Mobile Solutions CI

Google buys AdMob, VOIP player; turning mobile ecosystem upside down

Google's purchase of AdMob is dominating headlines today: "The company said Nov. 9 that it agreed to acquire AdMob, a mobile display ad technology provider, for $750 million in stock. Google said the purchase would move the company forward in its efforts to develop more effective tools for creating, serving and analyzing emerging mobile ads formats."

Not generating much news is that Google also snapped up a VOIP player today. 

Google is very close to having an end-to-end “unified inbox” service which completely commoditizes carriers. The initial lure for service providers is a cut of shared ad revenue in return for services which otherwise are costly for them to implement and maintain (voicemail, sms, IM, voice-to-text across these mediums, mapping, location enabled messaging).

However within a year you will be able to port your current phone number to Google and manage your voice calls, email, IM, chat, mapping, calendaring, etc. from the web or an android device which uses no voice and nothing but a prepaid, flat rate data plan and sim card. Your inbox can port seamlessly across mobile and PC devices as the data is all could based.

The AdMob acquisition isn’t as impactful as Google offering mapping for free and thereby destroying the value of the only two players who had managed to provide mobile mapping, Navteq (Nokia purchased for $8bn) and Telenav (IPO just announced).

For all the change that Apple wrought in consumer behavior on mobile devices, Google is driving at least as much change from the technology systems side. Truly an amazing time to be in the industry. And perhaps the most dangerous time to be a carrier as the risks for once are equal to the opportunities.

RIM announces first dual-mode phone

RIM today announced it's latest device, the 8820, featuring:

• WiFi a/b/g
• Thinnest QWERTY Blackberry so far
• GPS with LBS services preloaded
• Music player; supports stereo bluetooth

Nice wrapup on the business features here at TMC Net.

Verizon Business launches FMC solution using RIM's Ascendent

Verizon Communications' business services division announced several fixed-mobile convergence offerings today at NXTcomm trade show in Chicago.

The most important one is PBX Mobile Extension, which uses RIM's "Mobile Voice System" for PBX service extensions to cellphones. This is an important beachead for RIM's beyond email solution capabilities and provides an early example of rollouts that will occur this autumn with the new BES 5.0, which will bundle Ascendant's server as integrated functionality.

As RIM has Wi-Fi devices coming to market this quarter and next it will have a complete solution to offer for FMC.

Solutions announced today by Verizon:

PBX Mobile Extension: Extend PBX features to mobile device; available next month

Wireless Office: Offering of pricing plans with discounts by geography or numbering plan; available now

Mobile Conference Connection: Extension of the command and control capabilities for Verizon's conferencing service to mobile phones; available next month

"PBX Mobile Extension works with a company's existing PBX system to provide a single phone number that simultaneously rings on a user's cell phone, home phone or any pre-selected phone number. If a user can't answer the call, PBX Mobile Extension uses a company's existing voice mail system to provide a unified voice mailbox, eliminating the inefficiencies of multiple voice mail systems.

Outbound calls by employees using cell phones show the caller's office phone number via caller ID. Cell phone callers also can use other PBX functions such as call-transfer, park, hold and more.

Workers can also move seamlessly between their cell phone and a desk phone to complete a call in progress, conduct quick and secure conference calls, and initiate mass notifications enabling companies to quickly respond to planned or unplanned situations. The service will be available in the United States starting next month, and Verizon plans to roll it out internationally in 2008."

PBX Mobile Extension will consist of an Ascendent server deployed alongside the customer's PBX. Verizon claims in its press release that there is no client-side application but this solution does indeed require a client. The solutoin works across a broad range of legacy TDM, hybrid, or all-IP PBXs.

RIM's newest version of the BES server, which will beta in August, includes this functionality.

RIM's original press release of Mobile Voice System

Microsoft, Manufacturers Announce UC Phones and Devices Tied to OCS

Microsoft announced that nine vendors are creating an initial round of 15 phones that will be certified for use with Microsoft Office Communications Server (formerly LCS) and the Microsoft Office Communicator client, both of which will be released this summer. They are currently in beta. The combination of server, client, and partner-supplied devices is expected to substantially undercut pricing for similar solutions from Avaya and Cisco.

The first round of 15 phones will be made by a variety of vendors including Samsung, LG-Nortel, NEC, Plantronics, Asus, GN, Polycon, Tatung, and Vitelix and will include IP phones, USB phones, wired and wireless headsets, Bluetooth devices, conferencing phones, portable speakerphones, LCD monitors and software-client only phones on laptops. Some of the new phones connect directly to a USB port, so mobile workers can bring the phone with them and use it along with their laptops to access features typically only supported on desk phones, like call forwarding and conferencing. Other new phones include Bluetooth and video capabilities.

By themselves, none of the phones offers as many features as those from Cisco or Avaya. But integrated with OCS they will have capabilities like presence and integration with the Microsoft Office Suite that will connect e-mail, instant messaging, real-time presence information, conferencing, VOIP (voice over IP) and mobile communications.

Microsoft positions their UC as "reaching a person, not a number" by providing partner solutions that are plug and play (messaged as "just works"). Microsoft is creating a qualification program for manufacturers to ensure devices work out of the box with both server and client Office Communicator software.

I didn't notice any coverage mentioning that mobile providers and traditional players Cisco and Avaya already have such solutions in-marke; for example Nokia Intellisync Call Connect solution is already in the market place fully integrated with Cisco and Alcatel on Eseries dual mode devices.

Summary article

RIM announces Unified Communications solution; will release PBX integration application suite

On Monday RIM announced a Unifiied Communications bundled solution consisting of a BES server plug-in, a Blackberry client application, and an application suite based on their Ascendent Systems acquisition. This solution will be called "Mobile Voice System" and available in a month. RIM's positioning for this solution is identical to Intellisync CallConnect, using much of the same terms and emphasizing similar features.

This integration is a needed step to keep pace with Exchange 2007 features.

Mobile Voice System key features:

• Convergence of BlackBerry with office desk phones by using existing corporate phone number to maintain one "Reach Me Anywhere" phone number
• Supports extension dialing, transfer, park and consolidated voicemail from office desk phone on handheld
• New menu-driven interface on Blackberry for placing, receiving enterprise calls and accessing desk phone functionality
• Security through using Blackberry data connection for authentication
• Allows IT to route all calls through the telephony system for billing / audit purposes.
• Supports IP, TDM or mixed vendor PBX environments.

Comments at RIM's trade show today indicate that this solution will be a bundled component of the next BES release which will beta this August and is scheduled for release in 2008.

Microsoft buys Tellme -- is voice the new UI?

Microsoft purchased a voice recognition company, Tellme.  Here is a recap at BusinessWeek.

This puts voice navigation at the forefront of Microsoft's unified communications efforts and also marks a strategic move to compete against Google in mobile search.

Other implications:

• Increases Microsoft's offering to operators. Coming on the heels of Vodafone and Orange consolidating on Microsoft's IM platform, this marks another big step in Microsoft's assembling a full mobile platform. Tellme will allow Microsoft to offer hosted voice-based search with its adCenter platform.
• Microsoft just released Speech Server 2007 bundled with Office Communications Server (formerly Live Communications Server), which adds Internet phone functions to Microsoft Office. It also has speech command built into its Vista operating system. It must now integrate TellMe into the Speech Server roadmap.
• Longer-term, Microsoft is increasingly tying its mobile client to presence, voice-based UI, and integrating corporate voice/messaging to the device.
• Tellme is a hosted solution which fits into Microsoft's plans to migrate opportunistically to SAAS products.

Update on Microsoft and Nortel UC Initiative

In August 2006 Microsoft and Nortel put out a press release claiming a joint initiative on UC.  I wrote that this is classic FUD.

Microsoft's UC efforts have largely focused on Exchange 2007 which was not even mentioned (the announcement targeted LCS). An analyst quote from two weeks later summed up my take best: "with IP telephony growing quickly and large-scale deployments ramping up, Microsoft hopes to freeze the market while its own initiative progresses, according to Zeus Kerravala, an industry analyst with Yankee Group Research, in Boston."

I believed this was not a "real" announcement because 1) there was no product, no roadmap; 2) no Microsoft group or product manager willing to go on record about it; and 3) no customer or pilots. These three criteria are the minimum basis for an actual product announcement versus vaporware. Because they were not present I was highly sceptical that Nortel would truly relegate themselves to providing pbx/voice connection and let MSFT own the realtime data end.

However, recently I have been surprised to see substantial developments in the MSFT/Nortel initiative. I was very wrong. Each of the conditions mentioned above has materialized over the past two weeks.

The best summation is a recent article called "Microsoft, Nortel VOIP Alliance Gets Real" which details their roadmap:

• 2H07 integration of Nortel's native SIP implementation on Communication Server 1000 and Exchange Server 2007 (not the new LCS as initially announced).
• Q4 2007 rollout of a new conferencing solution called UC Integrated Branch, which rolls functions of Nortel's Multimedia Conferencing product into the new LCS, Office Communicator 2007, to create a single server that combines routing, switching, VOIP and UC.  (Cisco announced this week an in-house venture to develop a directly competitive solution)
• 2008 adding support in the Nortel Communications Server 2100 for a unified desktop and soft phone for VOIP, e-mail, instant messaging and presence supporting as many as 200,000 users on one system (targeting operators and enterprise).
• 2009/2010 "the two companies expect the "notion of separate PBX and server software will give way to a world in which [Microsoft's] Office Communications Server and Nortel's feature server [deliver] the full telephony experience on Intel [-based hardware], Windows development and management tools, and deliver a common experience," Ballmer said".

This makes Microsoft/Nortel a true challenger to Cisco and creates a tangible roadmap to a packaged solution for UC.