of whom inevitably just won't care enough or know enough or have the right skills to deliver the awesome experience you're trying to deliver."

I believe all entrepreneurs (past, present and future) are left with this problem. The more successful we become usually the larger our organizations (or relaying on vendors) and the more likely the problem is to appear.

So is the solution micromanagement? Probably for key aspects or key moments of a week, a month or a sales-cycle the answer is YES. The good news, if you have done good recruiting and you are lucky (because you need luck), somebody in your team understand as well as you the importance of that particular event and he or she is micromanaging it as we speak

Read Joel's ful article on INC.com here

Ciao

CAM

Next wave in Smartphones: Google's Nexus and RIm's new devices

2010-01-14T15:30:00.000-08:00

I have several topics to cover in the coming days as I have been out for a while. but after having had the chance to use the latest 2 RIM's devices (Curve and Bold) and having today played with Googgle / HTC Nexus I thought I will voice my opinion and put some interesting links to several analysis over the Nexus (mostly from the US)

Let's start first with the least exciting but always improving RIM devices as I have been using the Curve 8520 and the Bold 9700 in the past 2 months. Both the new Bold and the new Curve do come using the new device design started by the initial Bold (and then the Storm) but on a much lighter from (mainly the bold as the curve is very similar to the 8310). Both are very attractive, good quality screen, good keyboard (although I found the bold one a bit more responsive and fast). However I did have trouble integrating gmail over the Curve and the speed and the OS responsiveness on Curve was not great. The Bold (which I may say used integrated with normal BB email) does work beautifully and gives a good performance. While the curve uses one of the 2 standard batteries used by RIM lately the RIM boys have decided to keep destroying the environment and our pockets by designing a new battery for the Bold. However and on their benefit I may say that the new battery gives a much better performance
The BB app store is still on its infancy and clearly RIM is not getting much traction on this area. They be thinking on dedicating real brain power to how to push this area and its ecosystem. Overall good upgrades on the RIM portfolio and it you are thinking about a change from your BB today, I will go for the Bold 9700

Google (HTC) Nexus: As you may remember and before going back to the BB I was using HTC Magic with Android. I ws quite happy about the device. However with Nexus, the HTC boys on the hardware side and google on the software side have done an excellent job. Somehow some technical info on the HTC Nexus. The HTC-built and (soon to be) Google-sold device runs Android 2.1 atop a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, a 3.7-inch, 480 x 800 display, has 512MB of ROM, 512MB of RAM, and a 4GB microSD card (expandable to 32GB). The phone includes the standard modern additions of a light sensor, proximity sensor, and accelerometer. The Nexus One has a 5 megapixel camera (way better than the iPhone or the RIM ones) with LED flash, and we have to say so far the pictures it snaps look pretty decent (and the camera software is much faster than the same component on the Droid).
I like the form factor. A bit taller than other devices, the display is large (very) and crispy. The software and OS performance is impressive and extremely quick (as much or more than the iPHONE). Finally something were they have really improve from the Magic is on the tactil Keyboard. Kudos here
So the battle is on. Clearly the Google label and the push in Europe by initially Vodafone is going to make this phone on my opinion this year's best seller. With this and the other android additions the scale is here for the apps on google to start battling Apple app store

A couple of links worth your attention if you want more info on the Nexus:

Engadget Blog on Nexus Google (HTC)

WJS WALTER S. MOSSBERG Blog on Nexus Google (HTC)

Reflections on the year that went by and welcome 2010

2010-01-02T20:33:00.000-08:00

Clearly, it has not been an easy year for anybody. The truth is that everyone of us has had a rough year, but when you look around the team and see what we have managed to achieve during the year and how exciting 2010 looks like, we can all say we have put in a good years’ hard work.

2009 brought us some new faces, but also we said goodbye to some good people who went on different paths having been instrumental on our company development in the last years. It has been very exciting to land in South Africa and we have become almost locals now. And what can we say about our eagles flying high in Albania? And Slovenia, Turkey, Spain… And let’s not forget that we have strengthened our alliances and made some new partnerships: UK, Spain, Macedonia, South Africa, …

2010? More of South Africa, Mobile Social Media, building interactions on web & mobile, open APIs, advergaming and applications, 3D Goals and football-related content all over the place and new countries to discover and explore. What could Nigeria, UK, Macedonia or USA have in common in 2010? Maybe that mmCHANNEL will make its mark there this coming year? We all hope so!

In the meantime and more importantly we wish health, happiness and joy for you and your families and success and excitement to you and your organizations. We thank you for being there for us in 2009 and we trust that mmCHANNEL will be present one way or another on your horizon next year.

Happy New Year and welcome 2010!!! We can’t wait for you to start working this year

350 Million users - Enough for facebook to make money?

2009-12-08T18:40:00.000-08:00

Part 1
I attended last Friday an event in London from NMA (New Media Age) Magazine, "Marketing to young people through social media" http://www.nmalive.co.uk/, where among other interesting speakers was David Parfect, agency sales group head from Facebook

See David's profile on Linkedin

First It was interesting to have a good glance at the latest metrics from facebook (mostly focus on the UK market) and find out facts such as:

there are 23 million active users in the UK (350 Million worldwide)
During the last year the average time spent on the site (25 minutes per day) has almost triple and now doubles the time people spend in MySpace (BTW lots of discussion around about if MySpace is dead or is not) or Bebo and finally
the largest segment is the 25-34 years old, with the 15-24 just 1% behind
and 83% of the 15-25 years old segment perfers to use facebook more than email to communicate

The rest of David presentation focus on the different tools out there in facebook (and they are in the process to rol out a number of new ones in the coming months) to allow companies and advertising agencies to develop interactive campaigns in order to become a real advertising preferred channel
Will that be enough to be profitable?

Part 2

Well let's listen first to the opinion of John Naughton, from the Observer, on an article that he published this past sunday which I found very relevant and containing some interesting and documented opinions on his side "Facebook now has 350m users - and there's no point in advertising to them"
Some excerpts from his article(

Read John's full article on The Observer

"...But even Zuckerberg must be wondering how he can monetise the little darlings (referring to their 350 million users)...It can't go on like this, can it? The software-engineering and server-farm infrastructure needed to support 350 million users burns money, and so does the bandwidth they use"

"...Facebook is the most glaring example of an unsolved puzzle: how to convert social networking into a sustainable business. Twitter, the micro-blogging service that is now in a runaway growth phase, poses the same puzzle....The truth is that investing in social networking represents the triumph of hope over experience"
"The conventional wisdom used to be that the key to online revenues was advertising.... Google is a special case because it specialises in search, the only area where online advertising really works....Everyone who uses the web has experience of the ineffectiveness of online advertising"
The inescapable conclusion is that anyone who thinks advertising is the key to sustainable online businesses in any field other than search should think again.

Clearly John does not think facebook is going to be making much money in the coming year

So where do you think lies the answer? David, John,...

Part 3

My opinion is that indeed just traditional online advertising is not how facebook is going to make money. However John fails to see that facebook is not really trying to focus on traditional online advertising but on interactive advertising
There are 2 areas where I think facebook can make money:
- Online: their rankings, third party develop applications and companies running interactive campaigns (rankings, competitions, multiplayer games,...) in facebook can really boost their revenue. This is today's facebook focus, however the big question is how well they are executing and how fast can they go, as there are other companies battling their space
- Mobile: with the arrival of smartphones a lot of interactions, engagement and conversations can happen on their mobile. However it is quite amazing I have failed to hear from facebook a clear strategy around mobile

So I believe facebook can make money, probably even lots of money.
However I remain skeptical on their execution capabilities and mobile strategy

More to come and will love to hear your opinion

Gazing into 2010 (I)

2009-11-29T15:04:00.001-08:00

Imagine Steve, Bill, Google Boys, Warren (Buffet) and myself get together to chat about 2010 and the Telco space. Warren is not really in the mood for TMT investments but he is listening. Bill believes that Windows will finally make a play in the mobile space with their first good mobile product Windows Mobile 7.0. The rest smile and say to him good luck because being good most of your handset suppliers like HTC are now with the Google Boys and Android.
Google boys look puzzled but excited. They brought to the chat more than 50 devices with Android for 2010. However not enough apps and transactions yet (why is Steve managing to do just with one device?) and it is still unclear how long it will take for mobile advertising to become a reality. There is still not enough money on mobile search, “… no worries we just bought AdMob and there is lots of room for smaller companies to play on this space and find interesting niches and then we will buy them. How many companies will they buy in 2010?
Warren is observing the Advercontent (advertising based games and applications) space, but just watching and learning and maybe China, India, Brazil and South Africa is where real scale will happen for this (pair with finally fast enough networks and accessible medium end handsets, we can see the big smiles on Huawei and ZTE fellas). The internet boys don’t make any money on social media but he does believe mobile in these territories may be the place to monetize social media (content, analytics, location based). He also took several calls to listen to some interesting ventures on m-payments and micro-transactions in Africa and the Middle East. Hmmmmm
Why we did not invite Nokia to the meeting? They are too busy sorting out their house. It is true, first they shout OVI for president, now Symbian is not good enough, and now instead of embracing Android or buying Palm OS you are going to create another Linux based OS!!! Now we start understanding why they did not come today or they are not going to WMC 2010
Hey the RIM boys got to the meeting late. The rest has already divided the mass market application space between them and some upcoming startups. However vertical oriented apps is going to be an upcoming segment and the blackberry device is king here. Can their OS and their app store be a business oriented apps thriving space and take upcoming tech young companies on the ride. Warren is listening and nods
Where is Steve? Did he leave to launch another apple phone (model) or they were just getting ready to open up the app store next year. We agree on gave him the 2009 champion, will he win again in 2010?
As we were walking out the room, Warren said what about the operators? I said we need together again for lunch to analyze that one

Sad things happen when you see what is considered innovation (From Enrique Dans blog on "Promusicae y el uso del dinero público")

2009-11-20T02:30:00.000-08:00

Many of you may or may not know that there a number of options by the State in Spain to have access to public funding for innovative projects
In the past we have been trying to obtain such help and we have been finally lucky on obtaining some help
However it is amazing to see that on the "Plan Avanza", probably the most ambitious of the plans launched by the goverment, in which we invested quite a bit of time and resources to submit our application and were turned down because we were not innovative
When I read Enrique Dans Blog and see that a public association has gotten 1 Million Eur to develop a solution that mmCHANNEL and another handful of companies in Spain already have and that adds no value to the end user, one wonders
"Promusicae y el uso del dinero público". Si, el Estado es muy "sensible" a los lobbies de poder http://bit.ly/TzUkW

Social Media African Way - AKA Mobile, UGC and Local - Special AfricaComm 2009

2009-11-08T11:24:00.000-08:00

The number of South Africans who use their cell phones to access the internet now exceeds the number of those who rely on traditional desktop means of connecting to the World Wide Web. This is a trend that we seen very much across the entire African continent—PC and broadband penetration rates are very low while mobile penetration keeps growing.

In Opera Software's October 2008 edition of the State of the Mobile Web report, South Africa ranks 6th and Egypt ranks 8th in the global Top 10 for mobile internet usage, ahead of many Western countries. Today almost 29% of South Africans use mobile UGC services/content on a daily basis and by the end of 2013, the total South African mobile UGC revenue will reach a total of $476 million (JBB Research).

The mmCHANNEL team believes that the African social media scene will continue be mobile with the PC acting as a complement for only a small minority of the population. Which companies are leading the way? Although Facebook is the most popular mobile South African site today (case in point for other African countries population penetration of Facebook is 1,5% in Egypt, 0,17% in Nigeria to name a few (Unanimis March 2009), two local names MXit and The Grid have become a driving force for the South African mobile UGC services market today

MXit, which stands for message exchange, provides a free instant messaging application for both computers and mobile phones. It has also recently tried to extend the brand into what they call MXit lifestyle including music, social networking, and more. Their latest innovative entertainment product has been the launch of their first instant messaging book, ‘Emily and the battle of the veil’, which sells for an equivalent 50 euro cents. Since its launch in 2005, MXit has attracted more than 15 million users across the developing world. South Africa is by far their largest market with over 7 millions users.

The Grid is a location-based social network, enabling subscribers to locate their friends on a map, chat via instant messaging, and share geo-tagged content. Lately it has been focusing on creating social interactions around content. Although Vodacom Ventures is the The Grid’s main funding source, it is wisely open to use by all South African operators and is actually being launched in countries where Vodacom is not present. Today it has more than a million users after less than a year in operation and is expanding into Tanzania and Nigeria, among other African countries

The future? At mmCHANNEL we believe and invest in Application Protocol Interface (API) connectivity and building social interactions around content for these and similar social media sites (take a look at East Africa’s first mobile social media community, Sembuse). In our opinion, these social media sites are going to become key outlets for mobile advertising, customer surveys, content consumption, and financial services in the near future. Location-based services, pricing flexibility, and viral marketing make the mobile social media space an African story. Stay tuned.

Some of my colleagues, Damien Saunders and Pedro Domingues will be at AfricaComm this week in Cape Town and I hope they can meet with many of you and find ways to keep being part of this new and evolving African mobile landscape

Send them an email to arrange a meeting: damien.saunders@mmchannel.com & pedro.domingues@mmchannel.com

An interview with Mr. Murat Gurkas, Director of VAS and Marketing Division in Eagle Mobile on our recently launched 3D goals product

2009-11-08T11:05:00.000-08:00

Please find attached a copy of the newspaper interview of Mr. Murat Gurkas, Director of VAS and Marketing Division in Eagle Mobile, published in sports newspapers “Sporti Shqiptar” today.

“Sporti Shqiptar” Newspaper is the best selling sports paper in the Albanian Market, mostly used by the young sports fans. It is the first published newspaper in Albania.

This is part of the coverage our joint recently product launch 3D video goals for Spanish and Italian league for SMS subscription

We have the full translation to English if interested

Good article on NYTimes.com: M.B.A.'s Guide Socially Concerned Entrepreneurs. Nice2see my school INSEAD leading the way

2009-11-02T15:38:00.000-08:00

I found this article on NYTimes.com around how MBA students are teaming up with Socially Concerned Entrepreneurs and how my school INSEAD has created a program around it

PARIS — As questions go, it was short and to the point: “If you are so smart, why aren’t you rich?”

That challenge, splashed across her daughter’s T-shirt, inspired Una Ryan to leave a medical research career, developing vaccines, to start her own business.

“Being a medical researcher, I changed that statement to say, if you are so smart, why haven’t you saved more lives?,” said Ms. Ryan, at a lunch in Paris last month honoring finalists in this year’s Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards, an annual competition for women entrepreneurs. Ms. Ryan was one of five winners of this year’s awards.

Read the full article on NYTimes.com

3D Goals Video - SMS subscription service just launched by Eagle Mobile - Powered by mmCHANNEL In partnership with Genera Mobile

2009-10-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

Come on, get them to your market!! UK´s Premier, Spain's La Liga, Italia's Serie A

Minimal IT integration and resources needed and could be up and running in less than 6 weeks from today

Africa Cup, World Cup and more coming up soon (together with associated 3D games, rankings and community features)

Contact us for more information

Very interesting "10 skills leaders may have to thrill on the crisis" from Eduardo Navarro

2009-10-25T05:04:00.001-07:00

I just have the opportunity to read an article (better said an excerpt from a book), of Eduardo Navarro, socio director (managing partner) of Improven (LINKEDIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/enavarrotandemcapital) a firm focused on helping companies on crisis situations. He has a new book just being published

I found his 10 skills leaders may have to thrill on the crisis to be interesting and worth always a reflection for many of us leaders of small and medium companies which have been facing a very difficult overall economic environment in the past 2 years

Here you have them translated (below you have a link to Eduardo Navarro's full post (in Spanish) and his company site)

Analyze the situation with some distance and accept the new reality
Take great decisions firmly
Focus your time and your efforts on the key issues
Transmit sense of urgency: speed even above precision
Be obsess about short term results, its planning and follow up
Transmit "positive realism" to your team
Get your team committed
Go back to austerity and effort
Be truthful: always tell the truth even if it is hard
Never forget your corporate social responsibility

Read the full article from Eduardo Navarro (in Spanish)

Interesting post coming from the UK: need for integrating the mobile channel into advertising agencies value proposition

2009-10-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

I just got some time to read an interesting but brief article from Alex Furber (twitter alexfarber, Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alex-farber/1/965/49a), from new media age that covers mobile, music and portal, on the need for advertising agencies or even online/interactive agencies to integrate a mobile offer into their value proposition and the need for integrated across all the screens campaigns.
Interesting the title of the post is Mobile agencies needs to diversify..., funny enough the ones I think really need to diversify are traditional and specially online ones

Having been this week in talks with agencies in different places such as UK, Turkey and Macedonia, I can tell you that a huge proportion of the mobile / marketing agencies even the online ones do not understand mobile and their customer needs on the mobile space

So we and our partners such as Unkasoft and Starfish do understand this need and we are investing on preaching to the chorus and walking the talk

Enjoy the excerpt and click the link for the entire article
"The issue of mobile campaigns conceived by traditional or digital agencies undermining pure-play mobile agencies is hotting up as clients increasingly demand integrated campaigns....

Read post from Alex Furber

Interesting to read the reactions to SImyo mini survey on our portal in facebook

2009-10-14T02:30:00.001-07:00

Simyo yesterday posted on their facebook page a question about what the customers think about our multimedia portal

Very interesting to read, there are good and bad things don't get me wrong but I like to hear real people talking about it

There is a group with no interest (mostly think they can get this content for free on the internet), other that like it and others that will like to see improvements in other service areas before having a portal
A final group is asking for more content, including the free games

I would love to have instead of 20 responses, 100 or 200 and read them all

Go and express your opinion!!!

Online advertising bigger than TV!!! How will mobile advertising change the game?

2009-10-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from UK´s Advertising Bureau (IAB) & PricewaterhouseCoopers, TechCrunch and Kelsey Group (see Kelsey´s figure on the top)

This week for the first time ever online advertising passed TV advertising in the UK. It is thought that the UK is the world's first major economy to pass the media milestone.
This event was predicted last year but the difficult time on advertising overall have made the prediction look doubtful.

However a record £1.75 billion sterling - nearly a quarter of the total ad market - was spent online in the first half of this year, compared with £1.64 billion for TV. The study, carried out by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers, showed overall advertising fell by 16% in the period as firms slashed costs in the recession.

Online advertising is classified as email campaigns, classified adverts, display ads and search engine websites such as Google. The IAB data showed that 60% of the online advertising was spent on search engines, with 22% on online classified ads.
The milestone is not really that important but clearly marks the transition over the last 10 years from printed and TV advertising to the online media. There are 2 big questions remaining: what is the effectiveness of this new shift on advertising towards online or better said digital? Has this maybe be a result of firms cutting cost towards cheaper advertising (online) or just to more effective advertising? Will talk about this on a future post
The second question and closer to my heart (and company :-) is how will mobile advertising shift the current picture

Let´s take a look at recent predictions reported on Techcrunch

The rising market share of smartphones (please note that this is more true in the US than in Europe so far.
,mobile browsing has grown through the roof within the last year, With that in mind, mobile advertising promises to be a huge growth area.
For more data and analysis on smartphones I recommend reading
Read post from JT Klepp (COO Storyz in Australia) on latest analysis on smartphone and handset trends
The Kelsey Group, a market research firm, projects that the mobile advertising market will balloon from $160 million in 2008 to $3.1 billion in 2013.
The amount here is not that relevant but clearly there is a large growth potential in mobile advertising in four years, quoting TechCrunch
"...perhaps even ten to 20 times bigger than it is today. Where will all of that mobile ad money go to? Here I think the Kelsey group is more on target. It projects that mobile search will go from 24 percent of the total mobile ad market last year to 73 percent of the much larger pie in 2013, according to a recent research note put out by Citi analyst Mark Mahaney, which is where I’m getting all of these numbers. Display ads are projected to go from 13 percent of the total to 18 percent, while SMS ads will decline as a percentage from 63 percent to 9 percent (see charts). So once again it looks like search is going to be the big winner...."
So I guess the odds are that Google will be a big winner here. Room for more, well at mmCHANNEL we clearly believe so and our work on the advergaming field together with our partner Unkasoft is just one proof of this
The game has just started
Good night and good luck :-)

Has vodafone finally got it right in the content arena: Vodafone 360

2009-09-25T10:59:00.001-07:00

Yesterday the whole TMT and overall business press was full of coverage of Vodafone's launch of the 360 strategy and related products

A lot of the coverage was more targeted towards the LiMo (Linux Mobile) handset launch with integrated products, but through our different clients in the Vodafone World, we have been exposed to the real service, and there are a lot of things that I like about the product

To complement the launch, this moments marks also the movement from Vodafone Live to MyWeb (both for mobile and pc/WEB), which is also a huge move, as Vodafone Live! has been with us for over 7 years and the world has evolved since

To summarize the 360 product, we are talking about a social media aggregator together with a universal (aggregation wise also) address book. But the address book is at the heart at the service, making the always requested but never really well implemented address book backup already an issue of the past. The address book is an extension or a huge improvement of the Zyb product but it has used this acquistion to build part of the product (and justify their investment for this company)

The service is fast, good user interface (simple but attractive and user friendly) and very easy to use. The client for the address book is also easy to use and its functional value is clear as it is capable of integrating all your address book across emails, social networks and mobile phones and bring it together in one place (which you can install in many / all your devices). On top of that there are different big and small cool details to add to the bigger picture.

The big question and where the battle is for Vodafone going forward (apart from distribution of the client and handset reach but I believe they will be able to handle both) is if they will convinced users to use this address book and all its related functionalities and leave the phone own address book on the side. I believe there is one big answer to this key question: speed or how fast will the application be vs. the real time (almost) phone address book

One more really interesting feature and that shows that Vodafone is starting to "get it", the service is open to all internet users, not just Vodafone subscribers. This is a real winner. Of course Vodafone users may get specific / special perks, but this is how you start playing properly on this environment

So far, Vodafone is finally making sense of their investment on people, resources and money with 360.

More to say on MyWeb service, but that will come soon.
mmCHANNEL is already developing apps and integrated into the new MyWeb service, so the future is exciting ahead of us (Vodafone and mmCHANNEL)

Our good friend Julio Alonso, CEO of Weblogs, cover of ElPaisSemal!!!

2009-09-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

It is funny and at the same time it make us proud and feel very happy to see our good friend, former DCI colleague, excellent professional and a successful entrepreneur be the photo cover of El Pais Semanal this week on an article dedicated to "Los Amos de Internet" (the internet owners)

Read full article of El Pais Semanal (in Spanish)

The article features some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the internet space that after 5-10 years have consolidated their businesses and initiatives among the very best in Spain
Also the list features Jesus Encinar from Idealista, another well deserved nomination and excellent professional

By the way on my opinion Bernardo Hernandez does not belong to that group. Yes he helped on Idealista, but he is an executive (yes a very good one but there are many other Spaniard abroad with very important executive posts) and he seems to have a good smell as an investor but not an Spanish Internet top influencer

Reflections from today's office day - Listening to our employees thoughts

2009-09-03T16:00:00.001-07:00

We tried to get together with the entire team (although sometimes we miss getting Tunc from Turkey here) one day a month and discuss the developments of the company. Also since this year we did tie a portion of the salary to the overall fulfillment of the BP (revenues and EBITDA) we have started sharing with the team these numbers. This initially poised different challenges starting with explaining the concepts behind those financial terms, how we have build the business plan and so far so on

Usually I really put a lot of effort on preparing these events. However it is also true that is difficult to have the team truly engaged and interative and sometimes it is difficult to generate questions from the team.
So after we finished today we have a little session of Q&A with the usual results. I decided at some point then to ask the team one question: "when you look at the slide of the results, define in one word what you feel? I was really grateful that people did share their minds in that sense to us even if some of the words did surprise and even dissapointed me as I internally I was hoping to get better words

So hear is what I did hear and the actions I believe we can do around those words and individuals to try to turn around those words:

- "not relevant for me" - should I leave this individual alone and just focused on his day2day job (in which he is really good) or should I ty to engage him one more time. Or should I ask him would anything work for you to engage on this part of the business
- "negative" (2 votes) - Will just improving the numbers turn their word into positive, is there something else?
- "Blurry" - Is this blurry as lack of trust on our direction or lack of understanding of the picture
- "Uncomprenhensible" - I need to sit down with this person and ask him what it is not undertable in the numbers. I am sure there is a more simple way to present the numbers
- "Transparency" - well this is one of the key objectives of doing this exercise
- "Challenge" - Indeed lots of things to do, even more important to do better things than doing more
- "Optimism" - Indeed there are a number of facts / events that invite us to be optimistic
- "Most important thing" - Indeed at the end we need to reflect all our actions into numbers

It will be interesting to reflect on a similar exercise after talking to some team members individually, change a number of things and have another quarter under our belt

Finally a bluetooth headset I am happy with - Jabra JX10 Serie II

2009-08-31T14:01:00.000-07:00

I have tried to use many bluetooth headsets during my life. I remember being in Belgium , working with DCI on a project for Proximus in 2002 and trying some of the first bluetooth headsets for SonyEricsson. In general initially the sound was terrible and the devices huge. Then the size did improve was the quality was still not very good (and you know people don´t understand me enough already with my speed to make it even more difficult :-) I forgot about bluetooth devices for a couple of years. Then the fact that by joining mmCHANNEL I did expose myself to some of the bluetooth headsets for the mobile music (which they have never take off) and the fact that one of the key players in the industry SouthWing was founded and lead during many years by my INSEAD colleague Bart Huisken
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bart-huisken/4/888/60a

I did then try some other models and landed into some American design companies like Jawbone, which had excellent reviews. I thought this was it. Good quality, good design but the part that tights into your ear is super fragile and keep breaking, so I ended up leaving the device (even If I still have it and I have try to find the broken part sold individually but no way (or not easy way)). However in the past some of the cheap models of Jabra did the job OK (for their value). So when I saw an offer for the Jabra JX10 Serie II, I decided to give it a try. The fact that you could pair it up to two devices at the same time (I usually carry with me two phones on at the same time), the size, the fact that it is very easy to pair it up and it robustness even being small did the trick. And I am very happy. The quality is superb (very few times people notice that I am using it and it does work better than the bluetooth in the car) and It does not bother me to have it on my ear for hours while in the office

So I am very happy and the product get a buy, buy recommendation

Doing some research on twitter and how it can be use as a tool for our company

2009-08-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

during the past week I have been having several discussions with one of my guys in the team, Fran Valseca around twitter and the value for myself and for the company. He is a huge believer and also very active on twitter (http://twitter.com/technalia)

I was talking this morning that I still really not find that much value on twitter and what we can get out of it as mmCHANNEL (as an individual and a blogger maybe I can have some more readership and more instant feedback or conversations)
Fran has sent me several links to read

Read post on 5-reasons-your-company-needs-be-twitter

Read post on consejos para twitter-para-empresas (ESPAÑOL)

They were both interesting reads although still not (fully) convincing, but clearly one of the main learnings is that we have to cultivate discussions with our customers (in our case I think it is even more interesting to hear from the end users of the services we power like Simyo in Spain or Si.Mobil in Slovenia to give examples)

So will keep engaging through twitter (I like to see for example how Simyo is engaging with their customers). Just post it the same question in several social media outlets both personally and as mmCHANNEL (Which WAP portals (not Iphone or Android apps) you like or you don´t and why?) and will be doing similar exercises for learn and improve. Will let you know how it goes

mmCHANNEL just powered Direct Purchase from WEB on Simyo Multimedia

2009-08-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

Since mid August there is another simple and easy way for Simyo customers to buy content (or send it to a friend) from Simyo Multimedia Portal, just by entering your phone number on the purchase process

direct, simple, easy to use... this is how we power things at mmCHANNEL

read more on Simyo blog

Descarga del Portal Multimedia simyo sin enviar SMS

24 Agosto 2009 por Fer

A partir de ahora, descargar contenido de nuestro Portal Multimedia a tu simyo va a ser mucho más fácil. Porque puedes disfrutar de canciones completas en alta calidad, videojuegos y juegos gratuitos… ahora, sin enviar SMS.

Es muy fácil. Sólo tienes que entrar en simyomultimedia.es y hacer clic en el botón Login. Te pediremos tus datos del área personal de simyo, y la línea con la que quieres pagar tus descargas.....

Read the description of the feature on Simyo blog (Spanish)

Growth Markets Financial services by Mobile Operators

2009-08-25T02:28:00.001-07:00

I am a follower of Joe Wilcox's blog on Developing Telecom Watch. He just posted an interesting post on mobile banking services in developing countries and the role of the MNO on those services (or will mobile operators win the financial services game in developiong countries)

It reads
"If you were asked to reach for an example of mobile financial services gaining traction really impressively, perhaps you would think immediately of the M-Pesa service offered by the Kenyan cellco Safaricom, in which Vodafone owns a minority stake.

I daresay most readers are somewhat familiar with the service. For those who are not, Safaricom's TV advertisement provides a concise demonstration of the simplicity and utility of M-Pesa...

Read Joe´s full post

Here is my analysis/comments on his posting

Interesting analysis and certainly a topic that I believe all mobile operators (and many service providers) should be looking at but not only in Africa but for example in the entire MENA region
Why? Well at the end m-banking in all these countries / regions is attractive because 2 overall gaps:
a) Lack of alternative for micro-payments
b) Lack of banking infrastructure in general
c) Lack of development of Internet banking due to the infrastructure (together with lack of quality alternatives)

Obviously mobile operators are in optimal position to cover gap a, as at the end they have the billing and as seeing in the m-pensa case, it not that difficult to crate the right applications and processes for this opportunity
However when micro-payments become a huge chunk of the banking business as it may be in the African continent, and mobile operator starts replacing the banks we are dealing with the second gap. And here I agree with Joe on mobile operators having to fulfill the same regulatory and obligations that banks do, Possible? Yes, but it is a new business (mobile operator should set up different companies or ventures for this and treat them as startups). But heads up as the banks will lobby to avoid this or imposed banking licenses and tenuous processes for mobile operators
This leads me to point/gap 3. Mobile banking will be what Internet banking has been in Europe and North America (and probably many Asian areas although I lack the knowledge to make this statement). When the Internet boom started some independent (non-banks) tried to jump into the opportunity (first-one, e-bank, uno-e) but at the end most of the Internet banking champion have been banks themselves, except maybe for specialized product aggregators? Will the story repeats? I believe mobile operators could have an opportunity, but only those that are fast, can create ventures and have the right lobby capability at local level and the capacity to develop strong relationships as "financial providers" with other mobile operators

Interesting reading on social media facts

2009-08-04T16:47:00.001-07:00

Worth the 5 minutes it will take you to read the presentation

Link to the presentation on slideshare

Mobility Made in Madrid: Developing the brand of Spain and Madrid mobile technology startups: a great initiative

2009-07-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

During the past months a number of entrepreneurs most of the m headquarters in Madrid have been meeting in order to discuss ways to increase our brand recognition, capacity to reach customers globally, support from local MNO (Telefonica/movistar, Vodafone Spain and Orange Spain among the largest ones), etc..

Even if the summer seems to be always a lower intensity period, for small/medium companies of our side, this is not the case as the only downtime is vacation (if there is one). So after several attempts we seem to be gaining momemtum and the group is on its way to become an association and to define our branding, image and values

Companies among this group are AquaMobile, Almira Labs, Altiria, Demtech, Kimia, mmCHANNEL, MobiGround, Netocracy, Navento, Nethalis, OperaWireless, Solaiemes, TyphonMobile, Youlynx, Zentym (...among others) and the support from CEIM and MadridMasD

The name has been defined as Mobility Made in Madrid
and here you have a first draft of the values that the most active members of the group have been able to come up with. Soon to follow will be our logo, mobile site (.mobi) and web site

“Mobility Made in Madrid: Innovative Technology in your hands”

Primary Values

• Global
• Innovation
• No limits
• Effectiveness
• Hope
• Interaction

Complementary Values
• Compromise
• Generosity
• Profitability
• Daring

Avoid being tactical with your employees goal setting - Using SMART objectives framework

2009-07-21T04:51:00.000-07:00

A problem that the current crisis is forcing upon us is short term focus. while this is key in order to ensure survival it could create what I call the "kiss of death" effect if we forget to keep innovating and getting ready for next 18 month ahead not just the quarter ahead

One area that can suffer big time this way is people development. And within that area discussing with employees their goals per half year is key to avoid just being tactical and also to give them a sense of sustainability

When talking to my employees about setting both objectives and then the measures for the H2 2009, they are struggling. In order to provide some guidance I did give them some reading on SMART objectives setting methodology

Here is one of them that I like from George Ambler's website "the practice of leadership"

"Nothing happens until we plan and good plans have goals and objectives. Setting goals and objectives correctly provides the necessary support and aids in there achievement. Before we dive into how to go about setting SMART objectives, it’s important to understand that there is a world of difference between goals and objectives.

Goals relate to our aspirations, purpose and vision. For example, I have a goal of becoming financially independent.
Objectives are the battle plan, the stepping stones on the path towards the achievement of my goal.

A visit to Smart Vilage - Cairo's Sillicon Valley

2009-07-05T00:57:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the chance while in Cairo to visit when it has become a showcase for the government in terms of a public sector lead initiative. They have good reasons to be proud of it
I have the chance to have visited similar initiatives among them Internet/Media city in Dubai and I may say that Cairo Smart village gets my biggest kudos. The place raised in the middle of the dessert is impressive, common areas and services (not just restaurants but daycare centers, gym, etc...) makes working there a very pleasant place (which in fact is one of the most lacking issues in similar developments)
Also the goverment have managed to get many of the key companies in the Technology sector to move there, furthermore themselves have moved both the ministry and the regulatory body into Smart Village. It seems definitivetly like a vibrant place.

The only issue is that coming in and out of Cairo is a long way and could become a nightmare on certain hours. A lot of companies are aware of this and have flexible hours and also making teleworking a good option when no meetings will take place on the person's schedule. A win / win at the end out of the main problem I see on such spectacular development

Translating Jesus Encinar post on "what is needed in Spain to incentive technological startups development"

2009-06-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

I have Jesus Encinar blog as one of my blog list which I follow regularly. I find some of his entries light but also he does make very interesting points specially when taking about the mix of spanish legal and political system and company / technology startups development
I also know Jesus and I always find very interesting when we have the chance to chat about some of these topics
I have taken the liberty of preparing a summarize translation of his post from Tuesday June 23rd
Your can read the original fully and in Spanish on
For the original and full text in Spanish from Jesus Encinar

Jesus basically comments that what governments in Spain do (both nationally, regionally and locally) may give them piece of mind but it does not really help tech startups take off. Many of the politicians do talk about why we don't have innovation, why Spain is not like the Nordic countries and they mainly remember the topic when crisis come and their economic pillars (aka real state and tourism) suffer (and they are 2 sectors very much affected by any economical crisis). Popular measures such as creating innovation centers (which usually become just a way to find cheap space at the most) and subvenciones (public aid), which creates just companies specialized on getting them
Those measures don't work and just creates houses with cardboard pillars

Jesus list 3 basic, simple and very effective actions that governments could take to help companies (my note here is that there are simple but it requires to fight unions, the overall socialism mentality of the majority of the Spaniards and basically you won't get votes on the short term). Those measures are:

1) Tax schemes that allow entrepreneurs to create stock options plans for their employees. What in the US and in the Nordic countries is simple and a powerful way to both attrach and engage talent, in Spain is an activity full of labor risks and which requires tons of work. If as of today you want to create an options plans for your employees, and the company happen to do well and gets sold, the investors will pay 18% for the capital increments. But employees will have to tribute this as additional "salary" so it is taxed as your normal income. If you happen to do well in the company and have a good salary you may end up paying up to 43% for those benefits
Put those 2 together and obviously it makes almost impossible in Spain to create such plans (My personal note here aka to attract talent, an item which I continually mention on some of my posts)

2) Labor contracts that easily broken if the business does not work. While in the US if you have a good idea your obsession is to hire as fast as possible and execute, execute, in Spain you think twice about any additional hiring, as you prefer temporal contracts or family (which you have a level of confidence to treat it differently if things turn to worse) instead of creating technology related employment. If things go wrong and the business does not end it up working and you have to fire the people hired, the company and yours as a manager have serious responsibilities in terms of paying compensations. We should have a startup labour contract with lesser demands in terms of compensations for companies that are just created and are in the red. The employees that join such companies can't be motivated by potential compensations but because of their stock options. Today you can't do neither one

3) Pay back VAT monthly to companies on their initial years

The greatest of all hypocrisies related to startups from the government point of view is how the tac authorities steal money (yes Jesus uses the word stealing and I do agree with him here 100%) from small companies that have not managed yet to make any money and to take their head above the water. When the money is not yours and you take it, it is defined as robery

Part of the financing means that an entrepreneur may obtain go directly to pay the VAT (that he/she shouldn't) not to mention that the government takes 1% for a capital increase that you manage to get!!!

Companies find themselves they can compensate their VAT if they are steal losing money (when you really need to) and that they have to pay VAT for invoices they may not have yet see any money from. This kills companies and Jesus mention how it almost killed idealista.com in the past. You may be waiting for 6-9 months to get your VAT paid (with no penalties) when you have to pay within a month or you face penalties

My personal note, this is even worse today as big companies do play with small companies and in Spain they may pay you in 180 days or longer!! BTW this should be the fourth measure that the government should take making payments to companies under 1 Mio eur mandatory in 90 days or less)

Instead of spending the money of financial aid (subvenciones) it would be much easier to pay back on a monthly basis the VAT that young companies still on the read may have paid

The public administration can't promote innovation and entrepeneurship on the technology front by creating regional centers (spend), technology parks (spend) or public aid (spend). The best they could do is to eliminate all the obstacles that today we face as entrepaneurs when trying to make our dream true

Inspiring quotes

2009-06-26T03:24:00.000-07:00

It happen that today there was a post in Linkedin group "On Startups - The Community For Entrepreneurs" around negative thinking
This opened up the door to a number of people in the Group to send some interesting and inspiring quotes. I copy some of them and the person in the group who wrote them (aka I don´t know the original sources, please forgive me):

"The voice inside your head is known as your self-talk, and can direct the way you think and behave. Negative self-talk undermines you, and makes you believe that you cannot achieve, whereas positive self-talk gives you the confidence to take up new challenges, and believe that you can succeed.
Click here to learn more:
http://www.channelconnect.com/RecognizingNegativeThinking/tabid/730/Default.aspx "
Shawn Grant, Corporate Training Guru :o) helping people create positive working environments

"Come to the edge
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
Come to the edge
And we fly"

Nathalie Grosshenny, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Artistes du Globe

"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it."
(Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, (121 AD - 180 AD)

Some notes from Egypt (ICEX trip)

2009-06-22T16:13:00.000-07:00

I have the opportunity to be one of the companies participating on the commercial mission with ICEX (Spanish Foreign Commerce Institute) to Egypt dedicated to the mobile sector (aka the Spanish government helping Spanish companies in the mobile services sector to export their product and services to other countries, in this case Egypt)
As part of our efforts in the Middle East and Africa we have not had the chance yet to focus much on the Egyptian market, even though we have discussed with some of the MNOs we have relationships at Group level about their Egyptian subsidiaries / OpCo. Also as we have been developing the possibilities of advergaming and mobile advertising in different growth / emerging markets, Egypt was one to focus because of its size and mobile orientation (aka where many customers will discover the web through their mobiles and not through fixed broadband)
It is important to note and something that it did surprise me today was the not only the penetration level is still low (or being more precise leaving ample room for growth), as it is around 50% but also the population of Egypt being the same as Turkey in 2009 (around 80 million) will be up to 130 Mio in 2030 (while Turkey will be “just” around 105 Mio on the same year). Thus there may be still more than 50 Mio new users of mobile in the coming 20 years. Yes the ARPU levels are low and even if the country is showing big growth rates (4% this year under the world crisis), the country needs constant hypergrowth (7% or above) just to equal its population growth and maintain the current GDP.

Having meet some of the mobile operators, marketing agencies, SMS connectivity providers and VAS players, the country does offer for mmCHANNEL an opportunity. Mobile marketing and mobile advertising will be big and sooner than many expect (and faster at least on a comparison basis than Western Europe or the US). Static content –music, games, images- will still be a large revenue generator also

Obviously as in other markets the question for us will be to either handle direct relationships with one mobile operator and build a small but vibrant local presence or reach an agreement with a local company to do represent us here. I tend to believe that we would prefer the first scenario and keep building our Middle East presence together with other commercial ventures but we need to be open to all scenarios as we will keep evaluating the market and our commercial development in the coming months/quarters

WOW, I did miss this reference from "Developing Telecoms Watch" past March

2009-06-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

I was just taking a look at past post from Joe Wilcox's blog "Developing Telecoms Watch" blog, as I am following as his blog the latest speculations on Zain possible sale of its African operations. I was while doing that going to past entries, among other things taking a look at India and his views on the upcoming startups (PLease note that I have a bunch of good friends and amazing professional colleagues working at United Wireless at very senior roles). I did found this post from March 09 when I was about to speak in Istanbul
Take a look / read from Joe's blog and funny how he shares with us that we don't each other in person even if we have exchange views by email or social media outlets many times "...As shares with us, we don't know each other in person but I was pleased to see confirmation that those to whom I handed over the task of organising this year's annual Eurasia Com conference in Istanbul have found a speaking slot for Cristobal Alonso, Chief Commercial Officer at mmChannel, a technology company dedicated to the development and management of digital entertainment services and platforms on a B2B format.

Cristobal and I have been in contact since mid-2007 without ever having the opportunity to meet face-to-face. This is a shame for me given how much he has to share about boosting the take-up of mobile value-added services..."

Within this post there is also a reference to mmC Group consultants' blog on African MVNO opportunities
Read more on Joe's blog

Looking for a way to improve your presentation: Read the Zen presentation

2009-06-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

As a person who spends half of his time presenting things (ideas, products, proposals, office days, strategies, board reviews) I am always interested on ways to improve. Even if I consider myself a good to a very good oral presenter (even if I don´t speak slowly half of the people may not understand me :-), I am always looking for ways to improve our visuals

Furthermore we tend to confuse presentation that we send as documentation and presentations that serve just as a framework or a tool to improve and/or support what we are saying

My colleague and good friend Luis Sisamon recommended this book to me. I devoured in 3 hours and was putting it into practice within the next presentation I was preparing those days in Dubai and I can tell you it works. As everything in life you need to take the 3 or 4 things that work for you but I am sure that something on Garr books will click on your mind

If you are interested you can also follow his blog which carries very interesting ideas and topics on design
Read more on Garr's blog

You will not regret investing 3-6 hours on this book, I can guarantee you

AECOMO: Simyo rompe el mercado de los juegos para móviles al ofrecerlos gratis

2009-06-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

Simyo, mmCHANNEL y Unkasoft presentan en España su ultima iniciativa, ofreciendo a sus usuarios y en un futuro próximo a todos los internautas, juegos para teléfonos móviles gratis con inserciones publicitarias.

Read more on AECOMO post on Simyo, mmCHANNEL and Unkasoft initiative

GoMo News; Unkasoft and mmChannel provide free mobile games to Simyo in Spain

2009-06-11T17:04:00.000-07:00

Unkasoft and mmChannel provide free mobile games to Simyo in Spain

Posted by Bena Roberts on Jun 10, 2009 14:00

Tags: mobile advertising, Mobile Gaming, simyo, unkasoft

mmChannel and Unkasoft become partners in 2009 and this one of their latest deals – providing free mobile games to MVNO simyo in Spain.

From the press release:

‘In-game advertising will be the most effective format in mobile marketing thanks to the interaction with the consumers’, Juan Antonio Muñoz, Unkasoft founder.

What we think?

This is brilliant news for Unkasoft and mmChannel getting into the MVNO business is crucial. But more than that simyo’s target market is the affordable consumer type that will simply love free mobile games. They will view this as a benefit to the service keeping them loyal to simyo and ensuring more ad-funding services come to play.

Interesting reading in facebook on entrepreneurs to follow in twitter

2009-06-11T16:59:00.000-07:00

It’s worth repeating: Twitter is quickly becoming the most powerful arena of social media. Those founding small businesses or building their own empires–who don’t wish to be bothered with what Ashton Kutcher is doing–might like to follow some of these insightful entrepreneurs. (P.S. We threw in a few tweeting companies too.)

Read more on facebook link

More PR coverage for Simyo free (advertising based) games powered by mmCHANNEL

2009-06-09T15:50:00.001-07:00

More coverage from different blogs in Spain on the Simyo launch of free (advertising based) games

http://www.operadoravirtual.es/juegos-movil-gratis-simyo/

http://www.gsmspain.com/foros/h749240_Operadores-Moviles-Virtuales-OMV-Simyo_Simyo-ofrece-juegos-gratis-movil.html

http://www.ojomoviles.com/noticias/simyo-ofrece-10-juegos-gratis-a-sus-usuarios/

http://www.buzzmovil.es/simyo-te-trae-juegos-gratis-para-el-movil/

http://celularion.com/story/simyo-regala-juegos

Simyo to be the first mobile operator to launch free mobile games (advertising based) powered by mmCHANNEL and our partner Unkasoft

2009-06-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

mmCHANNEL & UNKASOFT presents in Spain their last initiative. Both companies, thanks to the strategic alliance in the Mobile Marketing Arena, reached in 2009, will enable Simyo, the leader MVNO in Spain to be the first operator to offer free mobile games to all their client base, and to every customer in a close future.

You can also read more at XatakaMovil (Spanish only)
Link to Xataka Movil blog post on Simyo Free games powered by mmCHANNEL and its partner unkasoft' book
Simyo offers free games for mobile phones, including publicity for offering this kind of products freely. Adding publicity to the games, offers a new way of communication between customers and companies, not making the user experience weaker, but the opposite, making it more funny and close.

mmGAMING, the gaming product from mmCHANNEL, delivers innovation and flexibility to manage the mobile games life-cicle over time in order to maximise the service value with compelling consumer experiences.

Our games communications platfform, serves as social community hub, built around a brand and manages consumer propositions related to Premium Games, Incentivized games ( try before you buy, rental models – time, plays-, etc...) and opening doors of Mobile Advertising through our advergaming “on the fly” platform.

Once again, Simyo keeps on innovating not only within the MVNO's segment, but going ahead as well of the traditional MNO's, being the first mobile telephony operator to offer it's customers, free games with publicity. With this, Simyo reinforces the attractive existing actual offer in the digital wap & wep portals (reachable from any Simyo customer mobile phone or any computer), complementing the existing offer of Premium games, , as well as fulltrack, realtones & wallpapers.

Initially, it will be possible to find, among other games, some Zeemote Ready titles. Zeemote is the bluetooth device, that offers the best user experience possible as the customer is playing with a joystick in the handsets, in titles like, “Bubble Crashers”, “Valquiria” or “Bricks”, from the Advergaming company Unkasoft that has reached recently reached an strategic alliance with mmCHANNEL, current provider of all the entertainment portals of Simyo and KPN in Spain:

Coming up this week...

2009-06-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

A recommendation about a book it has changed the way I do presentations

An announcement of a product launch in Spain that is its first in the telecom country and launch by Simyo!!! together with mmCHANNEL and our partner Unkasoft

Trying and testing HTC Magic and Android

And more...

The difference between leaders and managers.... for your reading pleasure (Seth Godin´s Tribes), a recommendation from my CTO

2009-06-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

I got an email from my CTO Pedro Domingues that promises to talk about the difference between leaders and managers. The reference comes from a blog entry from Nati Shalom´s blog
Link to Nati Shalon blog post on Seth Godin tribes' book

Nati refers about the book tribes, from Seth Godin. SETH is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. Godin is author of six books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change and work. Godin latest book (and the reason for Nati to write his post is "Tribes, we need you to lead us"
Also I find his blog quite provocative
Link to Seth Godin blog

I have not read the book yet but I am going to after reading the summary and quotes on Amazon.com (How much has amazon.com change they way we handle book reading? an interesting question for another blog, isn´t it?) and also on Nati's post which leaves you with some pearls. Here are some of them but click on the link about to Nati´s blog and take some time to read. Really right on the spot on my opinion

"Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done,..leadership is about creating a change that you believe in.Movement have leaders and movement makes things happen. Leaders have followers Managers have employees. Managers makes widgets. Leaders make change"

"Leaders use passion and ideas to lead people, as appose to using threats and Bureaucracy to manage them"

"Change isn't made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later"

Men I would love to have more time and more spare attention to do some reading (at the moment I am reading a great book by Andrew Mango "The Turks Today", fascinating)

Does endurance and pain handling increase with age?

2009-06-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

I was doing a large and hard hike past week near Denia, the peak of the Montgo, basically a 750m vertical hike. The last hour of the 5 hour trek is quite demanding and I was suffering also as my stomach was empty and I was running low on sugar. It went through my mind about if it is true that with age we have more capacity to handle pain and if really our endurance increases. I was thinking how much I could walk and walk when I was on my 20s and how much I would be looking forward to more. I also though that I was more looking forward at this point about achieving something or handling the challenge than the activity on its won

I share this idea with our friend Scott which shared with me that his father did believe in training young people to handle suffering and how he can endure lots of pain and suffering at this point, more than he could handle when he was young

You may be thinking why this is relevant? The answer is that I was trying to think if when getting older we look for choices at work that avoid pain (which means avoiding risks and getting comfortable with status quo). My answer was if we believe that challenges still bring happiness to our live then we will handle pain as much as need it. But how many of us do still feel like challenging themselves? I do!! :-)

Very good blog post from TechCrunch: How much money can free apps make (out of advertising)?

2009-05-27T08:02:00.001-07:00

Please take a look at the little summary and go straight into the TechCrunch post

Really good analysis and take a look at the 8 slides presentation (more than worth it)

Earlier this year Pinch Media released a report on the state of the App Store, describing some of the trends it had seen as developers tried to monetize their apps. The verdict: advertising on free applications simply can’t match the payoff from even the least expensive ‘paid’ applications, and would require an unobtainable $8.75 CPM to reach the same income per install.

AdWhirl, the iPhone advertising platform formerly known as Adrollo, begs to differ. Since launching last month, the company has signed on over 10% of the top 50 applications in the App Store and is serving 250 million ad impressions per month. And their data tells a different tale.

Read the full post entry on TechCrunch
/

How the business culture and negotiations are changing because of email

2009-05-23T01:19:00.000-07:00

Many years ago having dinner in Paris with a friend of Andrea, this person was working with an INSEAD professor on a book about the change of the way negotiation are handle by email. I don't know if she ever finished the book (I should do a bit of research I know) but I keep this idea in my mind and I have been both going back at the assessment of the particular topic and making sure my teams did not make some mistakes around this topic.

Email is making people less and less prompt to call or organize meetings. Yes email can save time and give you answers on particular topics, but it does not replace human interaction, it does not give you context in many situations and it is not the place (virtual) to have a discussion or for you to bent frustations. These days I don't carry my BB when in the office, and it is amazing that while we get 200 emails or so a day we may only get 10 calls max (and yes I make many more than 10 calls a day)
Many people will comfortably sit on the chair or in the office and just rely purely on email. This DOES NOT WORK and it does not make things happen. People is not going to feel force to pay an invoice because you send them an email, you need to call them and they need to feel how you are feeling and that you are there. Your customer is not happy about a delivery? Don't email him, first call him, make him understand the context and the reasons and then maybe send an email to summarize the points. I always told my team in Czech, if you have soemthing important to say, get up, pick up the elevator and go sit by the person you need to give the message to. Then the important message will be deliver for sure and you may understand how the other persons thinks

BTW I do think messanger (yahoo, skype, MSN) is more efficient than email as at least it offers a channel for real time interaction but again it is an information exchange it can't go beyond that

More to come on this topic

what makes companies successful: a nice chat in slovenia

2009-05-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

I had last week the chance to enjoy dinner with my client in Slovenia (Music Manager Anita Petrovcic, http://www.linkedin.com/in/anitapetrovcic) and my colleague Marc Rose. We did enjoy very different topics of conversation (life-work balance, motivations, etc..) and at some point talking abut respect on the workplace we discussed about which qualities of their personal make companies successful. Marc did emphasize about trust and honesty, which I consider great to have among a team but still not enough to be successful. Then him and Anita mentioned vision, which I think it is really important but still not enough. My take: ambition *understood as everyone's need to improve and grow themselves every day* and passion (to succeed, to have fun, to enjoy yourself and create value)

what is your take?

First announcement of MNO entering the App store area: Vodafone

2009-05-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

As mentioned on one of my last posts the war on the ownership of the Mobile Apps store space between handset manufacturers/OEM and MNOs has just started. Today Vodafone has launched its PR campaign (I called PR because there is not even a real decent web site for the communication between developers and Vodafone and it seems it won't be until the summer) and I am sure Telefonica, Etisalat and so far so on will not take much longer

What I found fairly interesting is that MNOs are ready to share a large percentage of the benefit to the developers (70% has been announced as the developers percentage, still far from the 92% from DoCoMo) while on the premium channel MNOs insists on taking at least 50% or more of the net margin (In fact an MNO I was discussing with a mobile advertising agreements wanted 70-80% of the total revenues for them!! Just insane on my humble but interested opinion

Vodafone to launch competing mobile app store

Another day, another app store appears

Vodafone has around 289 million customers around the world, so it makes sense to sell directly to them. Which is exactly what Vodafone is planning with its proposed app store.

Yes, another app store, but this time from a mobile network rather than a phone manufacturer, which means it's going to be open to all, no matter what handset you use. Although you'll still be limited to apps available for your specific operating system.

Once you're in, choose your app and download to your handset, the charge will be added onto your next mobile bill, with the money made split between Vodafone and the people behind the apps, the majority (70 per cent) heading the way of the developer.

It could be lucrative business. Market leader Apple has shifted a billion apps since its own app store launched and analysts have estimated that the market could top $25 billion in the next five years. Just a fraction of that will put a spring in the steps of Vodafone's shareholders.

In readiness for the new store, which is planned to launch initially in the UK later this year, Vodafone has released an application programming interface (API) to link up applications to its network. If you fancy making a few quid from your developing skills, get on it now.

Speaking at MVNO Industry Summit in Barcelona next week

2009-05-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

Next week we will be attending for the second year in a row the MVNO indsutry world summit. Last year the event was very interesting and fully attended and this year we are excited looking at the attendance and also having the opportunity to be one of the speakers
I will be speaking during the second day at the Stream One: MNOS and MVNOS: Best Practice Models for Partnership on the topic "Using MVNO acquisition to add value to your MNO offering through better services, branding and content"

Check the event website for more details:
Link to Informa MVNO industry summit event website
Hope to see you in Barcelona next week

More Simyo multimedia store launch promotion coverage

2009-05-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

Some more links to coverage mostly on sector oriented blogs:

Link to notishow blog on simyo Multimedia store launch (Spanish)

Link to goponygo blog on simyo Multimedia store launch (Spanish)

Take a look at mmCHANNEL presentation at MoMo Madrid May 2009

2009-05-06T14:39:00.001-07:00

For those of you interested this is the link to the presentation we did at Mobile Monday Madrid (MoMo Madrid) this past Monday. Presentations were all very entertaining and insightful (was good to share the table with some of our competitors like MusiWave or emerging startups in the field as Oh La La Music) and even if attendance was smaller than other times the level of interaction and questions from the audience was very good and very interesting
Link to MoMo Madrid Mobile Music presentation on linkedin slideshare

Thanks MoMo for inviting us to the event
Link to MoMo Madrid Mobile Music event

Simyo lanza su tienda de entretenimiento digital y lo celebra con un 2x1 en todas las canciones completas (fulltrack) hasta el 24 de mayo!

2009-05-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

From Technalia Blog

Simyo lanza de manera oficial sutienda de entretenimiento digital. Se puede acceder a ellos desde cualquier ordenador y también desde cualquier teléfono móvil.

Para acceder a la tienda desde un ordenador, sólo tendremos que teclear en nuestro navegador web lo siguiente "www.simyomultimedia.com". Para acceder desde cualquier teléfono móvil será necesario ir a la dirección wap "wap.simyo.es" siempre y cuando tengamos guardados los ajustes que nos envia automaticamente simyo cuando estrenamos nuestra tarjeta sim o cuando la cambiamos de un móvil a otro.

En esta tienda, podemos comprar diferentes tipos de productos, como puedan ser, la musica mas actual, los juegos mas novedosos o tonos para nuestro telefono movil entre otras cosas.

Para celebrar el lanzamiento de la tienda de entretenimiento digital, Simyo ofrece una promoción de 2x1 en todas las canciones completas (fulltrack) hasta el dia 24 de mayo.

Si quereis repasar algunas de las caracteristicas de la tienda podeis repasar la entrada de technalia cuando se produjo el lanzamiento de la beta, pero lo más recomendable es visitarla cuanto antes para comenzar a disfrutarla.

La empresa que ha desarrollado la tienda multimedia es mmCHANNEL, empresa española que opera internacionalmente.

!Enhorabuena a mmCHANNEL y Simyo por el lanzamiento de la nueva tienda de entretenimiento digital!

Is really managing talent our biggest managerial challenge? I don´t think so

2009-05-03T17:07:00.000-07:00

I was having lunch with a couple of good friends of Saturday, he (Juan Villalobos, Juan Villalobos Linkedin profile )is a former CMO in the internet banking and insurance sector and now thinking of doing something more Entrepreneur and she (Silvia Diaz-Montenegro, Sylvia Diaz Linkedin profile ) used to be a former CTO of an internet bank and now manages her own and successful company
We were chatting about what we did learn about management and our principles and we all refer what we learn by working on consulting firms for our first career years, managing talent.

The key challenge on our managerial lives was supposed to be nurturing, coaching and making sure all the talent around us will grow. well we will discussing about the dramatic change we have seen around us in the workplace, the lack of ambition of the new generations, the lack of compromise and we question if there was a lack of talent and if so how to deal with it. Was really our biggest challenge just managing mediocrity? I really hope we don´t but we have to be open about it

Like to leave you with this quote I read on a blog today
"Did you ever think about……..

If one trains at the limits of ability, never trying to push the pace beyond current capacity and never exposing the body to an overwhelming stimulus, improvement does not occur. Even worse, ability slowly travels in the other direction, gathering speed on the gradual slope of suckdom."

Christopher Frey

Link to Christopher Frey blog

Web press coverage on Simyo new content promotins (Music 2*1)

2009-05-01T16:03:00.000-07:00

Simyo just launched some very special promotions on its multimedia portal powered by mmCHANNEL

Some links to blogs and sites that has covered this new promotion:

http://www.paraisogsm.com/simyo-ofrece-2x1-en-descarga-de-canciones/

http://vagos.wamba.com/showthread.php?t=552906ç

http://blogsimyo.es/simyo-canciones-gratis/

http://www.clubdemoviles.com/simyo-ofrece-2x1-en-descarga-de-canciones/

http://www.celularis.com/noticias/symio-ofrece-2x1-en-las-descargas-de-musica.php

mmCHANNEL speaking at MoMo MAdrid this coming monday!!!

2009-04-29T16:18:00.000-07:00

MobileMonday Madrid is back in tune the next May 4th at Instituto de Empresa.

Music services are becoming increasingly popular thanks to new more powerful and usable terminals, social networks supporting fans, recommendation engines, and new business and distribution models (online stores, radios, ownership, download, streaming, subscriptions, DRM, etc).

The Mobile Industry is celebrating this opportunity and is rapidly jumping on the bandwagon of new services, thanks to flat rates and content portability.

This coming monday MoMoMAD is presenting a new event on Mobile Music at the Instituto de Empresa. We´ll jam about what's new in music on the go, services, rights, social networks, enablers and platforms, and much more.

Our guest speakers will be:

Clemente Sánchez, Head of Digital Networks, SGAE
Clemente is an economist who has worked at KPMG and Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE). He has been Head of Digital Networks for this Organisation for 5 years, where he is responsible for negotiating and managing licenses for SGAE's works within the digital field, including Internet and Mobile.

Cristobal Alonso, CCO, mmCHANNEL
Cristobal has 13 years of experience in management and strategy & technology consultancy in the telecom industry at an international level with Vodafone, Diamondcluster and Accenture and has worked extensively with telecommunications companies and equipment manufacturers

Matías Llort, Marketing Director, MySpace
Matías has extensive experience in the entertainment industry. Before his rol in MySpace, he was product manager at SonyBMG.

Bernard Seco, CEO, Ohlala Mobile
Bernard has more than 15 years of experience in the world of marketing and media (Whitebread, BMG, EMI,...). Since then he has been linked to the development of new technology projects and multimedia conten or all types of audiences.

Ricardo Pérez, Academic Advisor of the Master in Telecom & Digital Business, IE Business School

Application store: OEMs (Handset Manufacturers) vs. Operators ones

2009-04-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

I read past week an article saying that application stores will face a risk on destroying its successful proposition in the market, as operators where enabling their own app stores (rumours of imminent launches of Telefonica/o2, Etisalat, Orange or Vodafone among others) and could fragment the market. Ralph de la Vega, CEO of US operator AT&T Mobility, says the existence of too many application stores will add to the technology fragmentation that has traditionally plagued developers trying to adapt or create content and apps for mobile.

Well initially I found the comment intriguing and somehow misleading and make me think who I thought was better position to become the store of choice for the customer: the handset manufacturer of your device today (so and in this order Nokia, Samsung, SE, Apple, RIM) which is closely link to the device OS also (so Android and Windows mobile will have a lot to do to catch up) or the handset manufacturer?

So several questions pop into my head: do you trust more the operator or the OEMs, or even easier who have you stayed longer with and you are less prompt to churn the operator or your device brand? IN 12-18 months after the novelty of being first of the i-phone store dies (but a novelty that accounts for iPhone applications have been downloaded more than 800 million times and there are now more than 25,000 iPhone apps available in the iTunes store)
, will not all app developers want to be distributed in all stores? Will it be a quality differentiator among stores? Will the operator be able to deliver an user experience as good as the i-Phone or Android (G2 as an example)?

Will have to write more on my answers or thoughts.

I leave you with those questions and a couple of good readings, one betting on the OEMs and another white paper betting more on mobile operators (a bit closer to my own opinion)

Extract from the opinion of VisionMobile blog past november

"We expect the most successful MAS solutions to come from handset OEMs, particularly the top-10. OEMs can manage the distribution, provisioning and on-device discovery elements of the recipe, while partnering with billing and retailing vendors to complete the picture. Operators will find it harder to put together successful MAS propositions, as they control a much smaller percentage of the recipe."

Link to vision mobile post of mob apps stores

Extract (conclusion) from surfkitchen white paper:
"...So, while the winners and losers have yet to be determined, it is clear that the next
wave of mobile functionality is here with research firm In-Stat predicting that there
will be more than 100 million app store users by 2014. What’s more, as the
competitive field shapes up with new and established players, mobile operators
realise that they can compete and differentiate their proposition building on
consumer demand for a broad choice of applications and a compelling experience"

Link to download pdf from surfkitchen

Speaking at the MVNO Growth Markets Conference in Dubai

2009-04-22T15:38:00.000-07:00

With the launch of the first MVNOs in Oman (Friendi and Renna) in the coming weeks, we will see the finalization of the first MVNOs in the Middle East (well there are several in Jordan so it will be more precise to say in the GCC)
I believe that it will take almost a year before we see the second wave, but clearly the players entering OMAN have a multi country strategy and probably the financial backing to do so (mostly friendi in this case)
Today we have the chance to listen to both companies CEOs (Mikkel Vinter from friendi Link to Mikkel public profile in Linkedin and Niklas Nielsen from Renna (Link to Niklas public profile in Linkedin and you can share their excitement as they have been working for over 2 years to get here
On my case I did a presentation (replacing last minute another speaker. Initially I was only going to speak tomorrow) but I believe I did add some value and a different point of view on how VAS presents an opportunity for these players. My presentation apart from a short presentation on mmCHANNEL did show some examples of players using VAS successfully (Simyo and Mobilking (PL)), opportunities specific to the GCC (labourer segments, youth population (over 45% of the population in the GCC is under 25), new business models as advergaming and UGC applications among others), the challenges to execute such offering and a summary
You can go to my linkedin profile (click on the upper right corner button) and you can see the presentation on slideshare
Enjoy and feedback welcome as I did try a different approach to the presentation, more visual, more engaging although if you just have the slides you may be missing something (my comments hopefully :-)

Informa VAS Growth markets conference - Some insights

2009-04-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

I have not been able to write for a while but I am here in Dubai speaking at several conferences on the VAS and MVNO topics and having ongoing BD discussions with parties we have been keep an open and lively discussion for now a number of months

Today I have the opportunity to chair the first day of the VAS Growth markets conference
Link to Mobile VAS Growth Markets conference

Let me share with you some of the notes from the different presentations and Q&A that happened today:
- Mohammed AlSayed, Head of non-voice services Zain KSA shared with us some of the experiences and unique differentiation pillars on the VAS portfolio, which I found really interesting and innovative for both the MENA region and in general
a) Zain KSA has launched a portal with 7 different user experiences both in terms of look&feel and content depending on your classification in terms of segment orientation
b) Also it has been conceived as an outlet for large brands to enhance their services
c) Last but not least is taking a view on promotions associated with events and discovery vs. the typical big bang ATL and then non existent promos

- Pieter Streicher, Managing director of BulkSMS and head of the WASPA association in South Africa did share with us how the market did self-regulate itself through their players and how they have managed to cover the gaps of the regulator (usually more interested on big items and non on creating a clear ecosystem for VAS players and its relationship with customers and MNOs). It is clearly a route than other MENA countries and players could imitate instead of waiting for regulators to take control (if ever) of the situation
- Deepak Halan, Group Services Director IMBR did share with us some insights on the Indian market and how it is still on its infancy and non making headwaves into GPRS or its upcoming 3G roll out. The rural market will be an area of growth in the future and how besides music there has non been really any other advanced services taking a lead so far. Opportunities as games or ad based RBT where on the radar screen

- Sander den HArtog, CEO of Mobitrans (more known in the region for its market leading brand Mozook) spoke about the road to growth markets, how the difficulty to penetrate them makes itself an opportunity to not so large players to keep working on getting there, how you could see these markets as YES Butters or Why Notter. How they have managed to be present in more than 10 countries already and their ambition to penetrate 20+ more of those large countries. He also spoke about how using ATL for these services in these markets is basically wasting money and how they are using online (through WAP), direct SMS campaigns and SMS based promotions to lead customers to discover. He emphasized that internet access in the region through mobile is larget than internet access through the PC

- and just before lunch Awais Malik from Zong Pakistan (a China Mobile company) spoke about their launch in Pakistan, how basically all the market is still concentrated on very basic VAS services, the importance of simple but flexible and quickly adaptable pricing as key for enhance usage and the need to establish some products as loss leaders on the VAS portfolio
- Simone Ranucci, CEO from Buongiorno HK did have the difficult task to wake us all after the lunch and he well manage to do so. Very interesting presentation on their vision of Mobile 2.0 and their role as enabler of this new Social Media paradigma. Their believe that operators can monetize their own communities better than internet communities moving to the mobile space. Examples like mCAMPUS from Airtel India is an example of this. He mentioned 4 key elements of making these 2.0 services vibrant and successful (4E Engage, Express, Entertainment and experience). He mentioned that the unique positioning of MNO around billing and selling content making them well suited to monetize the Mobile 2.0 environment

- Hani Yassin, VP BD Qualcomm Mena explained to us how Qualcomm is creating an ecosystem of applications and bearers to make the new service generation way more advanced and discussed their services on banking or their MediaFlo Mobile TV platform as examples

- On a very different note was Fredik Almgren from SmarTrust (director of VAS products) who did make loud and clear that still 40% of the users of these markets live with a Nokia 1xxx or 2xxx series and how very simple and SMS based services jointly with the SIM enabled services could make simple and largely-used services (mentioning banking transactions and login procedures as examples)

- Last 2 presentation did take us back from where we began in the morning, some well and advanced MNOs in terms of adopting innovative services and a new type of ecosystem. Vince Parr, VAS 2.0 Senior Advisor to Globe Telecom in the Philippines did exemplify in 5 simple but well defined steps on how to make those services a reality. He did explain how Globe did have to take a new approach even in terms of organizational structure to create its VAS 2.0 propositions. How they have started by creating partnerships with the key brands on the space (the facebook, youtube, yahoo and the likes) being used as a hook but progressing towards their own VAS 2.0 services. He mentioned the importance of "sneaking" packages in terms of pricing for VAS as the mentality in the country is abut trying always in small units or pieces. Finally he did mention again the importance of BTL for the promotions campaigns
A.Ceyda, VAS Director AVEA did describe 3 interesting and successful ways in which AVEA has make VAS a key proposition for them, creating up to 18% of their total revenues during the last year. She described in detail the VAS welcome pack (a bundle with different services) that was offered for free to those customers migrating as MNP was launched in the country last year. She also explained the successful Music services (through innovative content, promotions and features) and did explain their mobile internet efforts to increase penetration (successfully)

Some press coverage on our recently announced partnership with unkasoft on advergaming and content management

2009-04-06T16:47:00.000-07:00

I have been following up a bit the internet press and I have found some coverage on our recently announced partnership with unkasoft on mobile marketing, combining advergaming and our content management capabilities

Here you are

Link to aecomo site on unkasoft/mmchannel alliance

Link to loogic site on unkasoft/mmchannel alliance

PR note on our strategic alliance with Unkasoft advergaming solution

2009-04-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

UNKASOFT ADVERGAMES AND MMCHANNEL NOW JOIN EFFORTS IN THE MOBILE MARKETING ARENA

Unkasoft Advergaming, a leading provider of advergaming and mobile marketing solutions, and mmChannel leader in mobile multimedia solutions, today announced that it is offering solutions for mobile advertising.

GameSpace (http://unkasoft.mobi/) provides media companies with an effective way to promote digital content or products and brands to vital segments of the market through games delivered on user’s mobile phones. GameSpace provides a host of benefits to the mobile operator, including an increase in income from content, the potential to widen the number of users by offering content for free, or for preview, and a new income source for back catalogue games.

mmCHANNEL’s provides a Value Added Digital Entertainment service platform for Web/Wap/SMS content management and delivery that is designed to enhance the User’s “digital experience” through:
A “dual delivery” solution for the PC and Mobile to download full track music, ring tone, games etc plus video services
A vast [licensed] catalogue of up-to-date media comprising music and video tracks ingested from major and independent labels
Additional modules that include Subscriptions, Advertising and ‘Community and Recommending’ solutions that inspire loyalty and increase ARPU
Comprehensive and innovative WEB and WAP marketing sup-port programs designed to enhance the client’s branded image

“Today’s announcement will change the way marketing agencies create their campaigns,” said Juan Antonio Muñoz-Gallego, Co-founder Unkasoft. “Both companies are in the Red Herring Europe 2009, which evidences our solutions working together increase the ROI of the mobile marketing campaigns.”

“The continued expansion of the mobile subscription base is a main growth driver, with many industry analysts anticipating a 20 per cent increase by 2013. Given the increasing role and demand in mobile broadband, data usage will be driven by consumers initiating longer and richer data sessions in the relaxed environment of their home, browsing the web, downloading games, video content and social media applications. Therefore, this alliance with Unkasoft enhances our collective position in addressing the growing demand for “User Interactive” solutions and “Mobile Advertisement” targeted approaches,” said Marc Ian Rose, Chief Commercial Officer for mmCHANNEL.

Presenting at Red Herring 09

2009-04-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

Just come back from a 10 days trip that took me to 3 countries and 3 continents. I did finish the trip presenting at the Red Herring 09 TOP 100 Europe. Presentation went well but as in previous occasions you are competing for attention with 4 more companies presenting at the same time in several other rooms so attendance is not as great as you will want it. Anyway after being at several similar events we understand this and maximize the opportunity in different ways

Got into several interesting conversations with several VCs around if our growth strategy (apart from integrating with complementary companies in the near future which they all believe was a sound move on this market as a way to keep both growing and driving innovation) should part by keeping investing on emerging markets and strengthening our position there or look at the North American market in the following year

We will have follow up on such discussions soon in London
we will keep you updated

RED HERRING REVEALS mmCHANNEL SELECTED AS FINALIST FOR THE RED HERRING 100 EUROPE 2009

2009-03-23T19:11:00.000-07:00

Berlin, March 23, 2009 – Red Herring today announced that mmCHANNEL was named a Finalist of Red Herring 100 Europe, an award given to the top 100 private technology companies based in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region each year.

“This year’s impressive list of submissions from companies demonstrates Europe’s growing role as a major center of innovation in the global technology sector,” said Red Herring Publisher, Alex Vieux. “The exceptional accomplishments of European technology startups and entrepreneurs are a testament to the rapid advancements being made in building the European innovation ecosystem.”

Red Herring’s lists of top private companies are an important part of the publication’s tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs. Companies like Google, eBay, and Skype were spotted in their early days by Red Herring editors, and touted as leaders that would change the way we live and work.

Red Herring’s editorial staff rigorously evaluated several hundred private companies through a careful analysis of financial data and subjective criteria, including quality of management, execution of strategy, and dedication to research and development.

Red Herring will honor the Red Herring 100 Europe Finalist companies at its Red Herring Europe 2009 Conference. Scheduled for March 31- April 2, at the Berlin Radisson Hotel. This intimate, 2 1/2 day event will explore how European firms are leading the charge in many technology sectors, gaining a competitive advantage, and driving entrepreneurial success in ways that create business opportunities for challengers and incumbents alike.

what to write about next - need for company efficiency improvement 90 days plan

2009-03-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

I am having difficulty writing about my next post/s
There are a lot of things about to happen within our ecosystem in all areas (existing customer, new clients, VC backing, new plans, etc...) but obviously we need to keep them within the company until they are public
This week should a key week to have them some of them finally going forward and we can share some of them with our partners and followers
In the meantime I am making a point with the management and the leaders in the different business areas that we prepare a 90 days plan around efficiency improvement (processes, methodologies and tools). I believe we are about to embark ourselves on a period of growth (well within the current extremely difficult business environment and with all the sacrifices it forces all of us around the company) and we need to make sure that we start optimizing our different business areas to cope with the growth in different ways
Tomorrow we will be discussing this at the management meeting, it is a very exciting topic and I hope we put forward some interesting and productive ideas

Keep you posted

what you believe as a CEO

2009-03-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in the past blogs, we have been spending time with some of our partners exploring if there are ways to take our current collaboration model further, including some possible integration of company structures

While spending some time with the CEO and his team of one of those companies, he mentioned his management view "I don´t believe in technology, I believe in management" (do understand management as processes, methodology and people applying those). When this comes from a software development company the statement becomes much more powerful. As he says "there are many languages and deplyment frameworks, we can handle all, it is just a matter to put them through the "machine2

well if you add to the statement "I don´t believe in technology, I believe in management .... and passion" you will be very close to what I would have said in a similar meeting if I was the one speaking

Another interesting link to a startup blog: thinking shift in terms of change

2009-03-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

I got it from Keka (on her comment from my previous blog) and I did enjoy the reading and got some good new "lines"

Enjoy

Link to business insider post on opportunities in collapsing times

Mobile Monday Awards

2009-03-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

The Mobile Peer Awards is a Mobile Monday event that gathers representatives from all the different chapters in the world that meet together in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress. These are brief summaries for all the companies that presented during this event:

Early-stage start-ups:

- Addict Digital Media: local networks that allow people to share content within certain zones
- Aka-aki Networks GmbH: let people that are around you discover your profile
- Babajob.com: give people local access to nearby better-paid jobs
- Big in Japan: info about places to buy a product that was recognized by a previous scan
- Biolocate: system to avoid traffic jams using aggregated info by users
- Dial2do: applications to place orders through voice using the mobile phone
- Fortuno: service that allows developers and providers to create mobile services in different countries
- Mob4Hire: provide an API to allow testing in different handsets
- Orbster GmbH: games based on GPS location
- Oxynade: application to aggregate event info in local places
- Tellmewhere: service that matches people and places
- Xumii: tool to share content with your friends using the mobile phone

Emerging start-ups:

- Aradiom: development and maintenance of rich mobile applications
- Fring: real-time interactive updates on friends' activities
- Getjar Networks: mobile applications downloader
- Keynetic: requests that are controlled by motion with an intelligent user interface
- Mobintech: manufacturers of glasses to watch content in mobile phones
- Popcatcher: tool to save songs that are played on FM radio stations directly in the mobile phone
- Soonr: service that provides a personal cloud that is accesible from any place
- Unkasoft: advergaming provider that provides a tool to self-personalize a game or an application

As we can see from these summaries, there are several clear tendencies in the sphere of new mobile applications and services developers. There are several companies embracing social media and location bases services and local communities (sharing content, relating contacts that are in nearby places, etc.), as well as services based on local circumstances (ecommerce, info through UGC). On the contrary there were very few references to mobile advertising and advanced mobile content services.

We hope to announce you soon our participation in the local Mobile Monday chapter in Madrid!

Brainstorming ideas around promotions and functionalities to increase usage of VAS services with our clients (MNO & MVNO)

2009-03-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

Wanted to share with you, some of my external brainstormign help request I asked in different linkedin group I am part of:

"We keep helping our clients (mostly MNO and MVNO) not only with technology and running the day2day but with ideas.
The key question they always have is "what can we do to improve the numbers of downloads among our subscribers"?
We have run many promos, new features. etc.. in different customers but interested to hear new perspectives
The user groups (the fourth is subscribers discovery of the portal but too wide and usually non effective

Group 1) They browse on the operator portal but they don´t go to the content verticals (music or games) to download
Group 2) They did download in the past (several times and even up to 5 downloads within a week) but have not gone back to the service
Group 3) they regularly use the service (1-3 downloads a month) and we want to increase usage

Assume price is very competitive, features are "state of the art", so looking for promo or easy implementable new schemes based on experience

We have portals both in Western Europe and Emerging markets, but the later is even more of my interest"

Speaking at EurAsia - IStambul March 30th - April 1st

2009-03-07T04:30:00.000-08:00

After some chasing and as part of our good relationship with Informa, we have managed to get a spot on the Eurasia conference in Istambul and around the topic we wanted to speak about

It is a key conference as we have a vested interest in both Turkey and also the -Stan republics. We have already organized several meetings during the conference and we will be delivering 2 proposals also during those days

Link to Informa Eurasia conference site

On wednesday 1st, April at 16.00 we will sharing a ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION on the topic "Boosting the Acceptance of Mobile Content and Value-Added Services"
Covering aspects such as:

Driving up Consumer Acceptance of Mobile Entertainment
Evaluating the Business Case and Technology Choices around Mobile TV
Offering Compelling Mobilised Enterprise Business Processes
Monetising Operator Participation in Socially Useful Services: m-Banking, m-Government

It promises to be really interesting