Tag: carriers Page 5 of 7

In 1, OEM

After the news broke that Orange will add the iPhone to its roster from just before Christmas, today we read that Vodafone UK will do the same, only a little later, some time in Q1/2010. Vodafone said that not having the iPhone was basically the reason for losing 200k customers in the last quarter alone. Vodafone had previously been shipping the device in 12 other territories.

With Orange and T-Mobile merging their UK operations, the new set-up which sees basically all large operators offering the device should make for some juicy deals. Analysts reckoned the contract tariff for to come down by £4-5 per month. Orange did not say anything specific but “indicated” that it would be cheaper than O2’s deals.

According to the article, Virgin Mobile (an MVNO that sails on the Vodafone network) is also “understood” to be desperate to secure the right to sell the phone. Happy days…

Mobile to Rescue Music Business?!

By Volker

On 17/09/2009

In 1

It seems to be music week this week: Apple running its somewhat anticlimactic “It’s only Rock’n’Roll” event today, lots of folks pondering Spotify Mobile and now this: the good folks at Forrester Research have released an interesting report entitled “Music Release Windows: The Product Innovation That The Music Business Can’t Do Without”. This is some statement.

The Old Model is Broken

Forrester was kind enough to let me have a glance at the report, so let me dive into its revelations and the underlying rationales, which starts off with looking at the broken model of the industry: in (latter part of) the 20th century, the music industry was mainly fueled by record sales (first vinyl, then CD). With the introduction of digital media and, in particular, ubiquitous broadband connectivity in many parts of the world, it shifted to digital downloads. Unfortunately, it mainly shifted for downloads that people did not pay for. iTunes has only taken a piece of the action. And iTunes’ ¢99 per song model has then contributed to people no longer buying whole albums but only the songs they like most, which somewhat squashes profitability.

Live events, etc used to be a support for record sales. They have recently become the biggest revenue generator for some recording artists (as well as for some labels, at least if they managed to conclude so-called 360-deals with artists) but they cannot alone make up for the shortfall. On top of all that, people like my 14-year-old son use a plethora of services (Spotify, Last.FM, YouTube and probably dozens more of which I do not know) to quench their thirst for music.

Change the Product, not the Business Model

The researchers suggest to re-think the product offering in order to engage the fan more holistically: leverage diverse assets through those maligned 360 deals: they might “feel” a bit tight around the hips but the opportunities are immense: labels and (capable) artist management can create a very rich offering of diverse content. This then ties in into step #2, which sees the industry moving away from (or rather beyond) the classic album model where an artists would release one album per year (or so) and sustain the buzz in promotion thereof (and in between) with concerts, interviews, singles and EPs. With digital distribution, there is no need for that (an album on CD might be maintained as one part of the mix however): one can produce a continual stream of creative products from the artist. This will help build sustainable and longer-term relationships with fans.

The final piece is – put simplistically – the introduction of release windows similar to what the film industry is doing for decades: releases are structured successively with higher product (read: better monetizable) tiers coming first. It is re-vamping a trusty old model though: you want it first and exclusive, you pay more.

The bottom line is – oh, the bliss of buzzwords – the 4 C’s, which are content, convenience, cost and community: The higher the cost, the greater the convenience and the better the choice of content. The authors basically plead a re-introduction of scarcity in order to re-build the perceived value. Convenience ranks above content in terms of the creation of value: and this is where mobile plays a role: it is always with the user, it is always on, it is readily accessible (at least the new generation of phones is). It is arguably why services like Spotify are believed to be a valid revenue stream for labels, at least on mobile…

Community is the Glue

Is community just thrown in for good measure? No, of course not. According to Forrester, “Community enhances social value.” It is the glue that will be the key differentiator from piracy (or so they hope): the thinking is that a sense of community will build some sort of moral cohesion (another C). Here though, Forrester tails off a little. It says:

“Social functionality should be deployed right across the hierarchy.”

Nothing wrong, you say? No, it is not. However, “deploying functionality” is way short of what is needed to build social value. What makes a community? Emphatic engagement with fans, not a set of tools that sits somewhere on the various sites and offerings being operated by some far-away call center. Whilst the principle is right, the suggested execution remains a little shallow. Forums & networks is all they have to offer. Hm. Everyone has them already, so will this work?

The principle does work, I believe, However, the execution is much, much more complex than the analysts reveal. Here, one can make or break this.

Release Windows

The analysts suggest that a release should be tiered by windows: start with a preview, then go into the mainstream for-pay channels (2-3 weeks delayed) and finally release to “free-to-air” (6 weeks delay). The premier window is suggested to being the one where incremental value can be unlocked: first releases, premium value-added content (and no DRM!), etc; users only get this if they pay. Elegant packaging and programming is crucial to convince people of the richness of this. Then they will not defect to P2P sites. CD releases remain in the mainstream window and then, finally after six long weeks, the Spotifys of this world will be able to get it through their ad-supported model, TDC Play, the Danish flat-rate all-you-can-eat model that generated more than 100m downloads in 15 months would be able to add it to their package, etc.

Mobile is in the premium tier (with very few others): Forrester believes that carriers’ and OEM’s efforts, investment and – last but certainly not least – billing relationships merit this. I would suggest that the eye-opener ringtone where one could charge huge premiums for monophonic (!) 20-second-loops would contribute to this conviction, too.

In the “modern world” with smartphones and flat rate data plans, a lot of it of course hinges on how such services tie in with a) the handset (app vs. mobile web), b) the provider(s), namely labels, artists, operators, handset manufacturers, other (mobile) distributors as well as iTunes, and c) the users, i.e. will they adopt it or will they defect to the (free) web side of things after all. The crackdown on piracy in many countries will have something of a disciplinary effect but the jury on this is probably still out.

Is that It?

There must be more in order to create compelling services and products. Otherwise, I cannot see people doing it in sufficient numbers. It could be seen online with Spotify where, anecdotally, only 17,000 in the UK have signed up to the premium service; I cannot believe that the premium music market should be limited to that. The analysts suggest the creation of

“truly 21st century products […] blend[ing] interactivity, multimedia, multi-platform, convenience and social to create something totally new.”

That sounds awesome but how do you create it? The starting point needs to be the relationship between artist and fan. I have long held that this bond is more than actual musical tastes; it is a lifestyle decision, which is why fans crave to belong to “their” artists’ circles. As early as 2002, a “Britney Spears Mobile Fanclub” was successfully running, and that did not even involve her label! What it did involve though was access (or at least the promise thereof) to Britney (who was, at that time, arguably one of the biggest recording artists in the world). The service combined text (real-time backstage reports from Britney herself!), live concerts, editorial, merchandise, and special promotions to create a rich and comprehensive experience around the artist. And this at a time when a ringtones were just on the rise and premium SMS not widely available! The principle works! It does take however (and that’s a big IF) active involvement of a complex ecosystem of artists, management, labels, merchandise firms, media, etc.

The new generation of artists is of course significantly more tech-savvy (see e.g. upcoming singer Remi Nichole‘s video blogs and tweets): one sees a much higher willingness to participate actively and – even more importantly – authenticly in engaging the fans (“audience” is probably an overcome term in this respect). This can work, and on mobile it can work as a revenue generator, too! But the core is the revised approach to the people (and this is not limited to the music industry): they are not sheep that want to be exploited; if you treat them that way, they bolt. Treat them honestly, fairly, transparently, and you have at least a fighting chance!

Is Apple to break iPhone exclusivity?

By Volker

On 18/07/2009

In 1, Apple, OEM

There have been rumours galore about Apple’s exclusive deals for its iPhone all over the place (see e.g. here for Verizon). New reports have now surfaced that appear to confirm that Apple is looking at this option for both the US and the UK (and, if this works, presumably also for other territories):

In the UK, T-Mobile confirmed it was in talks with Apple over stocking the iPhone 3G (the 3GS remaining exclusive to O2, which also has its hands on the Palm Pre) and Orange is “believed”, to be as well.

In the US, the Verizon discussion has been around for a while. A new report now suggests that losing the exclusivity would spell doom for AT&T: the report estimates that as much as 30% of AT&T’s customer are with the carrier solely because of the iPhone exclusivity. This sounds a little high to me: after all, the iPhone penetration in the US is much lower than that (it held just under 11% market share globally in Q1/2009). Are they saying that all the other users (those with the less fancy handsets) just stay on AT&T to share into the iPhone limelight? No, I thought not…

Apple is in any event in a beautiful position at the moment: so far, most of its competitors’ “iPhone killers”(Palm Pre, Blackberry Storm and innumerable devices from Samsung, LG and Nokia) have failed to challenge its numbers and, quite literally, all of the app stores set up by competitors showed meagre results compared to the – now – 1.5 bn (!) downloads in a little over a year from the Apple App Store. The good folks from Cupertino are therefore now in a pretty good position: they proved (a couple of times now) that they shift 1m+ devices – on the opening weekend! They bring a lot of sex appeal in which the carriers, not generally known for coolness, can bask. They cracked the content dilemma and produced a thriving developer community, which made people actually use their phones for all these things that have been promised for so long (iPhones are connected, most others can connect). In short: in carriers eyes, they are – aside from the horrible fact that Apple takes a healthy cut – a really good thing for networks that see themselves locked into cut-throat pricing wars over voice and SMS (bringing in, anecdotally, up to 50% of European carrier profits over the past 5 years) and craving for a way to increase user ARPU (app revenue on the iPhone is, apparently, $27 per device). Happy days…

Mobile Innovation; in Response to Scoble

By Volker

On 14/07/2009

In 1, OEM

Egoblogger extraordinaire Robert Scoble has never been known to be shy, and so he declared with his usual great fanfare that Europe did not matter any more in terms of mobile innovation. Why did he say that, you ask? Well, Nokia apparently took him to visit their research lab in Cambridge (no, not in Espoo) as part of a (Nokia-)sponsored geek tour. And Scoble was not impressed. Because (1) everyone appears to have been texting when he was on the tube (how quaint), (2) the N97 isn’t cooler than the iPhone and (3) Symbian is much clunkier than the iPhone’s OS or Palm’s WebOS, Scoble deduces that Europe has had it.

He reduces this loss of leadership in mobile innovation to handsets or, more specifically, to the coolness factor of handsets (“London’s cool kids are [not] hot and bothered” about the N97). And, with that somewhat tight limitation, he might actually be right. Nokia has been losing ground on the coolness and usability front for quite a while. However, when it comes to technical ability, their devices are still quite hot. Scoble basically uses the iPhone plus the first Android-based (Taiwanese [sic!]) phones to declare that the king is dead.

Hardware is a Commodity

Now, let’s try to differentiate a little. Would you say the US have the lead in computer manufacturing? Well, probably not. IBM’s ThinkPads are Chinese, then there is Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, and there is HP and Dell. There is of course also Apple (“designed in California”). Does it matter at all where the hardware is from? No, not at all, and no one really cares anymore. And why not? Because hardware is basically a commodity, that is in a world where one does not actually see that much of the hardware because the interfaces are software-driven. And these are from Microsoft, etc.

In mobile, this has not been true in the past because their were such vast differences in the available hardware that the usability was severely impaired should you have been using, say, a low-end Motorola device as opposed to a high-end Nokia. This is where the myth of European mobile superiority comes from. And, with Apple, RIM and maybe Palm again, this is firmly in North American hands. There are of course Samsung and LG, the Korean powerhouses who drive their market share up and up. Android devices G1, G2 and Magic are from Taiwanese HTC. However, given how far mobile software and indeed services have come: does it really matter either way today? I say it does not.

Here’s the Innovation: Services

If one wants to see where mobile innovation is happening, one would need to go to South Korea, Japan, Finland (not the Nokia research labs but, say, the public transport system where you can pay via SMS for the past couple of years already), Austria (mass deployment of mobile RFID-payments), South Africa (mobile wallets and very evolved mobile marketing services), Malaysia, the Philippines and even Kenya (mobile money transfers). Certainly not the US though, I’m afraid. They are still the country where “can you hear me now?” campaigns rule.

The iPhone has changed a lot of things of course. However, American Idol arguably did a lot more. It brought, shock, horror, texting to the Americans. SMS being, of course, a service. And why, Mr Scoble, should that be bad? Carriers (other than in the US) have made 25% of their revenues and 50% of their profits over the last 10 years with this unassuming little thing. That’s not too shabby, is it? The iPhone (and Palm’s WebOS) have introduced a new level of ease of use, and one that was long overdue. One that woke Nokia, which had comfortably dominated the space with less and less innovation on the software side, up (and Nokia might be a little slow to open their eyes properly). And one that will improve service levels all over the world.

Where the Big Market is

However, let us also not forget that the best-selling phone of all times is the Nokia 1100. No, it doesn’t do Java. It has a battery life of close to 20 years though and comes with a flashlight installed. Both very handy things to have in rural parts of developing or emerging countries. Nokia is having a fairly comfortable market share in these countries. I am not sure if that is a good thing to rest on though: as these markets, they demand more sophisticated devices. And because the computer penetration is much lower than in Europe, Japan, South Korea and North America, the significance of evolved mobile devices will be even more important. Nokia thought this would carry it through. However, we are seeing now that that might not be so: its smartphone market shares are rapidly decreasing.

Europe is not Europe

One last word on Europe: distinct to what Mr Scoble appears to have in mind, Europe is not a country, and this is not meant to be sarcastic. Europe is a pile of little countries and in each of them a couple of carriers rule like little kings. It makes for an extremely complex (and, consequently, low-margin) playground to deploy services. The US (as well as some of the huge Asian countries) have the incredible opportunity to deploy applications and services in one language through less than a handful of carriers to hundreds of millions. No such thing in Europe.

And this is why the US should lead in every aspect really: it is an evolved, competitive economy and it enjoys the tremendous upside of being (almost) completely aligned as to the framework: language, currency, carriers, billing systems, legal system, etc. This is the reason why the US has indeed leapfrogged Europe, the continent, when it comes to basic mobile applications: economies of scale are much easier to achieve there.

Software, Services, Interfaces

When one looks at Nokia in its current state as the sole indicator of where European mobile innovation is, one might be disappointed (as I pointed out numerous times, e.g. here). However, when one looks at how concert tickets are being sold via mobile, public transport, parking fees and vending machines all using mobile as a wallet solution, or indeed Obama making his latest speech available via SMS (there are more than 10x as many mobile phones in Africa than PCs according to Tomi Ahonen), then one can and should still be awed. And, no, in spite of its President the US is not (yet) close in this respect.

I hope, however, the US will catch up on this front sooner rather than later, too. Because of the size of the market and the aforementioned advantages, it would unleash incredible opportunities that would bring all of us fantastic new services and applications. And, Mr Scoble, it does not matter if these are 160 characters or polished web pages; it depends on what you want to do with it (as you, being one of the most prolific Twitterati, surely know).

I did not text anymore because I hated the UI and could not stand the clunky interfaces (in spite of T9; I’m too old, I guess). I started again with the iPhone. Why? Because – distinct what some people say – it’s a great interface: it displays the conversation, it looks neat and I have a full keyboard (the touch screen works much better than I feared; and I used a Blackberry for years and years). But that is not a question of the device or the technology, it is solely a question of the software. I would be much happier if I could also use my iPhone (or any other phone) to buy my newspaper (which I can with an RFID-equipped credit card in this country and which I could do in, say, Austria, a country with 2/3 the population of Illinois and a footprint smaller than Maine).

What Scoble misses (or omits in his post) is that the next leap in innovation will be a service-driven one (just as we saw on the Internet: first hardware, then basic apps, now sophisticated services).

Mobile has had the hardware phase, it is going through a “basic” app phase, and some European, African and Asian countries have entered the value-added services phase already, some years and years ago in fact! Compared to the US, they’re leading, by a lot! They’re perhaps just too small for the Robert Scoble to realize they’re there… But, as I said above: this is not about Europe leading the US (apart from the fact that it would appear to being Asia that is truly leading and has been for a while): it is about the evolution of an incredibly powerful communication device that is being unlocked for more and more applications and services; and this is independent from country and nationality!

Along those lines: why, Mr Scoble, should it be a bad thing that Europeans now “must” visit Cupertino and Mountain View. California is nice, isn’t it? Not a bad thing to go visit every now and then at all! We’re living in a large world, Mr Scoble, not only on a single continent, and mobile is a facilitator spurning new ecosystems, not only a device.

Image credit drawing: http://www.aartkom.cz

AR: the next acronym to watch out for?

By Volker

On 06/07/2009

In 1

AR stands for Augmented Reality and it is one of the dreams of game developers: merge the virtual and real worlds in a game and explore new horizons. This has been a pretty futuristic feature until recently: shown off at trade shows but never really seeing the (commercial) limelight. And even in the brave new world of the iPhone, it doesn’t fly – yet.

A dozen or so AR game developers have now launched an initiative to make Apple allow them to manipulate live video feeds (which they need to in order to run their games). The respective API is currently missing (developers are not allowed to use private APIs under Apple’s publishing guidelines). They threaten to otherwise go to Android. Hmm…

So far, AR games are few and far between and they haven’t really left the scholarly confines of Georgia Tech and other ivory towers, simply because there is no market for them as yet. Many people place their faith for the next big thing in mobile gaming on AR but because the necessary parameters (video feeds eat lots of bandwidth) have not been met, they cannot really capitalize on their wares. Go here for a good overview of the status quo (featuring the Georgia Tech apps and others).

So, is it there yet? I’d like it to but I doubt it: it is not only Apple but – possibly more importantly – the carriers: what do they have to gain if a few people consume a disproportionately high amount of bandwidth to play their games? Very little under the current costing framework of the industry. Little short-term chances I would therefore say… A pity that!

Virgin Canada bought by Bell

By Volker

On 03/07/2009

In 1, Deals

MVNOs seem to be seeking the shelter of big incumbents. Or is it the other way around? Incumbents buying the brands built by MVNOs and internalizing cost along the way? I suspect it is the latter but the economics would work either way…

Anyway, along these lines, Bell Mobility, the Canadian incumbent carrier, announced today that it has acquired Virgin Mobile Canada (or rather the half it did not own already) for Can$ 142m. This follows the acquisitions of Virgin Mobile UK by NTL and Virgin Mobile Australia by Optus. And, continuing the above theme, Bell also announced that Virgin will continue to operate under its own “unique wireless brand with special appeal to young Canadians”. There you have it.

Game Aggregators: New World Order

By Volker

On 02/07/2009

In 1, Deals

The times they are a-changing. Everyone has realized this by now (or so we should think). The question therefore is not so much will there be change but how will it look like.

Some of the weakest links in the mobile games value chain would be, it appears, the aggregators. Why is that? Because they do have the least defensible position: they do not own IP, they do not hold unique positions, they do not produce anything, they seem to be at the mercy of both of the groups they are partnering with: game developers to continue granting them distribution rights to their games, network operators and other distribution outlets to continue allowing them to use their channels to get to the end users. As if this would not be enough, now has arisen a creature that seemingly does away with all these middle-men anyway. It is called app store. So is it all doom then for games aggregators? There is a report out (too expensive for me to buy) that would seem to suggest as much, or so we are told.

The argument, in short, is that, with an OEM app store the number of distribution channels that any one developer/publisher needs to reach is drastically reduced (there are maybe 10 meaningful handset manufacturers in the market vs 300+ carriers and other distributors). Even the littlest companies have (or should have) the resource to deal with 10 partners; chapter closed.

Really?

The above works with a number of simple but crucial assumptions, and the boldest is this: carriers will happily let OEM take over the content real estate. Will they now? There are ample signs to doubt this. The giants of the space do not appear to be giving up, in the contrary: Vodafone has already announced its own app store – across handset brands (!) – and it is about to tighten its links with both China Mobile and Verizon Wireless (in the latter of which it holds a large stake). So what will all the OEMs (all with their own app store of course) do when carriers accounting for nearly half of the world’s subscribers wave them off? Cave in? You bet!

Anyway, does this change the game for aggregators? I believe it does and here’s why:

Carriers have traditionally struggled (with exceptions) to run an efficient, customer-friendly content offering. We have therefore seen an increasing trend to outsource the “decks” to third parties, which are – what? -, yes, aggregators.

Carriers are unlikely to concede defeat over the content side, not necessarily because they fear losing out on a lot of revenue (given their fairly average performance, SMS, voice, data, etc will outsell content as a source of revenue very, very significantly) but because of the strategic value of content as well as the unpredictability of its future impact: bear in mind that the emotional attachment to beloved brands, i.e. affinity (Transformers, Ice Age, Playboy, Tiger Woods, …), will remain higher than that to a network operator, and please do not take offense if you are working for one. Do not be mistaken: carriers are being trusted but they are not being loved. There is just not as much emotional attachment to a cellular network as there is to a rodent in love with an acorn…

Carriers do not have to give this piece up either (they call the shots on what goes onto a handset: see an example), they are not even losing money (they even gain: every cent earned through content sales is a cent more than carriers get from the iPhone app store sales…).

However, what carriers do have to do is catch up with the state of the art in selling, and that means an app store. However, it can also be a carrier-operated/driven app store.

An app store, too, does not however solve the dilemma of having to manage a huge amount of content in a way to allow the consumer a choice. One must not throw everything onto a big pile and let them pick out what they believe they like; this type of sales does not register too well: it is time-consuming, intransparent, messy, not good. So one needs someone to manage it. In comes the aggregator.

Or does it?

Aggregators that went around collecting content in a bucket only to throw it against the next wall to see what sticks are likely to struggle (or have died already: RIP Telcogames et al). However, aggregators that actually provide content management as a service to operators thrive (not exclusively on games, mind you). All the big guns in the space, Fox Mobile (f/k/a Jamba), Arvato Mobile, Buongiorno and recently Zed (through its acquisition of Player X) run riot in the space and bid hard for every deal that comes up (and lots of them do!) and gobble up the market. More on the classic D2C side, Thumbplay grew tremendously in the US, SendMe Mobile seems to go from strength to strength, and a lot of smaller ones, such as Rayfusion, etc. seem to more just hang in there, too. Why do they? Because the features that make an aggregator excellent – managing a wealth of content well – are the exact features carriers would look for when outsourcing their struggling content units. And because it is an aggregator’s core business model, they are really good at this, which is crucial in a low-margin business: be efficient or die.

Marketing and promotion is another point. We already see aggregation-type businesses become forces on Apple’s app store, such as Chillingo (from my very own town!). They publish well over 100 games and thrive on iPhone developers capitulating before the challenge to get noticed amongst the more than 50,000 apps currently available. Chillingo can provide marketing and promotion and make sure that a developer’s product gets not only live but noticed, too. It is very likely that there will be others in this space very, very soon.

So what seems to change is not the viability of being an aggregator but the aggregator’s service to their customers (the carriers!): whereas it may previously have been sufficient to use the “bucket against the wall” tactic, they now have to become better in providing a subtle selection without too much restriction. People will normally welcome a structured environment with pre-selected choices. Just make it a) easy and b) don’t limit randomly or indeed too much. And now get going! 😉

Disclaimer: I hold an indirect interest in Rayfusion.

Tag: carriers Page 5 of 7

O2, Orange/T-Mobile, and now Vodafone: iPhone everywhere in the UK!

Mobile to Rescue Music Business?!

Is Apple to break iPhone exclusivity?

Mobile Innovation; in Response to Scoble

AR: the next acronym to watch out for?

Virgin Canada bought by Bell

Game Aggregators: New World Order