Adding *everyone* to a cellphone's contact list.

"Austrian Herold, which publishes the country’s white and yellow pages, claims to offer a worldwide first. Customers can purchase Austria’s entire phone directory and plug it into their cellphone. "

Mformation expands global presence with Malaysia office.

"Mformation... today announced the expansion of its global presence through the opening of a sales and support office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This office will provide professional services, sales and support for mobile operators in the rapidly growing Southeast Asian market. "

Cell-C to use mFormation.

"South African mobile operator Cell-C is to use Mformation's Service Manager device management suite to remotely manage its device portfolio, and will benefit from real-time control over devices. The solution is integrated with HP’s Automatic Device Detection (ADD) software and will allow Cell-C to remotely detect and configure phones and devices throughout all phases of their life, allowing the operator to use next-generation wireless technology profitably."

Telefónica selects mFormation.

Telefónica Móviles España (TME) "is using Mformation’s solution to remotely configure, diagnose and manage feature phones and smart devices to satisfy customer’s needs. In addition, the company is offering a hosted mobile device management and security solution to its enterprise customers. The TME solution is being delivered by Mformation and its systems integration partner HP. "

Fraud-proof phones patent from IBM.

"Under a special new setting, personal contact numbers stored on the device are marked as 'OK-to-dial' without a password. But new numbers and international or premium ones all require a password to connect. Of course, adding someone to the phone's memory also requires the correct password."

Can enterprises bypass the carrier?

"While we stare at our belly-buttons and wait for the magical enterprise MVNO to come save the day, the market is moving forward without us."

Japan Radio Company brings Red Bend solution to Willcom.

"Red Bend Software Japan KK... today announced that its vCurrent(R) Mobile software has been licensed by Japan Radio Company (JRC) for use in mobile phones for Japanese operator, Willcom, Inc."

3GSM: More of the same for enterprise mobility.

"OMA DM means absolutely nothing to an IT department. Well, that's not actually true. As currently defined and implemented, OMA DM means that the IT department is going to be fighting with the carrier over firmware updates from here until eternity. And that's about it. The IT department will deploy an IT-centric 'enterprise management' platform which will have the capability to support mobile devices. Sybase iAnywhere's Afaria product exemplifies this type of platform... we are babes in the woods who fail to understand that IT departments have been doing enterprise management since before mobile operators went digital. Mobile device management may be new to these carrier upstarts, but it's old hat to the IT community."

Toshiba selects InnoPath for SoftBank handsets.

"InnoPath Software... has been selected by Toshiba Corporation to deliver its device management client on the 2007 spring handset models including SoftBank 812T, 813T, and 911T. The solution has also been deployed on the SoftBank 810T, 811T, and 910T models which were available on the market last season."

Smith Micro to acquire assets of Insignia Solutions.

"Smith Micro Software, Inc. , a developer and marketer of a wide range of software and services for the wireless market, and Insignia Solutions, plc , a pioneer in mobile device management and a key provider of provisioning-infrastructure software to mobile operators and device manufacturers around the world, jointly announced a definitive agreement for Smith Micro to acquire substantially all of the assets of Insignia Solutions, including its mobile device management business... Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, Smith Micro will purchase substantially all of the assets of Insignia Solutions for cash and cancellation of debt, and will assume certain liabilities of Insignia, for a total deal value of $18,575,000. The completion of the transaction is subject to certain closing conditions."

HP targets business market with iPaq smartphone.

"Hewlett-Packard announced a smartphone for business users on Monday, appealing to IT administrators by offering remote software management from Bitfone... HP will launch the iPaq 500 series smartphones in April or May, depending on Microsoft Corp.'s timing in releasing its new Windows Mobile 6.0 OS. HP plans to charge $299 to $349 for an unlocked version of the phone, and will announce deals with individual carriers after the initial launch."

Microsoft files with FCC to test what may be Zune phone.

"A filing that Microsoft submitted Monday to the Federal Communications Commission suggests the technology giant will likely add phone service to its line of hand-held media players, now known as Zunes. "

Microsoft mobilizes again.

"The Windows Mobile 6.0 code is an evolutionary step from the software giant's last big release, with major changes to wireless email capabilities and security, while largely maintaining the look and feel of its current user interface... Security is another very important issue with devices that can easily be lost or stolen outside the office or home. 'One of the big requests we had was to encrypt storage cards on the device,' notes DelBene. The firm has also added the ability for a user to perform a 'local wipe' of a gadget's memory without having to try to contact a network administrator if a device is lost in the wee hours."

Major shake-out predicted for $15bn consumer MVNO market.

"According to a new report by Juniper Research, the consumer MVNO market is on the cusp of a major shake-out... Undifferentiated, voice-only MVNOs will find it difficult to maintain critical mass and profitability in the face of defensive action from incumbent operators. Only those with a strong retail brand and an existing customer base will survive."

Taiwan Mobile, MasterCard test mobile payments.

"Taiwan Mobile Co. Ltd. and MasterCard International Inc. have already started testing a mobile phone payment system in Taiwan, but competition to lure users will catch fire when the mobile phone operator's larger rival opens its trials with Visa... On Thursday, Visa International Service Association and SK Telecom Inc. announced plans to introduce a mobile payment system using universal Subscriber Identification Module (USIM) cards for 3G (third-generation) mobile phones users in South Korea."

Synchronica enables back-up and restore for the masses.

"As a part of the device management suite Mobile Manager 2.5, this new module allows operators and ASPs to offer consumers a subscription-based mobile back-up and restore service that will seamlessly enable the return of lost data in the event of the device being lost or stolen."

Why aren't IT managers being heard?

Daniel Taylor of Mobile Enterprise Weblog pens a must-read post: "Taking this thinking to mobile device management... we want a multi-vendor device management solution for the enterprise market. This will involve devices from multiple vendors, an enterprise device management platform from another vendor, and multiple carriers, each using device management platforms from different vendors...

OMA DM can be extended to provide enterprise features, to provide for shared management capabilities (carrier AND enterprise) and to facilitate multi-carrier enterprise mobile device management. Doing this will require the addition of a key constituency to the activity -- the enterprise...

The enterprise is seen as a place where proprietary solutions still have a chance of succeeding:

• BlackBerry policies and device management capabilities are currently only available to BlackBerry devices and to devices whose vendors have licensed BlackBery Connect from RIM. Numerous carriers worldwide carry and support BlackBerry.
• Nokia has incorporated Intellisync Device Manager into its E-series (enterprise-class) devices and supports OMA DM specifications. More advanced enterprise features like device lock and remote device wipe are part of the pre-standard Advanced Device Management package. A few mobile operators have employed Intellisync's software for device management.
• Bitfone (recently purchased by Hewlett-Packard) has an OMA DM compliant platform that can support multiple management authorities (e.g. a carrier and an enterprise) in a pre-standard architecture...

The fact is that IT managers think that they can simply use their existing management platforms (OpenView, Tivoli, CA, etc.) to manage their mobile devices. They didn't know until last year that the carrier had plans to do Over The Air (OTA) updates to all Windows Mobile 5.0 devices on their network. They didn't know to ask for standardized products. And if they did, they wouldn't know which standards to ask for. And if the products existed, they wouldn't know to ask for their mobile operators to support the standard."

InnoPath provides Samsung with MDM solution.

"InnoPath Software... announced that it has signed an agreement with Samsung to deploy the InnoPath iMDM solution on Samsung mobile handsets. With InnoPath, mobile phone users have a way to seamlessly and efficiently update handset software and firmware over-the-air."

Red Bend speeds firmware upgrades.

"The difference between VRapid and other FOTA updates, according to a Red Bend spokesperson, is the size of the data being sent. 'Since VRapid only sends the specific firmware update, rather that an entirely new firmware, as FOTA does, the update is much smaller and downloads and installs much faster,' she says.

The suite with support for Linux and select mobile phone platforms will be available in Q2 2007 with support for Symbian available in Q3.

BenQ Mobile, LG Electronics, NEC, Sharp and Sony Ericsson currently use the company’s FOTA mobile client software."

Red Bend Software announces software management solution.

"Building on Red Bend's patented FOTA software, which updates the entire firmware image as one monolith, vRapid Mobile is the first Mobile Software Management solution that can update, add and remove individual embedded software components on any mobile phone."

Mobile giants plot secret rival to Google.

"Europe's biggest telecoms groups are aiming to create a mobile phone search engine that could challenge Yahoo! and Google, the US giants. Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and one American network, Cingular, are among the companies that will come together for secret, high-level talks at the mobile industry's biggest annual trade show in Barcelona next week."

Sage, RIM say mobile CRM is ready for prime time.

"Gartner expects strong annual growth in mobile CRM, predicting sales increases of 40 percent to 60 percent over the next two years... From an IT perspective, many deployment challenges have also been resolved now that software updates and changes to custom apps can be delivered over the network rather than requiring devices to be recalled and physically reprogrammed."