What to expect at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2013

MWC is the largest mobile trade show with more than 65,000 people expected to attend this year in Barcelona’s Fira Gran Via and an opportunity for the mobile industry to showcase its latest phones, tablets, apps and services.

Connected Cities is likely to take a centre stage at MWC expanding on the connected home and car concepts from last year.  It is estimated that by 2020, there will be 25 billion connected devices, and at least half will be connected by mobile technology which is an estimate regularly being revised upwards.

Examples will include a connected bike that monitors performance, remote health monitoring, intelligent logistics services and smart technology becoming the hub of the home, and in-car services that change the way we consume information on the move.   The global operators will be positioning themselves as vital partners in order to extend their relationship with the end customers.

Device and Platform vendors are increasingly moving away from MWC for product launches. Apple has never exhibited and last year sent out the invite for the new iPad product launch during MWC. Samsung will be exhibiting but will not be launching their Galaxy S4 at the event.

Google and its mobile operating system Android will not be exhibiting this year for a change but will be supporting its partners and device manufacturers and with the growing Android domination it doesn’t really need to push its brand like it has at previous events.

Blackberry also don’t seem to be exhibiting according to the GSMA exhibition list, launching the BB10 on January 31^st this would have been a good opportunity to get their smartphones out on show. The third place spot in the OS wars is still available and likely to see Microsoft, BB and even Mozilla’s Firefox OS continue to battle for this position.

Mobile payments will be in the spotlight at MWC, the wallet is  becoming more than just payments and  including loyalty, advertising and offers.  Announcements from online players, financial companies, retailers and operators are expected as they battle for prime position in this space. For NFC to succeed both handsets and merchants will need enabled NFC terminals, with the slow rate of adoption and no Apple support it is no longer expected to be the main out-of-band payment method and likely to have a slow death in my view but interesting to see the GSMA select four partners for mobile contactless payment experience for 3,500 delegates at MWC who will receive a Xperia smartphone provided by Sony.

Rich Communication Services (RCS) is an industry initiative to harmonize rich address books and offer enhanced messaging and voice, video calling and the ability to share documents and photos simultaneously during calls.  Joyn is the consumer facing brand for RCS and was officially announced at last year’s MWC by GSMA with a new version of the specification.   DT recently reported implementation problems, deployments in Spain have gone very quiet and the PR machine has already started with SK Telecoms claiming 1m subscribers to Joyn, which is very timely.

In the consumerization of IT, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a phrase that has become widely adopted to refer to employees who bring their own devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops to the workplace for access to corporate data.  The demand to secure corporate data across a wider range of mobile platforms will continue at MWC and now focus more on improving productivity with enterprise applications, platforms to develop, test and deploy apps with application stores to distribute the apps within the enterprise. New entrants to the enterprise mobility market and more product announcements should be expected.  As more data is consumed with smartphones in the enterprise a wider range of tools and services to monitor and track usage, set polices and compress data in some cases will emerge.

You can keep up to date on the developments at MWC 2013 and hear more of my views via Twitter – Sandeep_r

Must have iPad 2 Applications

It’s been a while since my last post on tablets back in November and a lot has changed.  I recently got an iPad 2 which is my first tablet, having an iPhone I was expecting a lot of applications for the iPad and was slightly disappointed.

Most iPhone applications work on the iPad but are designed for the iPhone and don’t make use of the extra screen estate.  Apple currently have over 65,000 applications for the iPad, here are some must haves –

BBC iPlayer – The iPlayer app is very useful to catch up on TV whilst on the move, it works well with a good internet connection.

4oD Catch up – Similar to iPlayer lets you watch your favorite channel 4 shows.

Sky News – This apps makes the most of the iPad, with lots of rich content and a live news stream facility.

Skype  – This is the same app as the iPhone, it does not look great on the iPad as it is magnified but works well on the iPad 2 making using of the front and back cameras.

Twitter – Have tried the various Twitter apps, I prefer Twitter’s own app on the iPad, it has a nice feature where if you pinch the tweet it will expand to show the full profile of the tweeter.

BTFon – If you have BT Broadband or Openzone this app saves time by avoiding the need to enter your login details each time your in a BT Fon or Openzone hotspot by logging you in automatically.

Vevo HD – If you like watching music video’s this is the app for you, I was surprised with range of content Vevo has and good quality, it also has a social element to see who is watching music videos around you.

RightMove – The app using the GPS to find flats and houses on rent and sale around you, has a neat user interface.

Team Viewer – This app is ideal for the iPad, it allows you to remote desktop to any machine then take full control and manage whilst on the move.  It is all for free!

Apple Remote – The Apple remote is must have if you have a lot of music on your iTunes at home and like to search and play from anywhere in the house.

DropBox – The iPad does not have a file system to let you store documents, this app gives you access to all your files on your DropBox account which is stored in the cloud and can be access from your PC to transfer files.

Metro – This app lets your browse the news and also lets you download the paper and flick over each page.

So these are just a few of the apps for the iPad I like, what are your favourites?

Tablets – iPad, Galaxy Tab, Playbook or eTouch?

Since Apple’s launch of its iPad in April, more and more tablets have been announced and some have recently hit the market.  The Samsung Galaxy Tab went on sale on  Nov 1^st and could be the first serious competitor to the iPad.   The Blackberry Playbook was also recently announced and is expected to be available in 2011.  We have also seen high street retailers enter the market with the cheaper tablets by Toy’s R Us and Next starting at just £90.

The question is do you really need a tablet?  What purpose does it fill if you have a high-end Smartphone and Laptop?   A recent study found that 25% of UK iPads never leave the home and so Samsung are positioning the Galaxy Tab as small enough to fit into your jacket pocket.

The prices of tablets are similar to a sim free high-end Smartphone’s and mid range laptops, so if you have both then you need to question what value it really adds. The capabilities of tablets vary with range of screen sizes, storage, connectivity, cameras and operating systems.  Here is my comparison of some of the tablets

With a wide range of prices, features and sizes different tablets will appeal to different customers. The operating system and its associated app stores is a key attraction with Apple and Android having a wide range of free and paid for applications compared to Blackberry App World.

My recommendation would be the Galaxy Tab with front facing camera its useful for video calls, small enough to keep with you and the growing Android App Store should offer you the applications you need. 

If your on a budget its worth considering the eTouch or Next Tablet at a lower price you can still surf the web and run some apps.   If you don’t feel the need for a tablet at the moment then sit back  and see what Apple launch as the second generation iPad.

Salesforce.com Chatter – Will it be the Facebook for the enterprise?

Back in November 2009 at Dreamforce, Salesforce.com’s annual cloud computing event CEO Marc Benioff announced Salesforce.com Chatter, which would allow companies to collaborate in real time within a private social network.

Later in December 2009 I got to see it with my own eyes at Cloudforce London during the 2-hour keynote presentation by Marc.    Within 3 months of this announcement it is already in private beta and expected to be available to all 70,000 customers during 2010.

So what is Salesforce Chatter?  Chatter is a unified system to collaborate with the people you work with, apps you work in and content you work on.  It takes the best parts of Facebook and Twitter with profiles, status updates along with ability to follow people and records providing you with a personalised news feed.  Chatter also lets you attach files like presentation you have been working on and link for a website or article. This becomes very powerful in a sales or service environment where Chatter will bring all that information together in one place and enable you to make better decisions.

Chatter is available in the browser like Salesforce.com but also expecting to see a presence on the desktop with an Adobe Air client and on the iPhone and BlackBerry as applications like Salesforce.com mobile.

Will it be the Facebook for the enterprise?   For companies using Salesforce.com across the organisation I think it is a must have and provides the enterprise privacy you can’t get on Facebook or Twitter and the clean integration with your customer records you can’t get with stand alone applications like Yammer.

(Screenshot of Salesforce.com Chatter on my Dev Org)

Some of the challenges I think we will see Chatter face in 2010 is adoption particularly within large global enterprises with only certain regions or division using Salesforce.com.   This may be a Salesforce.com strategy to grow its footprint in the organisation outside the Sales or Service division.

As Chatter develops over time I would be keen to see the ability to link Salesforce.com orgs together with Chatter, this could be really powerful where business have partnership and alliances with each other and need a secure and private way to collaborate.  It would also be great to see presence and voice on Chatter, showing you when your colleagues are available and initiating conference calls with them  and maybe customers is well.

BlackBerry Messenger, it is keeping RIM in the consumer game?

Research in Motion (RIM) the developer of the BlackBerry Smartphone has been producing mobile wireless devices for more then ten years and has shipped over 50 million devices.

The focus for RIM in the early years has been on the enterprise and since 2006 more and more devices have been launched targeting the consumer with the Perl, Storm and recent lower end Curve devices.

BlackBerry is appealing to the consumer with over 60% of subscribers in 2009 coming from the non-enterprise. The question is what is keeping RIM in the consumer game? Is it the new range of devices, updated operating system, App Store or is it BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).

BBM is a propriety instant messenger application, which comes with every device shipped today. It enables real time communication between BlackBerry users and initially started with just a simple text based messaging service providing a free alternative to SMS. The later versions of BBM and most recent BBM 5.0 are more feature rich with profile pictures, status updates, pictures and videos.

You can add friends from anywhere in the world by scanning your QR Code (two dimensional barcode) or by sharing your unique BlackBerry PIN.

The new BBM 5.0 release allows you to create groups for friends, family or colleagues with a shared interest. You can then have text conversations between the groups, share pictures, manage lists and the group calendar.

Could BBM be keeping RIM in the consumer game providing a sticky and exclusive service only available to those with a BlackBerry Smartphone and generating viral marketing, which is helping RIM’s grow its consumer subscriber base year on year.

If you look back over the years Instant Messaging has been around in some form or another actively used by most young consumers with applications like MSN and Yahoo Messenger. BBM now fills this space nicely as Smartphone’s become the must have devices and SMS still a popular medium for quick communication.

Cloud Computing and my predictions for 2010

As it has been more then a month since my last post, I thought it would be a good idea switching directions from mobiles applications and taking a look at Cloud Computing.

So what is Cloud Computing? I think of Cloud Computing as a very general and broad term used in the technology industry for anything delivering hosted services over the Internet.

Characteristics normally include being on demand, elastic and fully managed which enables providing the user the ability for having as much service as needed without worry about infrastructure, support or maintenance.

Services provided by the cloud are usually split into three areas –

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), this is usually a service providing virtual servers and storage on demand.  Customer can pay for what they use and it becomes like a utility.  Amazon Web Services is a great example and leader in this space with EC2 which has a per hour pricing model.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) is usually a set of development tools and software that is run on servers in the cloud.   Examples of PaaS providers include Force.com, Azure and Google App Engine.    A perceived factor challenging adoption of PaaS is Vendor Lock-in with proprietary development languages but for most this is already an issue for on-premise services anyway.  What is emerging to counter this is Open Platform as a Service – OPaaS that should address some of these concerns.

Software as Service (SaaS) provides the software on demand without the need to host your own platform or web server infrastructure on premise.  More and more businesses are moving to the cloud with CRM/ERP applications.  Salesforce.com is a leader in this space with over 10 years experience in the industry with its SaaS business model others have adopted.

So that should hopefully given you a quick and high level overview of cloud computing from my perspective and so here are my predictions for 2010 in this space –

1) First major outage in the cloud – after seeing gmail go down a few times last year we may see this happen to major cloud computing provider as they experience growing usage and constant platform innovation and refinement.  Even after a major cloud computing outage the service uptime should still beat on premise solutions.

2) Microsoft will become a more serious player in cloud computing – With the launch of Azure Platform and Office Web Apps some businesses might see Microsoft as an easy transition from existing desktop/on-premise services into the cloud.

3) Enterprise Cloud Computing Apps converge with Social Media Technology – 2009 has seen some announcements with Oracle Social CRM and Salesforce.com Chatter so as they are developed and launched this year we will see the real benefits of social media in business applications and further growth and innovation in this space.

4) Rise of the Vertical and Private Cloud – I think 2010 will be the year we see more government and public sector communities build their own cloud computing services.

So 2010 will be an interesting year for Cloud Computing which will continue to evolve faster then ever before and become fundamental to every businesses IT strategy.

Must have iPhone Applications….continued

As more and more new and exciting apps are introduced every week onto the Apple iPhone App Store, here are some more of my must have iPhone applications

1)    Sky Mobile TV – This application is great for those that do not have Sky but like to watch the occasional football match and enables you to watch Sky Sports 1,2,3, Xtra, Sky Sports News, ESPN, At The Races and Sky News all live on your device!

It also allows you to browse the channel guides and see what’s playing over the next 24 hours.  The down side is it is not free and will require subscription to Sky Mobile TV for £6 per month.  For non-sky customers this is reasonable but for Sky TV customers already paying subscriptions I can understand this could be an issue and they may expect this for free.

There is an offer on O2 where you can get 3 months Sky Mobile TV FREE on your iPhone by sending a text to SKY to 2020 for your promotional code but is limited to the first 150,000 customers only.

Overall it is a great application but Sky is only able to offer this service over Wi-Fi.  I am still debating if I will subscribe after the 3-month trial.

2)    Tesco Finder – This app by Tesco lets you find any Tesco’s in the UK using your iPhone GPS location capability and once inside the store of your choice you can find any product on any shelf.

The Tesco Finder app is great and integrates with Google Maps to give you directions to you store, shows contact information and what services are available.  The second part of the app then lets your search for any product in the store and shows you the latest offers with the exact isle and shelf the product is on.

So no more annoying the Tesco staff who are usually always busy stocking the shelves, you just search on the app and find the products yourself.

3)    Bobba Bar – This is a different application altogether but stumbled upon this in social networking section of the app store.  It is similar to second life where you have places to go and avatars but simple and effective on your iPhone.

The app has a great intuitive interface and look/feel where you can set up your avatar then move around different areas.  The initial take-up has been great since introducing this app on the iPhone.

4)    Knocking Live Video – I found this application yesterday and think its work a try and first of its kind I have seen which lets you share instant video between two iPhones on 3G or WiFi.  New features like sound and recording should be coming soon along with support on other platforms like Blackberry and Android.  See the Knocking Live website for more details.

5)    Google Wave – There is a simple web app from google and you can access by going to wave.google.com in mobile Safari on your iPhone. It will warn you that you are not using a browser supported during the preview, but if you click through, it should work ok.

You can then get rid of Safari wrapper altogether by saving to a bookmark on your Home screen, and it creates a little icon which launches mobile Safari to that page. Next time you launch from the home screen you get the look and feel of a web app and works ok but slightly slow.

Windows 7 and Nettop’s

As my first few posts have been very Apple focused I thought it be worthwhile sharing my thoughts on Windows 7 and Nettops.

Nettops have not had the same level of advertising and publicity compared to Netbooks and are basically a very small form factor, low power desktop computer designed mainly for internet access and audio and video playback but can do much more. I recently purchased an Acer AsipreRevo R3600.

It’s a great little computer packed with lots of features including a NVIDA graphics chip set with HDMI connectivity which supports 1080p HD, it also has a Intel Atom 2.30 1.6GHz processer, 160GB HDD, 1 GB RAM, built in WiFi and comes with Windows Vista Home Premium which I just recently upgraded with Windows 7.

The only thing missing is an optical drive but I rarely use them so not really a problem.

One of the key features is a Vesa mounting kit enabling you to attach it straight to the back of your TV within minutes.

As for Windows 7 from what I have seen so far I can say it is a good step change from Vista. The upgrade took longer then expected but was virtually free thanks to Acer’s Windows Upgrade Programme . It is simpler and a little easier to use and you can see similarities to Apple Operating System.

Some new features include Jump lists and Snap, Peak, Shake along with enhancements to the Windows Task Bar and Search.

Jump List is are a great feature that give you access to websites, documents, music or videos that your most frequently use by simply right clicking the program icon in the task bar.

Snap provides a quick way to resize windows compare documents, Peak lets you peer past all your windows to see your desktop and Shake lets you uncluttered your desktop in a shake of your mouse.

So overall Windows 7 running on an Acer Asipre Revo R3600 is a great “Living Room Computer” and media centre enabling you to watch TV online, listen to music and surf the internet with ease.

Moving to the Dark Side with – Apple MacBook Pro

Having been using Windows for most my life I was recently given an opportunity to trial an Apple MacBook Pro with the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

From the hardware perspective the MacBook Pro is a solid machine, which is actually carved from a single block of aluminium. The MacBook Pro is slim and light so you can take it anywhere. It has a vivid LED-backlit display and with a high performance graphic card that makes it easy on the eyes.

The battery life far exceeds any other machine I have owned and lasts up to 7 hours on a single charge. Also the glowing Apple Logo on the front and backlit keyboard provides great finishing touch.

From the Operating System perspective it is quite different to your Windows XP or Vista although Windows 7 has some similarities.

The first thing I noticed was startup times in particular using the sleep feature which is like the hibernate capability in Windows. The MacBook Pro just take seconds to Wake-Up from lifting the lid and all the applications you were using are up and running and ready to use. Even starting from “cold” takes approximately one minute compared to 3-5 on my Windows XP laptop.

The login to wireless networks is more or less instant and your mail, IM and other applications are logged in on startup, no waiting around looking at the “egg-timer” like you would have to on Windows.

The Dock is a great feature and Windows 7 has introduced something similar, it usually sits at the bottom of your desktop and give your access to all your running applications, it also give your access to recently downloaded files and documents.

The Finder capability is great and lets your find documents and emails instantly. You can also see devices attached and folders on the machine, it is similar to Windows Explorer but quicker and with the “Quick View” feature you can see the file and document within Finder.

The new Mac OS X Snow Leopard includes support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 so you can use the native applications like mail, iCal and Address Book for your work email rather then MS Entourage. This is good step forward for Apple but they have lots of work to do in this space and missing key features like Out of Office support or delegate access.

The MacBook Pro has a multi touch track pad, which takes a little getting use too but introduces the two-finger scrolling feature which is ideal for scanning web pages and mail.

There are lots of other interesting features and capabilities I keep finding every week including iPhoto new Faces feature which has some facial recognition software that enable sorting of pictures. I will save the rest for a future blog post.

So overall it was a transition from my Windows machines and took a few weeks to get used too but worth the initial pain. If you have already taken a step forward and got an iPhone then I would recommend trying an Apple Mac.

The must have iPhone applications..

So it has been a few months since I got the iPhone 3GS and my collection of application is still growing.   With tens of thousand of applications available through the Apple App Store I would like to share with you my recommendations.

1)    iPhone TVCatchUp – This is my favorite application on the iPhone and this completely revolutionises the device.  The web application is very simple and lets you stream live TV to your iPhone in great quality over 3G or WiFi.

2)    Facebook – The new 3.02 has some great features and an improved UI so you can almost do everything you from your iPhone

3)    EchoFon (Formally TwitterFon) – I think this is the best free Twitter application around, great for direct messages, trends and tweets by location.

4)     Yelp – This application has an Augmented Reality feature called the Monocle which uses the GPS and Compass to identify your location uses your camera it overlay business around you (Very Cool).

5)     London JamCams – This is a useful application if you spend a lot of time driving around London and get stuck in traffic jams.  The application uses a real-time feed from TFL and displays traffic images of major roads around London.

6)    WhatsApp – This app is like Blackberry Messenger for iPhone. The integration with the iPhone is great and with Push Notifications you get instant messages without keeping the application running.  With more and more iPhone’s using this, it could become a must have application

7)    BBC IPlayer for iPhone – This is a great web application, which allows you to catchup on BBC TV whilst on the move.

8 )  Google Latitude – This is google’s attempt at a location-based services and starting to see some uptake, the downside of this service on the iPhone is web-based and needs to be running to keep your location up to date unlike the Blackberry or Windows Mobile Applications

9)    FeX for Facebook – This was one my first apps on the iPhone, which syncs your mobile contacts with Facebook and adds pictures and birthdays so when they call it pops up.

10) Salesforce.com Mobile – If you use Salesforce.com you will like this application, I have used this on Windows Mobile and Blackberry and can say the iPhone version is far better.  The application visual dashboards look great.

11) LinkedIN – This app is ok but it could do a lot more, worth a download anyway.

12) Skype – This only works on WiFi but great way to make free calls to other or SkypeChat.

These are a few of my favorite apps, will add another batch on soon.