Verizon Wireless

Verizon: No ODI certification for mobile applications

Jason Ankeny — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:03:24 -0400

Three months after holding its first Open Development Initiative conference in New York City, Verizon Wireless last week hosted a conference call to update developers on the effort, announcing a device has now passed the operator's ODI certification process. "We can't mention the company name because of [a non-disclosure agreement], but we want you to know the process works," said Verizon vice president for open development Anthony Lewis during Friday's call. Lewis added the ODI-certified device was already in the pipeline when Verizon first made public its open access plans a few months back.

For the most part, the conference call focused on device development, prompting members of the audience to ask when Verizon would divulge details of the ODI application certification process. According to Lewis, devices are "the crux of the project--once we can ignite an ecosystem of devices, we feel applications will quickly follow." To that end, he said Verizon will not launch an apps certification effort, instead relying on OEMs to determine whether or not certification is necessary for apps written for their devices. "We'll allow any applications to run on certified devices," Lewis said, adding developers may create applications for any operating system they choose, including Google Android, the Linux-based LiMo Platform or Windows Mobile.

Related articles:
Verizon Wireless spurns Android for LiMo
Verizon Wireless promises open access by late 2008

Can developers solve the discovery dilemma?

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:59:59 -0400

Can developers solve the discovery dilemma?

Does the answer to the mobile discovery dilemma rest with developers? Verizon Wireless thinks so. At last week's BREW 2008 event in San Diego, the operator's vice president of consumer product development Lee Daniels took the stage strumming an electric six-string to celebrate the breakthrough success of the Guitar Hero III Mobile game, but he struck an even deeper chord with attendees by promising Verizon will begin allowing developers a far more proactive role in promoting their own applications.

According to Daniels, mobile data now accounts for 23 percent of Verizon Wireless' combined revenue, and with data growth accelerating, the company will seek to tie together key drivers including enhanced merchandising, marketing and seamless access to the BREW platform across the device. Critical to the operator's plans: Improving discovery. "Distribution remains our focus, and we're opening up discovery via the web, mobile marketing and mass media," Daniels said. "New applications demand new responses to discovery. We need [developers] to take a bigger role in promoting your applications."

At last year's BREW event, Verizon Wireless' senior vice president of marketing and digital media John Harrobin admitted the operator was still struggling to integrate BREW Zone, which promised to open up retail possibilities to include content sales through the VZW.com website and other approved off-portal sites. "We are disappointed," Harrobin said at the time. "We want to sell more content but integration is harder than we expected." At BREW 2008 Daniels announced the BREW Zone integration is now complete, paving the way for a host of new merchandising opportunities: "We can now drive millions of transactions through the BREW ecosystem and move beyond the mobile phone."

Daniels added that in the third quarter, Verizon will introduce short code promotions to complement web sales of BREW applications, with a developer bulletin scheduled to follow within the next 60 days. Another innovation in the Verizon pipeline is hyperlinking, which Daniels said enables transaction growth by capitalizing on the increase of page view totals. New merchandising tactics like subscription pricing, variable pricing and value-added billing are also underway. All are steps in the right direction for an operator still finding it hard to make content not so hard to find. -Jason

SEGA's Sonic rings up 8 million mobile downloads

Fri, 30 May 2008 17:24:41 -0400

Gaming firm SEGA Mobile announced its flagship title Sonic the Hedgehog has scored more than 8 million mobile downloads since debuting in the North American and European markets in early 2006. Sonic made its initial mobile bow on the Verizon Wireless deck, and SEGA Mobile’s
Vice President of Mobile Business Linda Chaplin said the operator’s sales remain strong more than two years later.

“Sonic is the second most popular videogame character of all time after Mario,” Chaplin said. “His appeal spans across all ages.”

SEGA Mobile also announced that Tammy Robinson, formerly the manager of content programming for games, wallpaper and applications at Verizon Wireless, has joined as its senior director of sales. Robinson has been in the wireless industry for a decade--during her time at Verizon, she grew the operator’s games content revenue by 38 percent and increased the carrier’s market share to more than 40 percent. She was also instrumental in the company’s multiplatform content strategy for its game business and helped merchandize games on the V CAST network.

At SEGA, Robinson will be responsible for expanding the firm’s current channel partnerships and establishing new relationships with carriers, portals and OEMs.

Operators support AmberWatch Mobile

Mike Dolan — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:36:45 -0400

By Jason Ankeny

Proving the old adage that "There's safety in numbers," the five major U.S. mobile operators--AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and Alltel Wireless--jointly committed to the AmberWatch Mobile Initiative, a charitable effort that generates funds for the national child welfare non-profit AmberWatch Foundation. Paul Jacobs, CEO of fellow AmberWatch partner Qualcomm, officially announced the operators' participation during his keynote appearance Thursday at BREW 2008.

Powered by location-based solutions provider WaveMarket, the AmberWatch Mobile Initiative will raise funding and awareness for the foundation, which is dedicated to keeping children safe from molestation and abduction by establishing partnerships with local law enforcement and other officials. AmberWatch's "Be Safe!" Education Program offers children and their parents tips on staying safe from predators, delivering presentations at no cost to the school, municipality or local community group that hosts the event.

Although the carrier members are scheduled to take part in a series of fundraising efforts to support the AmberWatch Mobile Initiative, details were scarce. "The wireless industry will roll out this program, which is great for kids," Jacobs said. "We'll give you updates as it progresses."

Presumably some funding will derive from WaveMarket's premium LBS services. The company will develop AmberWatch Mobile, a cross-carrier, GPS-based safety application enabling youngsters to reach out for assistance via mobile device. Alerts automatically include the child's location, viewable on a map from the web or a mobile phone. Family members can also track a child's whereabouts on-demand or using "scheduled checks.

Guitar Hero III Mobile strikes it big at BREW Developer Awards

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:19:59 -0400

By Dan O'Shea

Befitting a collegial atmosphere replete with pool tables, foosball tables and vendor booths with microbrew taps, the BREW Developer Awards last night was a noisy affair at which an explosively popular video game brand added another notch to its guitar.

Guitar Hero III Mobile won Best Game Application and People's Choice Award. The game also would have won the award for loudest cheering section, had there been such an award. Over the happy hour chatter, it was difficult to hear Mitch Oliver, vice president of product management for Qualcomm Internet Services Mobile, and Kathy Braegger, senior product manager and head of developer relations, list some of the nominees, but it was never louder than the applause that erupted each time they mentioned Guitar Hero III Mobile, developed by MachineWorks Northwest for Hands-On Mobile.

The latest entry in the Guitar Hero series was released commercially by Verizon Wireless last December, and became an instant hit. Much of that awareness may be due to the brand itself, but MachineWorks still had to make sure the game could make a successful jump from the family room to the mobile phone. "We still had to make a design that translated well from the console to the handheld," said Andreas Vasen, general manager of MachineWorks Northwest, after accepting both awards. "We went to great lengths to get the sound exactly right."

Other award winners included:

Best Up and Coming Application: mSpot Make UR Tones, mSpot Inc.

Best Public or Private Sector Business Application: Farmer Friend, Sichuan Greatwall Software Technology Co. Ltd. of China

Best Location-Based Service Application: Where, uLocate Communications

Best Community/Social networking Application: Loopt, Loopt

Best Personalization or Infotainment Application: MLB.com GameDay Plus GameDay Audio, MLB Advanced Media

Kevin Mahoney, project manager, mobile for MLB Advanced Media, credited developer Gravity Mobile for its win, and said the content his team had to work with was the key. "Baseball fans really enjoy their content, and it's a natural for a mobile platform," he said. "Gravity Mobile did a great job for us."

John Wilson, director of uLocate Communications, an LBS development environment, said the win for Where in the LBS category comes at a time when LBS applications have turned a corner in consumer adoption, and put initially slow acceptance in the past. "We solved the adoption problem by going free to consumers," Wilson said. "In the next six to nine months, you will see more ad-supported revenue models for LBS applications."

He also said that uLocate's win at the BREW Developer Awards is a reflection of the developers that have been building applications based on its LBS development environment. "We've had the benefit of a very strong developer community, with over 1000 developers," he said. "The applications that underpin our success were written by other people, and the kudos really goes to them."

Mapping Technology

Wed, 28 May 2008 16:39:02 -0400

By Lynnette Luna

When the Federal Communications Commission mandated enhanced-911 capabilities 2001, the mobile industry had its eye on monetizing the requirement by offering mass-market navigation services. Seven years later, 2008 is becoming what Yankee Group calls the turning point for location-based services in North America as the majority of handsets now have integrated GPS capabilities and all major mobile operators plan to offer at least one GPS-based navigation application this year.

"We have taken as an industry people driving and walking around with paper maps to where customers expect a great mapping experience on their mobile devices," said Dave Singer, vice president and general manager of the Americas with mapping and navigation solution provider Telmap.

Indeed, mobile operators have now discovered a financial incentive to leverage their E911 investments and bring consumer navigation services to market, notes Jill Aldort, senior analyst with Yankee Group, in a recent report. "With the first indications that consumers would pony up $10 per month for driving directions, operators (namely Verizon and Sprint) painted their marketing campaigns with LBS."

Mapping and navigation applications aren't just about reading a map on a mobile screen anymore. It's now about premium services such as turn-by-turn directions, 3D maps, traffic overlays, inserting landmarks and points of interest to ultimately location-based advertising, social networking and mobile gaming, Singer said.

Verizon Wireless, partnering with Networks in Motion, is already encompassing several advanced features through its BREW-based VZ Navigator, which allows subscribers to use audible turn-by-turn directions to find their way to any address. VZ Navigator can also direct users to some 14 million points of interest, landmarks, restaurants and ATMs. The core of VZ Navigator is its GPS positioning features, which tells users where they are and which points of interest are nearby. It's estimated that VZ Navigator supports more than 1 million subscribers.

Telmap is working with a host of BREW operators, most recently partnering with Mexico's Grupo Iusacell to deliver a white-labeled mobile navigation application. The service includes Telmap-powered location-based turn-by-turn driving and walking directions with voice, graphic and text-based guidance to subscribers' mobile phones. It also offers maps , free-text local search capabilities along with advanced address search capabilities with auto-complete and fuzzy matching to enable users to find what they are looking for even with partial information or misspelled words.

TeleCommunications Systems (TCS), which offers a host of location solutions to carriers, government and public safety, works with developers by offering up a mapping server similar to Google's and allowing them to create applications using the server across various platforms, including BREW, Java and Windows Mobile.

TCS recently expanded its relationship with regional CDMA operator nTelos to enable the operator to offer a BREW-based turn-by-turn navigation application called Rand McNally Navigator, which was developed by TCS. This version of Navigator enables users to access real-time, voice-based turn-by-turn directions from their mobile devices as well as find points-of-interest and navigate to that location. But a key element of the deployment is location roaming, said Sean Murphy, director of mobile products with TCS.

"One of the things we've been driving from an industry perspective is LBS roaming and cross-network LBS support," Murphy said. "Regardless of what network an end-user is on, they can leverage the same LBS services they are accustomed to on a daily basis."

LBS roaming is especially critical for operators like nTelos, which don't have a national presence and rely on big operators such as Sprint and Verizon for service outside of their operating areas. "The worst thing that can happen is having your navigation or directions applications stop in a strange city," Murphy said.

TCS is also focusing on mapping capability that goes beyond the automobile-whether an end user needs to find his or her way while walking, hiking, bicycling or riding various forms of public transportation.

"The states have been so focused on driving directions in the car, while Japan and others have been focusing on alternative modes other than driving," Murphy noted. "WE are seeing a lot of requests in the U.S. now for a travel guide. If someone is in New York they might not have a vehicle but will still need help to navigate from point A to point B ... I may walk and then take the metro. I need all of that information to help me navigate."

And going forward, expect to see much more integration of navigation services, starting with a search for the nearest sushi restaurant along with turn-by-turn directions on how to get there. This integration trend should eventually turn into more sophisticated applications such as LBS-based mobile advertising.

Telmap is current in trials with a CDMA operator outside of the U.S. for a mobile advertising application. "That advertising model is the next step in maps and directions , and from our standpoint, part of an overall location-based solution," Singer said.

Palm still on track to debut Linux OS by late 2008

Tue, 27 May 2008 06:59:58 -0400

During an appearance at the recent JP Morgan Tech Show in Boston, Palm CFO Andrew Brown confirmed the company remains on track to release a Linux-based next-gen operating system--i.e., the so-called "Palm OS II"--sometime by year's end, although he declined to specify what kind of product the device maker will deliver. Borrowing a page from the Steve Jobs playbook, Brown proclaimed that software, not hardware, will determine the winners of the mobile device race--he admitted the new Linux project has been in the works for close to three years, adding "it has not been an insignificant investment." Other tidbits: Brown refused to confirm rumors that Verizon Wireless is poised to add the Palm Centro to its device portfolio, but did say a Treo upgrade is scheduled for this summer.

For more on Palm's Linux progress:
- read this Barron's article

Related articles:
Palm on target to debut Linux smartphone in 2009
Palm gets small with Centro smartphone
Palm announces Windows-powered Treo

Change is BREWing

Thu, 22 May 2008 06:59:59 -0400

Change is BREWing

I've been writing about BREW since 2002 when Verizon Wireless announced that it was using Qualcomm Internet Services technology to power its "Get It Now" content download service. Back then, we still referred to BREW by its full name "binary runtime environment for wireless." Yes, it was a mouthful.

Today BREW is part of the wireless nomenclature. We don't have to spell out the acronym because everyone knows what it is. But BREW is about more than just its early incarnation, which primarily focused on downloads. It is about both off portal and on deck content. It's about personalization and merchandizing. It incorporates new technologies such as speech recognition and location-based services.

Verizon, of course, is one of BREW's biggest carrier customers and at BREW 2007, John Harrobin, Verizon's senior vice president of marketing and digital media, took the stage and challenged BREW developers to help the operator overcome some of the challenges with mobile content by working on better merchandizing and retailing solutions such as barcode ticketing and mobile coupons.

Will Harrobin get his wish at BREW 2008? It certainly appears as if Qualcomm listened to Harrobin's requests. The company acquired content targeting solutions developer Xiam Technologies in March and is incorporating Xiam into its next generation of BREW. Xiam's My Personal Offers System targeting and personalization technology promises to individualize the user experience via relevant content offers and advertisements geared specifically to the consumer.

But Xiam isn't the only thing that Qualcomm will be talking about at BREW. I also expect to hear Qualcomm talk about opening up BREW's ecosystem. With operators such as Verizon Wireless touting its "Any Device, Any Platform" agenda, many are wondering how BREW will fit into that vision. Thursday's keynote address by Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs will probably hint at that.

We'll be bringing you all the news from the BREW 2008 conference next week. FierceMarkets is producing the BREW Times show daily at the BREW conference and we'll be posting all our coverage live at the FierceDeveloper site--www.fiercedeveloper.com. -Sue

"Open" BREW?

Thu, 22 May 2008 06:59:58 -0400

Look for Qualcomm to loosen some of the walled-garden constraints it has around BREW to create a more "open" platform for mobile Internet services at next week's conference. The overall shape this new strategy takes and Qualcomm's specific approaches for implementing it aren't clear yet but it seems to represent an important juncture in the evolution of BREW.

Indications of what's to come can be found on the BREW conference agenda. On Day One during his keynote speech, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs will discuss "Beyond Voice: Evolving, Expanding and Opening the Wireless Ecosystem." On Day Two, Andrew Gilbert, executive vice president and president of Qualcomm Internet Services, MediaFLO Technologies and Qualcomm Europe, will present a keynote titled, "BREW and Beyond--Opening Up the Mobile Internet," as well as his vision for Qualcomm services that will run on "any content, over any network, via any device."

If the pattern of past BREW keynote speeches will be employed again this year, watch for Jacobs to announce a strategy or platform that embraces the notion of "open," and for Gilbert to introduce specific partnerships, products or deployments that Qualcomm has crafted to give the new strategy momentum. (PUT JUMP TO WEB HERE)

The term "open" is of course a subjective one and QIS could take any of a number of approaches when crafting this new strategy. The company's portfolio of silicon technologies, software and services that it has steadily built up through internal development and acquisitions could be offered in various new ways to give operators, manufacturers, developers, and content companies any number of packaged or modular solutions: "It's just a question of applying these into a market that is changing," says John Jackson, vice president of the Yankee Group's enabling technologies group.

Obviously, the open trend is growing. Besides Verizon Wireless' decision to allow access to third-party devices and applications on its networks, there have been a growing number of open handset initiatives that have been born in the last year.

Jayanthi Rangarajan, president and CEO of Novarra, which provides Internet solutions to operators and content providers, says that right now, 22 operators in Europe are looking for vendors to offer server-based solutions that will make it possible to give end-users convenient and fully functional access to on- and off-portal content via typical cellular phones so that their customers can participate in these new online activities. Qualcomm, alert to Novarra's ability to serve this need, joined the company's board and invested in it last year.

With Qualcomm's intentions to address the "open" issue now known, some operator and content partners are acknowledging their roles in advocating for an evolved BREW.

"Whatever's being developed right now in BREW is very much resonating with some of the discussions I've had with them for almost a year," says Pankaj Sethi, president of value-added services and enterprise marketing at Tata Teleservices Ltd. "We've been having a lot of discussions with Qualcomm to get us all into the model of embracing that which is new, and that is 'open.'"

Glu Mobile, a leading publisher of mobile games, has been pressing Qualcomm to give publishers the ability to have closer relationships with their customers, to develop more interactive and personalized methods of targeting their customers with new products, and to reach their customers through their own hosted sites. While the BREW distribution system has had its obvious merits--Glu brings in more business with BREW than it does with Java applications--the market has a greater need for flexible framework than it ever has, said Justin Kubiak, vice president of marketing for North America at Glu Mobile. "We're anxious and excited about the changing environment" at BREW, he says.
- Peggy Albright, contributing editor for BREW Times and FierceDeveloper

Datebook:

Thu, 22 May 2008 06:59:57 -0400

Wednesday, May 28

5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Happy Hour in the Partner Pavilion

5:30 p.m. BREW Developer Awards in the Partner Pavilion

7:30 p.m. BREW Welcome Reception, Children's Museum

Thursday, May 29

9:30 a.m. Beyond Voice: Evolving, Expanding and Opening the Wireless Ecosystem with Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm

10:00 a.m. Keynote address with a Verizon executive

7:00 p.m. BREWFEST featuring the band Live in the Gaslamp district

Friday, June 22

9:30 a.m. BREW and Beyond -- Opening Up the Internet with Andrew Gilbert, EVP and President of QIS/MediaFLO and Qualcomm Europe.

11 a.m. Bringing the Internet Ecosystem to Mobile Phones with Carols Fernandez Casares, head of data services marketing at Telefonica Spain