Mobile Solutions CI

Mobile Breakfast Series recap

This week I attended Chetan Sharma's Mobile Breakfast Event, which he recaps here. It was great to see some familiar faces and hear startup stories from a range of services. 

I'm grateful that Chetan puts on these events and brings such a focused community together.

Listening to the commentary on application distribution and startup's path to commercial viability is interesting now that I am sitting on the carrier side of the fence. While the audience is not as virulently anti-carrier as a SV meeting it was close which has always struck me as amusing. If eliminating carriers would be such a panacea why not just go to market only on the web?

Problem solved as is evident by the great number of web-only startups in 2009 and 2010 which have generated fast growing user bases with scaling revenue models...oh, wait. 

Beyond that equation there were some interesting discussions on time to market in general and the business model implications of aligning with carriers, OEMs, etc. Swype and Root had interesting stories to tell on this topic.

One topic which was interestingly absent was cloud computing or even HTML5. Has the iPad launch killed that hot topic for consumer mobile services? The app store route on iPhone and Android seemed a forgone conclusion to both speakers and audience, with one notable nod to RIM.

Messaging innovation centered on SMS, not email

It's really interesting how many new messaging and communication startups are leveraging SMS. At CTIA I met several interesting new startups, such as Zipwhip, built on texting. The broken inbox experience of email is creating the biggest competitive threat for mobile messaging vendors.

As startups like Smash proliferate more services need to Twitter themselves down to digestabile elements for mobile.

Smash is providing a technology platform that lets software developers create new text applications on top of texting

Texting is so dreadfully simple. Smash wants liven it up - NYTimes.com.

 

SEVEN now supporting Google Calendar

SEVEN has put out a press release describing their calendar integration to mobile email and PIM for their supported handsets (currently listed as 450). They are working hard to reach further into operators by listing carrier-side support for gmail and calendering issues as a main feature.

SEVEN Launches Google Calendar Integration for Mobile Devices.

While this is the right path for SEVEN to pursue in extending mobile email and calendering from web-based services to mobile phones, in a way I find it amazing that carriers have yet to think and act beyond providing connectivity. Why aren't carriers demanding a personalized or contextualized version of such a service where calendar updates are time and location sensitive (e.g. auto-sms or email notice to participants if you are running late, on a another call, etc)?

Why aren't they working on a UI that is specific to handet classes--if not specific handsets--instead of just trying to port a PC-based web experience to a tiny screen? If players from Zimbra through Xobni, Clearcontext, etc. are trying to do better than Outlook on the web why in the world isn't anyone tyring to do better for email and calendar experiences in mobile?

The danger of this product roadmap for SEVEN, Visto, and SyncML-based players is that user uptake flips to interacting directly through different experiences and they are left high and dry with all their investments in a roadmap designed to support use cases that are suddenly irrelevant. This could happen sooner than one might think through expansion of Twitter or RSS use cases, of Facebook or MySpace or Youtube overlays which replace email and IM and calendering, or productization of any of these through third party standalone apps released through app stores.

Synchronica

Synchronica says: Just like SEVEN and Visto, but we're SyncML. Is an "email for the masses" message still relevant to operators or end customers?

Synchronica continues to win deals, is it driving uptake?

Synchronica has been increasing its dealflow since acquiring Axis. It's footprint is growing as it lands deals in EMEA and now LATA.

Has anyone heard feedback regarding uptake for Synchronica?

It's lack of news on end customer uptake over the past year suggests that similar to Visto two years ago, ability to gain traction with operators is not translating to steady success driving sell-in

Update on Synchronica

Here is a short interview with Synchronica. No useful metrics about growth which haven't already been disclosed but it does have the complete high-level pitch and positioning (vs SEVEN, Visto, etc) for Synchronica all in one place.

 Synchronica's CEO, Carsten Brinkschulte Speaks to Proactive Investors - Synchronica plc.

SEVEN launches NOC in China

While news of the first NOC in China is a great first-mover advantage for a startup, I'm surprised to see SEVEN still focusing on building out carrier relaltionships rather than pouring resources into sell-in.

There is yet to be a white label winner that gives service providers a demonstrable alternative to RIM. The longer that the SEVENs and Visto's of the world go without establishing great success stories in one or two key markets the greater the risk that a competing business model will dislodge them.

Mobile Email Tops Voicemail, Says Seven

Mobile Email Tops Voicemail, Says Seven - WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS.

SEVEN has done an interesting survey claiming that voicemail and email are a bit of an either-or communications preference for businesses, and that IM lags substantially behind email.

In my (non statistically relevant) experience companies tend to be culturally inclined toward either voice or email. Most technology companies I work for are either email or IM dominated for reaching someone or getting an answer. However service firms I've worked with, and for, are primarily voice oriented.

I've always thought the type of work you did created different demand types. Service firms often rely heavily upon context and conveying that is easier through voice. Tech firms often need fairly straightforward info bits which is fastest thru email, text, or IM.

Visto adds social networking, photo share

Visto is announcing a new version at CTIA which includes email, social networking, SMS, IM and photo sharing.

" Featuring an innovative "living address book," VISTO Mobile 6 offers end users expanded push mobile email and mobile social networking capabilities. This living address book combines favorite contacts from multiple sources, including social networks, into a seamless user interface. VISTO Mobile 6 utilizes VISTO's patented push and synchronization technology to keep users constantly up to date in real time on their messaging and social networking activities.

In addition, VISTO Mobile 6 provides end users the ability to filter updates from their list of contacts; meaning each user has the control to see only the updates they truly care about. This eliminates the clutter of unnecessary updates and requests."

Visto will target both small business, SOHO, and consumers with this offer. For operators Visto will emphasize the ability to federate many solutions through one client application and control data costs through Visto's NOC and data compression capabilities. There are no announced operator customers yet.

Visto's product positioning:
"VISTO Easy Setup(TM): End-to-end self provisioning with pre-installed clients, enabling mobile email users to set up their service from their device in a matter of seconds

VISTO worklife.freedom(TM): -- access email from the most popular portal email providers and social networking sites including Yahoo!, AOL, Google Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and Photobucket

VISTO ConstantSync(TM): instantly pushes data right to the phone so the end user is always up-to-date - alerts, emails, status messages - everything is always current. -- get notification of new pictures, posts, and other important events from social networking and photo sharing sites from your favorite contacts pushed to your phone -- share photos from your phone to multiple photo sharing sites. Support for multiple services: send and receive messages from work and personal email and social networking accounts, each with its own inbox, with full attachment handling"

Synchronica wins Nigerian deal

Synchronica signs licensing deal with Asian-African mobile operator group unit for push e-mail, synchronisation software Mobile Gateway.

This brief article on Synchronica's win is interesting for specifying deal terms. I'm surprised at the level of commits (250k). Synchronica continues to gain ground as a low-cost alternative to RIM in developing regions.