Nokia to launch its own MVNO in Japan.

"Nokia will launch its own MVNO in Japan in the first half of 2009... [to] focus on the high-end market with its luxury Vertu phones. The company will use NTT DoCoMo's network."

MDM: Lifeline in the Storm.

David Ginsberg, vice president of marketing for InnoPath, writes: "MDM is not going to solve all of the operator’s problems, and surely won’t cure the global economy, but it can begin to make a dent into smartphone support costs, building satisfaction and loyalty at the same time. For those of you who are into 'Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?' think of it as a lifeline in the storm."

Musings of a mobile marketer: There is no future of mobile.

Helen Keegan writes: "The trouble is, the market is full of people who are *not* like us. Our customers are normal people. The ones who use their phones for talking and texting. The ones who have no idea that they may need new firmware or may need to change their handset settings."

InnoPath Announces Support for the Newly Ratified OMA-DM SCOMO Standard.

"InnoPath Software... today announced support for the newly ratified OMA-DM Software Component Management Object (SCOMO) Candidate Enabler. A standards-based method of managing the lifecycle of applications on mobile phones sets the stage for a new generation of over-the-air capabilities for both consumers and enterprises, while avoiding the single vendor lock-in that characterized previous approaches."

UQ Communications Selects Mformation to Support Advanced Mobile WiMAX Service in Japan.

"UQ Communications has selected [Mformation] to provide seamless device management capabilities for new WiMAX-capable devices as part of the rollout of its WiMAX network. The UQ Communications venture was established with KDDI Corporation, Intel Capital Corp., East Japan Railway Company, KYOCERA Corporation, Daiwa Securities Group Inc. and The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd."

NTT DoCoMo Moves Into India, Buys a Piece of Tata.

"Japanese telecom giant NTT DoCoMo said today that it has acquired 26 percent of Tata Teleservices for $2.7 billion, which is actually higher than the valuation of the largest CDMA carrier in India, Reliance Communications."

VMware Introduces Mobile Virtualization Platform.

"VMware has introduced a software platform for mobile phones that it said will enable users to run multiple profiles on the same phone.

The Mobile Virtualization Platform, MVP, is based on technology from Trango Virtual Processors, a France-based embedded processor virtualization IP provider VMware acquired in October."

Europe Hit With Big Telecom Jobs Cuts.

"Europe's telecom fraternity is set to be some way smaller following a spate of job loss announcements by service providers and vendors alike."

UC Berkeley software turns cell phones into traffic trackers.

"Effective midnight, researchers from UC Berkeley and the Nokia phone company are rolling out pilot software that can be downloaded for free onto cell phones to turn them into roving traffic probes. The mobile phones will transmit information about those cell phone users' driving speed, direction and location and get back instant information on where cars are stuck in logjams or speeding along without interference."

The iPhone Is Now the Best Selling Phone In the U.S.

"The 6.9 million iPhones it sold last quarter catapulted the $200 device into the top spot among all cell phones, even beating out the much cheaper and still-popular Motorola Razr."

Cell phone makers face toughest year since 2001.

"On average, analysts expect global growth to be 3 percent in both the fourth quarter and 2009, compared with well above 10 percent in recent years."

Apple now #2 in the Smartphone space.

"We heard it from Apple but research firm Canalys confirms it, Apple has moved past RIM to become #2 in Smartphone shipments. According to them Apple has 17.3% share compared to RIM's 15.2% followed by Windows Mobile's 13.6%."

Google sends out Android update RC30 - blocks 'jailbreak'.

"While a significant chunk of G1 owners still await the RC29 update that started rolling out a few days ago, Google has already queued up another one. While people generally welcome updates with open arms, this ones got a few folks upset."

Mary Meeker’s View Of The World In 50 Slides.

"Every year at the Web 2.0 Summit, Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker gives her view of the world, the Web, and the technology industry by quickly going through about 50 slides that illustrate the major trends she is tracking... This year, she talks about the root causes of the current economic downturn, the outlook for Web businesses, and where she still sees major growth (mobile and emerging markets)."

Mary Meeker Web 2.0 Presentation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: web 2.0)

Amdocs to buy Changing Worlds.

"Amdocs is going to buy Changing Worlds. It is paying $60 million cash for the company whose ClixSmart Personalisation and Mobile Internet Platform is used by 45 operators to personalise and tailor content on their portals. "

19% of mobile consumers in U.S. now using smartphones, according to study.

"According to the 'Mobile Market View' study released today by The Kelsey Group, 18.9% of mobile consumers in the United States are now toting smartphones, with 49.2% planning to pick one up within the next two years."

Mobile software is dead. Long live... mobile software.

"...the revenue opportunity (future market size) of the embedded software market is shrinking while the revenue opportunity of the post-sales market is growing - in this sense market value is migrating from pre-load to post-sales. We estimate there are 250-300 software companies active in the pre-load phase of the lifecycle, and about 30,000 developers in the post-sales phase. "

MasterCard Offers a Piece of the Mobile Payment Puzzle.

Stacey Higginbotham writes: "While MasterCard has taken care of the logistics of getting your card securely on your cell phone via a consumer-friendly process, no banks are yet issuing such mobile-friendly cards to their customers. Even if they did, wireless carriers aren’t supporting the type of phones necessary to communicate with the PayPass system. So basically, this is a whole lot of nothing. But it makes a great case study to track all the moving pieces in the mobile payments sector..."

Can Motorola’s Big Bet on Android Pay Off?

Om Malik writes: "Motorola will cut the number of operating systems it uses to three — Windows Mobile for the high-end phones, Android for mid-tier (very high volume) phones and Motorola’s proprietary P2K OS. Apparently the company was using six different operating systems in its phones — no surprise they were such a mess. "

Rumor: Panasonic to buy Sanyo.

"Bloomberg reporting that Panasonic has an agreement to buy Sanyo. News conference to be held on the 7th."

Mformation Sues RIM.

"Mformation claims that RIM's BlackBerry devices and associated software employ systems and methods of remote device management invented by Mformation, and covered by Mformation's asserted patents."

InnoPath’s MDM Client Deployed by Pantech across Multiple Tier-1 Operators.

"In the past few months, Pantech has deployed InnoPath’s OMA-DM client on handsets delivered to AT&T, KDDI and KTF. Previous InnoPath/Pantech customers also included Verizon Wireless. InnoPath’s momentum at Pantech across both GSM and CDMA operators is evidence of the flexibility of its client architecture as well as its in-country support capabilities. The availability of handsets with OMA-DM clients is required to jumpstart operator deployments, thereby setting the stage for MDM-delivered customer care."