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Tag: voices-of-the-industry

  • Telematics Update to unite telematics leaders at Telematics Munich 2013 for Europe’s biggest forum dedicated to the connected car


    Press Release: Telematics Update will bring together 800+ industry leading companies from across the infotainment, mobile, automotive, insurance, consumer electronics and V2X industries, including BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, Ford, Zurich, Volvo and the EU Commission at Telematics Munich 2013 Conference & Exhibition (Nov 11-12, Munich, Germany) to discuss the future of the connected car.

    Over the next 10 years, revenue forecasts for connected vehicle services estimate €40B from in-vehicle mobile advertising, €400B from vehicle maintenance, €4B from service subscriptions, and billions in fuel savings. With such returns at stake, the telematics industry has reached the milestone where the major automakers have now launched a connected platform to the market. Indeed, consumer subscriptions, revenue models and aftermarket capture will all be discussed in much greater depth during this key forum.

    Monetise the Connected Car Consumer

    Telematics Munich Project Director Rory Menage stated, “Despite all OEMs now offering in-vehicle connectivity, no one yet has the title of master of the connected driver user experience. The game is still open.” He continued, “2013 is the year in which the telematics industry must embrace key breakthroughs in the connected ecosystem, monetise the connected consumer, and build a dynamic service portfolio to truly empower tomorrow’s drivers.”

    Telematics Munich 2013 Conference & Exhibition (Nov 11-12, Munich, Germany) is the only event to unite the entire telematics ecosystem to tackle how to create customers for life by delivering a suite of integrated connected vehicle services.
    For the complete Telematics Munich 2013 conference program and speaker line-up, visit: https://www.telematicsupdate.com/munich

    Over 100 Industry pioneer speakers at Telematics Munich

    The conference program and speaker line-up has just been launched. Here is a snapshot of the elite speakers who will be on stage this November:
    • Simon Euringer, Head of ConnectedDrive, BMW
    • Marcus Heitmann, Lead Product Management, Volkswagen
    • Pawel Stelmaszczyk, Directorate General of Mobility and Transport, European Commission
    • Thomas Müller, VP Electronic Systems, Volvo
    • Andrei Iordache, Product Planning Specialist, KIA Motors
    • Martin Rosell, Managing Director, WirelessCar
    • David Voss, General Manager Infotainment, Opel AG
    • Christian Ress, Technical Expert Connectivity, Global Driver Assistance & Active Safety, Ford
    • Andrea Jurkic, Coordinator Strategic Programme, Generali Group
    • Filip van Thielen, Manager Business Development, Daimler FleetBoard
    • Candido Peterlini, Director Product Concept Infotainment, FIAT

    To see the full speaker line-up of over 100 industry leading speakers: https://www.telematicsupdate.com/munich/conference-speakers.php

    The hottest industry debates and announcements:

    • Adapt to LTE, address roaming and capture the telematics aftermarket
    • The future of mobility with car sharing and multi modal routing
    • Innovative business models to make services and apps pay for the industry and driver
    • Integrate infotainment with the consumer electronics world
    • Unlock the power of granular data to deploy next-gen  insurance telematics solutions
    • Smart CRM services to offer an end-to-end connected driver and ownership experience

    To view the complete conference agenda – https://www.telematicsupdate.com/munich/conference-agenda.php

    With 100+ senior-level telematics speakers, 40+ sessions, Europe’s largest telematics expo and 800+ attendees set to attend, Telematics Munich 2013 is the continent’s largest B2B forum for the global telematics industry.
    Kia Motors stated: "Telematics Munich 2012 was indeed the Paris Motorshow of the telematics world", whilst Ford Europe declared that “the show was very well organised and gave a comprehensive overview of the main trends in the main telematics market segments."

    For the complete Telematics Munich 2013 conference program and speaker line-up, access the e-brochure at https://www.telematicsupdate.com/munich/conference-event-brochure.php or contact the Telematics Update team at [email protected]

    Register before Friday July 26 via the secure link below to take advantage for €500 saving on all conference passes: https://secure.telematicsupdate.com/munich/register.php
    About Telematics Update:

    Telematics Update Conferences are the most prestigious in the industry. We produce the largest telematics events in North America, Europe & Asia, and attract the most influential speakers providing a rich environment for establishing strategic relationships and networking.

    Contact:

    Rory Menage
    Project Director | Telematics Update
    T: (UStf) 1 800 814 3459 ext 7546 | (Global) +44 (0)20 7375 7546
    E: [email protected]

  • Weve and PayPal among the 150+ Mobile Payments experts to meet in London, 23-24 April, 2013

    Weve and PayPal are among the top speakers confirmed for Mobile Payments and Value Added Services, Europe’s biggest mobile payments event, taking place 23-24 April, London. This event looks to unite attendees from major banks, MNOs, payment providers and retailers, in order to debate and discuss how the evolution of mobile technology can be used to cash in on the payments sector.

    Juniper Research predicts global mobile payment transactions will be worth $1.3 trillion over the next five years. The number of people buying physical goods remotely via their mobile handsets is expected to increase by nearly 50% between now and 2015 while 78% of POS terminals in Europe are forecasted to be NFC-enabled by 2017.

    In light of this, many companies are changing their strategies in order exploit the growing adoption of mobile payments. However, the growth in opportunity has also led to the rapid rise in the development differing of payment technologies, and plethora of solutions on the market.  Mobile Payments and Value Added Services will provide a forum to compare these payment solutions and help companies’ assess the benefits of value added services to their consumers.

    The agenda is set to answer the critical questions facing mobile payment professionals today; how banks can preserve their place in the payments value chain; in what way payments can generate additional revenue streams for MNOs; what opportunities exist for the Mobile Wallet; whether one payments solution win out, or is there room for  Cloud Payments, NFC and the rest? Speakers confirmed to speak so far include PayPal, Tesco, Visa, EE, and BNP Paribas among many others.  With attendees from Best Buy, American Express, John Lewis and more

    Event Director, Aoife Gaffney, VP Payments at M For Mobile, outlined what the conference would provide in a recent interview.  “After many years of talking about NFC, we have now seen a variety of other solutions explode onto the scene, using a range of technologies, all competing to reach mass consumer adoption. With forecasts for the payments industry in the billions, in order to profit and remain competitive, it is crucial that companies forge the right partnerships and keep themselves informed to stay ahead of the curve –  that is what Mobile Payments and Value Added Services will allow them to do.’”

    More information on Mobile Payments and Value Added Services can be found here.

    Contact
    Aoife Gaffney
    VP Location
    M For Mobile (Formerly NFC Insight & TheWhereBusiness)
    Direct: +44 (0) 207-375-7521
    US Toll Free: 1800-814-3459 ext. 7521
    Canada Toll Free: 1866-996-1235 ext. 7521
    E: [email protected]
    Twitter: wheresgaff

    About M for Mobile
    M for Mobile publishes news and events for those involved in the mobile industry, primarily mobile technology. Through high-end B2B conferences, we connect people across the industry, provide market leading intelligence and enable companies to capitalise on emerging business opportunities in location-based services, tracking, NFC, mobile advertising and mobile payments and much more.

    M for Mobile was created in February 2012 by uniting two established conference brands; NFC Insight and TheWhereBusiness. Through continuous independent research with hundreds of companies and dedicated journalists, our news portal keeps you one step ahead of an industry in flux, and our events provide key networking forums for the industry.

    Through an unusually high level of support from leading companies we provide opportunities to connect with typically unobtainable executives. Over the past two years we’ve brought together senior execs from companies such as Google, Fedex, Ogilvy, Yahoo!, MasterCard, Nokia, Apple, Microsoft, MTV, T-Mobile, AT&T, TomTom, BBC, Orange, Visa, BMW, Vodafone and many, many more!

  • Facebook phone: Ovum comments ahead of Facebook's announcement

    Ahead of Facebook’s announcement today, Adam Leach, principal device analyst at Ovum provides his perspective on how Facebook should move forward.

    Adam Leach, principal device analyst, Ovum:

    “Today Facebook will announce its ‘new home on Android’. There has been much speculation about what this will be, ranging from introducing a more deeply integrated Facebook app for Android all the way to launching its own “Facebook” phone.

    “But why is Facebook doing anything at all? The company wants to increase its engagement with its users and in particular its users accessing the service over mobile. To achieve this Facebook needs a mechanism to deliver its own services to a portfolio of devices. If this can be achieved with an Android Facebook skin or a co-branded phone then this will be better for Facebook as it avoids upsetting its current phone and platform partners and removes the immediate need to launch its own branded devices.

    “Whether Facebook needs to launches its own-branded devices depends on how ambitious Facebook is in moving into new consumer services which it currently does not provide. Facebook currently relies on the good will of its partners to carry the Facebook service. If it intends to move further into delivering digital services and go head to head with its consumer tech rivals such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon. This will bring Facebook into conflict with its current partners and will require the company to have more control over the platform and the devices it delivers the experience to.”

    Image: Michal Bonikowski

  • Mobile World Congress 2013: The End of Apple Dominance Is Near

    The annual meeting Mobile World Congress, ongoing this week in Barcelona, seems to mark more than any other event the end of Apple dominance in the global market for smartphones and tablets and the rise of some rivals with more open operating systems.

    Mozilla has opened the event in Barcelona unofficially. The nonprofit organization, which used Firefox a decade ago to fight Microsoft control in the online search engine market, wants to change totally the smartphone market as well.

    The industry is currently unnaturally controlled by a few companies, said general manager of Mozilla, Gary Kovacs, during the presentation of the first generation of mobile devices with Firefox operating system.

    More than 20 telecom industry executives who brought their support to the launch of Firefox OS had similar views.

    “We change the industry for the common good,” said Cesar Alienta, general manager of Telefonica, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. Spanish company chief criticized the closed operating systems, such as iOS, and warned that “the smartphone market is making a step back from the internet’s opening feature”. Telefonica wants to introduce shortly Firefox OS devices in Spain, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.

    America Movil, controlled by Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, committed to launch Firefox OS in Mexico “and in all possible markets” soon.

    The outgoing General Director of Deutsche Telekom, Rene Obermann, called the Firefox OS release “an important step towards more competition between different systems”. Deutsche Telekom will launch Firefox OS devices starting from this summer in Poland.

    Mozilla is not the only company that wants to change the market for smartphones and tablets. Samsung and Intel are also developing an operating system called Tizen, which would be even more open and will allow software developers more important changes compared to Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

    Mobile operators are strongly attracted by the prospect of being able to strongly change the operating systems, for an interaction as direct as possible with the user.

    The irony in this case is that the success of Samsung with Tizen would make the South Korean company less dependent on Google and stronger in the smartphones and tablets market.

    The rest of the world seems to recover the distance to Apple's platform for mobile devices, and the American company must innovate again or will be cannibalized by rivals with cheaper and more accessible devices. Smartphone market seems to have matured, so that real opportunities could be in the expansion in emerging markets.

  • GSMA Announces Winners Of The 2013 Global Mobile Awards

    The GSMA today announced the winners of the 18th Annual Global Mobile awards, held at the Mobile World Congress 2013 in  Barcelona. The winners were honoured in an afternoon ceremony hosted by writer, actor and comedian, David Walliams.

    Walliams entertained nominees and attendees with a comic introduction to the ceremony. He was joined on stage by representatives from sponsors McAfee, Myriad and Telmap, and media partners CNBC, Fortune and Time, who co-presented awards, as well as John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA and members of the judging panel.

    In total, more than 170 independent analysts, journalists, academics and subject matter experts and 13 representatives from mobile operators throughout the world participated in the judging of the 2013 awards.

    The winners of the 2013 Global Mobile Awards are:

    Best Mobile Health Product or Service
    MIPsoft for BlindSquare

    Best Mobile Education or Learning Product or Service
    Mobilink for SMS Based Literacy program

    Best Mobile Product or Service for Automotive
    BMW i, MINI, Sixt and Vodafone Group for DriveNow Premium Car Sharing

    Best NFC /Mobile Money Product or Service
    Etisalat for Flous – The Etisalat Commerce Programme

    Best Mobile Publishing Product or Service
    Ver Se Innovation for NewsHunt

    Best Mobile Innovation for 'Smart Cities'
    Streetline for Parker

    Best Mobile Enabled Consumer Electronics Device
    Samsung Electronics for Samsung GALAXY Camera

    Best Enterprise Mobile Service
    Mobilelron for Version 5 Complete Enterprise Persona

    Best Consumer Mobile Service
    Comviva for Mahindra Comviva's mobiquity™ MFS platform powering mTicketing service for Bangladesh Railways

    Best Advertising or Marketing on Mobile
    McCann Worldgroup (Hong Kong) for Chok! Chok! Chok!

    Best Network Product or Solution for Serving Customers
    NTT DOCOMO for Hanashite Hon'yaku, world's first automatic voice translation service

    Best Product, Initiative or Service in Emerging Markets
    Ericsson for Amazon Connection– a digital inclusion program in the Amazon

    GSMA mWomen Best Mobile Product or Service for Women in Emerging Markets
    Asiacell for Almas Line

    Best Use of Mobile in Emergency or Humanitarian Situations
    Vodafone Foundation for Vodafone Instant Network

    The Green Mobile Award
    Indus Towers for Green Sites Project

    Best Mobile App for Consumers
    Facebook

    Best Mobile App for Enterprise
    Evernote

    Judges Choice – Best Overall Mobile App
    Waze

    Most Innovative Mobile App
    McCann Worldgroup (Hong Kong) for Chok! Chok! Chok!

    Smartphone Application Challenge
    AT&T for Application Resource Optimizer (ARO)

    Best Application using Network APIs
    Bharti Airtel Limited for my airtel app

    Best Smartphone
    Samsung Galaxy S3

    Best Feature phone or entry level phone
    Nokia Asha 305

    Device Manufacturer of the Year
    Samsung

    Best Mobile Tablet
    Google and Asus for Nexus 7

    Best Mobile Infrastructure
    Samsung Electronics for Smart LTE Networks

    Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough
    Accuris Networks for AccuROAM Wi-Fi: Making Wi-Fi a carrier driven extension of GSM for Offload and Roaming

    Best Cloud Based Technology for Mobile
    Jasper Wireless cloud-based connected devices platform for machine-to-machine (M2M) and consumer electronics

    Best Mobile Safeguard & Security Products and Services
    AdaptiveMobile and Syniverse for Messaging Trust

    Outstanding LTE Contribution
    SK Telecom for 4G LTE with PETA Solution

    Outstanding Overall Mobile Technology – The CTO's choice
    Samsung Electronics for Smart LTE Networks

    Spectrum for Mobile Broadband Award
    Government of New Zealand

    Mobile for Development Award
    U.S. Agency for International Development

    m-Government Award
    Government of Moldova

    "Through these awards, we are proud to shine the light on the mobile industry's many innovators and leaders, from all corners of the world," said John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Ltd. "This year's new categories reflected the industry's reach into many new sectors and we received more than 600 high-quality entries from across the mobile ecosystem. We would like to congratulate all Global Mobile Awards winners and thank the many hundreds of companies and organisations that support these awards by entering each year."

  • Apple Launches iOS 6.1: Short List of Improvements

    Apple has released an update package for the 6.1 version of its iOS software platform, bringing few improvements. iOS 6.1 is a minor update designed to improve the LTE compatibility and to repair a series of vulnerabilities.

    iOS 6.1 expands the LTE support for 36 operators in 17 countries, this feature being offered to the iPhone 5, iPad 4th generation tablets and iPad Mini. Those who are using the 3rd generation of iPad will be limited by the LTE support of the modem used by Apple.

    The list of software innovations includes the integration within Siri of the possibility of purchasing movie tickets through Fandalgo, feature limited to the United States, and the possibility of individual downloading and deleting music tracks downloaded from iTunes Match, option that existed in iOS 5, but which disappeared from iOS 6 until this new version.

    iOS 6.1 brings improvements and strengthens the security in the operating system kernel and the modules WebKit, StoreKit and Identity Services, as well as eliminating a security vulnerability discovered in the Broadcom wireless drivers that affected the models iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4th generation and iPad 2.

    The list of minor innovations also includes the possibility of removing identification codes used by advertisers, option available in the General/About/Advertising menu, and small changes in the interface, such as redesign of audio playback control buttons in Lock Screen.

    According to Apple, of the 600 million Apple products running the iOS, half of them are using the latest major release of the operating system.

  • Alcatel-Lucent and Reliance Communications enter long term billion dollar contract

    Alcatel-Lucent and Reliance Communications (RCOM), a telecommunications service provider for India, announced that they had signed a contract for an innovative, end-to-end network that will provide service for customers in the Eastern and Southern regions of India through the year 2020.

    This contract means that the current business agreement between RCOM and Alcatel-Lucent will be continued with an additional 1 billion USD.

    The customer demand for communications applications and services is ever-changing and constantly evolving, thus making this agreement even more significant. According to the companies, the contract offers the first fully-integrated line of services for India, and is among only a handful across the world.

    Through the aid of Alcatel-Lucent, RCOM will combine both the wireless and wireline departments into a single, synergized organization. With this new streamlining in place, RCOM can then direct their energy toward business expansion and maintaining high-level communication services to patrons. RCOM's current practices and tools, with the help of Alcatel-Lucent, will be standardized in order to enable the optimum level of efficiency throughout the company.

    Through this contract, Reliance Communications will be able to provide quality and reliability across a variety of devices and connection mediums for its customer base. One of the first steps on Alcatel-Lucent's end of the deal will be to implement next-generation OSS (operation support systems), as well as high-end tools for improved network capabilities for the wireless, wireline, and long-distance features that RCOM has to offer. By working together, these two major companies will forge a road that the modern digital communications society of India demands.

    Gurdeep Singh, Chief Executive Officer of the Wireless Business division for RCOM, and Rajeev Singh-Molares, President of the Asia-Pacific division of Alcatel-Lucent, both commented on the contract, saying that the partnership can only bring good things for both companies, who have had a long-standing, positive relationship. Reliance Communications hopes to emerge from this agreement as the leading provider of voice and data communications services. The main priorities of Alcatel-Lucent in the relationship will be to improve quality and providing a reliable customer experience throughout all service areas.

    RCOM's Chief Executive Officer, Punit Garg, and Alcatel-Lucent India's President and Managing Director, Munish Seth, are both confident that the enhanced bond between the companies will bring great things, allowing customers to gain access to state-of-the-art technologies through this entirely re-invigorated, re-envisioned provider. Alcatel-Lucent has over 20 years of experience with outsourcing and network operation, with over 100 operations across the globe

  • Comcast and Google welcome ARRIS Group into Relationship

    Comcast has thrown its hat in the cable box and modem arena by pledging to invest in the ARRIS Group, Inc. to the tune of $150 million. In return for its investment, Comcast will acquire about 10.6 million shares of ARRIS, which amounts to approximately 7.85 percent of the company.

    The stock was purchased from Google, which previously owned 15.7 percent of ARRIS but with the Comcast deal found its shares reduced in half. This deal makes Comcast and Google equal holders of common stock in the company.

    Although Bob Stanzione, ARRIS CEO seemed pleased, "We believe this investment by one of our largest customers is a strong indication of customer support for the Motorola Home acquisition and its potential to accelerate innovation to the benefit of the industry and consumers." The deal between Comcast and ARRIS is small compared to ARRIS's acquisition of Motorola Home for $2.35 billion from Google. Motorola Home was part of Motorola Mobility, which was in turn a subsidiary of Google Inc. It is expected that ARRIS will be an active participant in Comcast and that the two companies will work in close conjunction with each other.

    The result is, that after the dust settles, Comcast will have its foot in the door by owning part (7.85%) of the ARRIS Group's broadband media technological empire. ARRIS owns Motorola Home and Google is richer by $2.35 billion from the Motorola Home sale and $150 million from the Comcast deal. Additionally Google's shares of common stock in the ARRIS Group are now down to 7.85 percent.

  • Ericsson Mobility Report – Number of Mobile Subscribers, LTE Coverage and Trends

    Now at the third edition, Ericsson Mobility Analysis Report, created by one of the greatest players in the telecom market, highlights some interesting aspects of the market in the quarter ended and makes a series of forecasts for the next six years.

    According to data centralized globally by Ericsson, 40% of all terminals sold in Q3 2012 were smartphones, they stimulating users towards using enough data to exceed the average.

    Data traffic has doubled in the last 12 months and its growth trend will lead to an increase of 14 times the amount of data transferred by 2018. This growth will be dominated by the use of video content, which already represents 25% of the traffic generated by mobile devices and 40% of the one generated by tablets.

    The total number of subscribers to mobile networks will reach 6.6 billion next year, the number following to increase by 2018 to about 9.3 billion. The most important increases are recorded in China, where operators have received an additional stream of 40 million customers in the last three months, this country being followed by Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines. 91% of the world population currently has access to 2G/3G connections, the total number of subscribers being around 6.4 billion.

    Of this number of subscribers, about 6.5% benefit from LTE coverage, the United States having a visible advantage to Europe or the Asia – Pacific area. By the end of 2018, LTE will be available to half of the total number of customers, the leader remaining the United States, which will have a coverage of about 70%, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific with about 28% and 18%, respectively.

    The number of LTE subscribers is currently about 55 million, by 2018 being expected to reach the fabulous figure of 1.6 billion.

  • New Rumors About The Upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4

    Galaxy S3 is still one of the most impressive smartphones released this year, so it is not surprising at all that rumors about the next step to be taken by the South Koreans have already appeared.

    The fourth iteration of the Galaxy S terminal would have a screen 4.99-inch screen and a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, which already seems to be the default standard for the top models scheduled for 2013. According to some Korean sources, Samsung is expected to show at CES 2013 the first HD Super AMOLED panel with this resolution.

    As the company did not release any panel with RGB matrix yet, we can assume that we will still be talking about a PenTile screen, but given the new arrangement of subpixels used to make the screen of Galaxy Note 2, with a density of 441 ppi, probably this inconvenience will not bother too much.

    The speculated hardware platform is Exynos 5 Quad, the quad-core version of the already-launched dual-core model Exynos 5250, which was implemented in the portable Samsung Chromebook and the tablet Google Nexus 10. Also known as the Exynos 5450, this chip will not seem to see the light of the day as simple quad-core version of the current model, but as an improved version that will also implement an ARM T658 GPU, better than the current version T604.

    The third rumor says that the next Samsung Galaxy S4 will offer a 13-megapixel camera, a rumor also heard before the launch of Galaxy Note 2, but which did not come true.

    As we all know, the new Galaxy S will be launched somewhere in late spring 2013, during which much can happen in the world of smartphones. But anyway, hopefully we will have a rich year in real flagship releases from both Samsung and the easily-left-behind competition: LG, HTC, Nokia and others.