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Barcelona,
the Catalonian capital was host to the largest GSM conferences, which saw a
record attendance of 50,000 telecom professionals from across the world. Each of
the four days saw several announcements and product and services launch by
vendors and service providers.
The highlight of the event was the heightened enthusiasm of services providers,
vendors, and content players towards the wide range of 3G services
including music, videos, and live TV on mobile. Most of the operators and
vendors felt that high-speed transfers and instant messaging would be the key
drivers for the success of 3G services.
Wang Jianzhou, chairman and CEO of China Mobile, made a startling
revelation. He said that the total revenue from mobile music in China is larger
than the total revenue of the traditional music industry.
Giving figures, he informed that whereas 1mn copies of a CD might sell in
China in six months; mobile phone users recently bought 15 mn copies of a single
song over the same period of time.
In all, 962 companies showed their wares at the conference. Software and
content companies outnumbered the traditional telecom exhibitors with their
innovative products. There were high profile keynote addresses by Microsoft CEO
Steve Ballmer, Motorola CEO Ed. Zander, Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila, Ericsson
president and CEO, Carl-Henric Svanberg among others.
For Steve Ballmer, it was time to put aside desktop for a while and
concentrate on mobile phones and embedded devices and specifically recently
launched Windows Mobile version 5.0. On
the other hand, Motorola's presence at the event was overwhelming.
In fact the entire city of Barcelona was plastered with Motorola
advertisements. Orange, Vodafone,
and other wireless operators also displayed their new products and services.
A large number of visitors from India including the Communications
minister Dayanidhi Maran were also present. Sunil Mittal of Bharti also spoke at
the event. He said, “Mobile phones are a way to bridge the digital divide and
a fantastic opportunity for India to exploit its full potential as a
knowledge-based society.” Mittal also pointed out that around 500 mn people in
India are under the age of 25 and the demand for affordable digital
communication is set to increase.
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Ed Zander president and
CEO, Motorola |
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Jorma Olilla CEO, Nokia |
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Thomas Ganswindt CEO
Siemens Communications |
| "We're
number two now. We have our sights set at number one. Certainly, it will
take a while. You just chip away at it.'' |
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"We
estimate that Nokia will sell approximately 40 mn 3G/WCDMA devices this
year and we expect to ship close to 80 mn devices with integrated music
players, and more than 150 mn devices with an integrated FM radio." |
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"We
want to grow significantly faster than the market and we have set
ourselves the goal of winning one new 3G/W-CDMA contract a month." |
Some companies from India who displayed their latest products and services
included Flextronics Sofware Systems, Bharti Telesoft, Jatayu Software, ACL
Wireless and others. Incidentally,
Idea Cellular got the distinction of becoming the first Indian company to win an
award in the 'Best Billing or Customer Care Solution' category, in stiff
competition with other international nominees such as Orange Communications
(SA), Bitfone Corporation (California), MegaFon (Moscow) and T-Mobile (UK).
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Carl-Henric Svanberg
President and CEO, Ericsson |
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Sanjiv Ahuja CEO, Orange |
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Arun Sarin CEO, Vodafone |
| "If GSM was the
beginning of a mass market for mobile telephony, then HSDPA marks the
beginning of a mass market for high-speed mobile broadband." |
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"Operators within
the GSM community have agreed to IM interoperability standards." |
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"Emerging markets
will be the main growth area for global telecom companies and they will
have to provide innovative new services for that." |
The application named “Bill Flash” allows a customer to
dial a five digit string (eg *111# in Delhi) and get his 'unbilled amount and
billing information' as a flash on his handset screen within 30 seconds-even
while roaming.
| Microsoft: Moving Towards Mobility |
|
Steve
Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft
”I love the mobile industry, and I love our operator partners.”
Excerpts from Steve
Ballmer's Address at the 3GSM Conference on February 14, 2006 in
Barcelona, Spain
-
200
mn Hotmail users
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400
mn users of Microsoft Office and Outlook
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200
mn users of our MSN Instant Messenger software
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300
mn downloads of our Windows Media technology.
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18,000
applications developed for the Windows Mobile platform.
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Over
13 mn developers who have developed tools to build Windows Mobile
applications.
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FY05
alone, it shipped more than 5 mn 'connected' Windows Mobile-based devices
worldwide, and reported revenue of $337 mn in total
On Mobile
Industry
”I love the mobile industry, and I love our operator partners.”
“We're at a
point in time today that the devices that one can put in one's pocket
are really like mini PCs. The 3G networks are like broadband networks and
our customers will really expect the same flexibility and choice of
activities that they get on the PC today.”
“Powerful
devices meet powerful networks in small form factors. And that's the
opportunity I think in front of all of us at this stage in time.”
On Digital Divide
“There's still a digital divide, or people who participate and
do not participate in the digital lifestyle.”
On Microsoft
Product Portfolio
“We've spent the last 10 or 15 years really building out
business infrastructure with products like our Exchange e-mail system, our
Live Communication Server instant messaging system and others. We've
worked over the last five or six years to really build out the Internet
services in the cloud, products like Hotmail and MSN Instant Messenger,
and our Windows Live search. But it's really the mobile device in some
senses that completes this picture, and brings together an end-to-end
offering that we can partner with mobile operators to really enable the
digital lifestyle and digital work style for our customers.”
On
Microsoft's Priorities
“One of the top, top, top priorities of our sales force around
the globe is not only going to be to sell the new version of Windows and
the new version of Office and Outlook and Exchange, but it will really be
difficult to drive Windows Mobile penetration into the business market to
allow things to develop and flourish.”
On Blackberry
“A few years ago, I'd go talk to customers and they'd say,
“Where's your solution to compete with Blackberry,” and I'd show
them a device, and they'd say, “Oh, that's not quite the perfect
device for me.” And so it really got me personally and our teams very
enthusiastic about making sure that we were spurring innovation among
hardware makers to show this wide range of hardware.”
“Operators are
constantly pushing me, “Tell me what you're going to do in the PC to
better support 3G,” “How do we get 3G into notebook computers and
tablets as standard functionality.”
On Business and Personal Use of Devices
“Everybody I talk to likes to distinguish carefully between the
so-called business customer and the consumer. I actually don't know
myself really what the difference is many times. I agree there are some
people who are pure consumers, and I agree there are some people who are
purely businesspeople, but most people at least I interact with view
themselves as people, and they have a personal life and they have a
professional life. And particularly for the device that goes in their
pocket, they want that device to be able to give them one glimpse of their
information, whether it happens to be part of their private life or it
happens to be part of their professional life.”
“I get personal
e-mail and I get business e-mail; I want to be able to bring those
together on one device. I've got one set of contacts; I don't really
want to manage two sets of contacts, I have one set of contacts for my
life. Yes, I have an address book that I see from my company, but I also
have contacts and people that I contact with instant messaging, I want to
see their presence, what they're up to, one view of my world.”
On Cooperation
Between Operators, Device Makers, and Software Vendors
“We really want a consistent software experience that sits behind
these devices and bridges the personal and professional world. That will
only happen if at least one company like ours, and maybe some others, too,
put in place an end-to-end vision and software that enables it, and then
really works with mobile operators to make it come true. It requires
incredible cooperation and coordination between mobile operators,
enterprises, and the technology providers to bring it to life.”
On Device
Capability of Windows Vista
“In Windows Vista we have Mobile Device Center that helps you
synchronize information across a set of mobile devices, personal media
devices, Windows Media Center Portable devices, and PCs.”
“Customers are
demanding more, and people have higher expectations for their mobile
devices. They want them to perform the same functions as their PC or
laptop. Microsoft is uniquely positioned because we offer it all. We can
help to provide access to all kinds of rich media and to many kinds of
messaging services. We want to work with partners to enable unlimited
choice for customers. We're going to continue to create compelling
mobile services in an end-to-end scenario and offer it directly to
customers. But we're committed to enabling choice for mobile operators
so they get added value from Microsoft and, in turn, can provide choice to
their customers.”
Sudesh Prasad
in Barcelona, Spain
The author was hosted by Microsoft |
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