Microsoft is under the squeeze now with Apple’s high end computers and the new Google Chrome OS targeting the lower end computers and netbooks. At the risk of sounding unpopular I don’t really care to see this happen. Over the past month I’ve been starting to use Windows 7 and I am really enjoying it. Finally Microsoft has seemed to get things right with this operating system and now the competition is starting to heat up. I don’t think anything drastic is going to happen to Microsoft any time soon but I’d like to see them continue down this path of self improvement to see where it will lead. I suppose Window 7 would not be as good as it is without the pressure applied form Apple. Competition fuels improvement and now with Goggle getting into the OS mix perhaps things may even get better. Still after the disaster with Vista, Windows 7 is turning out to be a great step forward to what I hope will be down a path of user friendly, intuitive experiences that Microsoft of all companies has the money to build on.

Contrary to my support of Microsoft I also am a very big fan on Google, I’m excited to start using their newest product Google Wave, I love Google Earth and Google Maps as well a their browser Google Chrome. Google has turned out to be a very inventive company that drives massive change in the online markets. They continue to go down roads least expected and tend to always end up on or near the top. If Google’s OS takes off I have no doubt that it will be a great experience I just have a dream of one day everything being integrated seamlessly with no discussions of OS types and compatibility issues.

The chances of your iPhone getting infected by this second wave of iPhone viruses is low but should be a concern because unlike it’s counter part (the first iPhone virus) this one is taking your music, photos, data, contacts, emails, SMS and calendar info… more or less anything you do with your phone. It’s unsure where the data is being uploaded to yet but rest assured their is something you can do to protect yourself. You may be surprised to hear this but the Apple operating system is not the most secure mobile operating system but with this virus all that’s required for you to do is change your root password from “alpine” to something else…

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What Yamaha did is an example of a great way to support your SMS programs and encourage people to opt-in for mobile alerts. Having the right incentive can be very effective as seen with this example where Yamaha noticed a 400% increase in consumers signing up for SMS alerts.

http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/messaging/4507.html

Toyota and the New York Giants launch a event based campaign at the New York Giants’ season opener which ultimately delivered a 14 percent increase of downloaded information about the Toyota campaign to their handsets.  The campaign used Bluetooth for location based video content talking about the campaign and supported it with a branded mobile site.

Read more here: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/4436.html.

It seems between the coming launch of the Microsoft Smartphones, and now with the deal between Verizon and Google Apple is going to have a lot of competition. Is there going to be a big battle over Smartphone supremacy? I certainty hope so! I for one own a 3G iPhone and am very happy with it, aside from the slow processor speed and the fact that it occasionally freezes up on me it a fun phone to own. Yes I know they have addressed the processor speed with the 3GS but i havn’t had this version very long, I don’t want to go back out and spend more on another phone. Yet I find myself craving one of the new Android phones, maybe to be different maybe because I want something new, I do like new gadgets. Then again if I were to move over to Google i’ll be dealing with the transfer of all my information and contacts… after 6 months I finally got my iphone where I want it… sort of… Then you have the new Microsoft fleet of phones that are coming out later this year, again something new and if you want to talk applications, Microsoft has more then Apple and now they have the platform to support all the developers creating them, Windows Market Place.

So it seems that Apple will indeed have competition on a few fronts… Oh, what about RIM… there a huge player in this market?

“RIM’s BlackBerry is now the third most popular mobile phone for browsing the web in the United States, accounting for 14 percent of all mobile traffic. BlackBerry is also placed fifth in Britain and world Wide, above Apple’s iphone, according to Bango.” http://wwwMobile Marketer.com

I couldn’t talk about Smartphones and Smartphone competition without mentioning RIM, so now with four major players in the Smartphone department all with exclusive deals with particular service providers things like like there really going to start heating up, assuming Nokia and Samsung don’t step up their game in the next while too!

On Oct 6 Microsoft announced the first crop of mobile phones carrying the Windows phone brand complete with Adobe Flash support. With the Windows phone people will be able to navigate with a touch of a finger… much like some other phones we all know. Microsoft expects partners to deliver more than 30 phones by the end of 2009.  Also with the addition of the Windows Marketplace these new phones will have a place to download additional applications to customs their phones. Ironically the Windows Mobile phones have more programs available then the iPhone as developers have been developing applications for these phones for years there was just no centralized location for people to download from.

We’ll see if this gets Microsoft back in the race with the rest of the Smartphones as a lot of their competitors have a large head start on them. I for one hope this works out, the more competition the better the prices for all phones… also I’m hoping that one day we will truly have one device that integrates with everything seamlessly and I think Microsoft would be the company that could take us there as the majority of the world is still on PC’s… Although Mac’s are gaining more support all the time…

More details : http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/06/cnet.microsoft.windows.phone/index.html, http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2009/06/c4361.html

http://www.mobiledia.com/news/70678.html

This is great news on the green front. I’m a big believer in discovering new forms of energy especially recyclable energy and if Taiwanese researchers really are bringing this technology to life by 2012 this is good news for everyone.

Canada is behind the rest of the world only having 70% penetration into the mobile market while the rest of the world is over 100% with a number of users carrying more then one mobile device.

65 Million users on facebook using the mobile platform around the world, more then a 300% increase in less then 9 months. There is an issue for carriers to meet the demand of mobile users. In Canada data and mobile billing plans are going to quickly need to be looked to be more affordable to the general public. Plans will need to start moving to unlimited data.

Cellular traffic jams are happening, there is not enough mobile bandwidth to support demand. Growth rates are roughly 200% – 300% increased in the last 12 months.

Apple and BlackBerry sell more phones in a day then Google does in 9 months… arbitrary stat but might be useful.

$3 billion for mobile data estimated in ‘09 in Canada verses more then $30 billion in the US in ‘08.

The purchase of Netbooks are on the rise to 35-50 million this year.

Multitasking browsers will be be coming soon to mobile web devices.

Nokia and Samsung are the number 1 and 2 cellphone providers globally.

35% of mobile users are now using another device there mobile phones offers other then voice. Over 48% of users that have a mobile device now use mobile media. 79% of unlimited data plans subscribers and 48% of 3G devices are mobile media users.

Facebook is a clear leader in mobile usage for enabled Social Networking sites. Smartphones are great but are still far from mainstream use, which makes SMS a perfect tool to reach “less smart” phones.

800 millions application on the Apple app store downloaded by march 17, 1 billion by April and 2 billion by September. $4.15 is the average price fro paid applications.

Half a trillion dollars is spent on advertising globally and only less then 1% of that budget is spent on mobile advertising. Cake, BMW and Nike are currently running multi-million dollar ads in the market right now. For the first time ever Mobile is becoming a part of the yearly marketing budgets for a number of the main stream companies and brands.

Mobile MMS – BMW does a MMS campaign targeted at existing customers driving consumers to buy winter tires. The campaign cost $150,000 Canadian and with a 30% conversion rate made BMW $50,000,000.

Only the mobile devices is carried with you everywhere you go, it’s the last thing you put down before going to bed and it’s the first thing you pick up in the morning. It demands your full attention, it beeps and you check it, it’s the only media that will capture your full attention at all times.

After reading all this, still think the mobile isn’t the way to go?

On Sept 14th in Toronto the first Mobile Media World conference was hosted at the Glenn Gould Studio // CBC Broadcast Centre. The event took place over two days and had a lot of great presentations and speakers for all over the world. There was a lot of great information shared and new states listed about mobile and mobile adoption in the world and Canada. This is some of the information I collected and twitted about.

Internationally there are now four billion mobile subscribers, and for an accurate view of mobile growth one would need to look outside of the US and Canada as we tend to be behind the curve. In fact North America seems to have skipped over some of the key things that make Mobile useful.  For instance Mobile Web (Which is something that I personal push) seems to have been overlooked for the more popular iPhone applications and now BlackBerry applications. Seeing as how these smartphones only account for a small amount of the market share – 20% in fact – developing applications leaves you missing out on 80% and that’s assuming that you have developed application for all the smartphone platforms. Using Mobile Web you can capture the majority of cell phone users and provide access to the information you want to share without the user having to download anything.

That’s not to say the application should be overlooked. As the Mobile Web traffic increases (up 34% form last year) the majority of users are using smartphones as it makes accessing the mobile web much easier then standard cellular phones. The key here is, if you have the budget and time… build both… if not it may make more sense to start with the Mobile Web and then move into applications. The allure of developing a cool application is strong, believe me I understand. If you can think of a great idea that hasn’t been done a thousand times yet them maybe you might want to take a crack at it, after all there is money to be made on the App Stores.

Apparently Nielsen has published some Internet findings that the use of Mobile Web has jumped 34% since last year. Mostly from the additions of  woman, teens and seniors who are searching mainly for celebrity gossip, sports and the Maxim magazine… Personally I’m glad to see this as I’ve been pushing mobile web for a while. Not all things mobile needs to be SMS. Although SMS is a great tool a lot of simple value adds can be accomplished by converting your exiting website into a mobile friendly website. With the addition of smartphones into the market your only going to see a stead increase of Mobile Web traffic over the next few… months… years… Eventually anyone who doesn’t have a Mobile Web site will be the outcast struggling to catchup.

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/10/01/mobile-internet-sees-34-percent-jump-this-year-thanks-women-teens-seniors/