Nokia CEO: Slump “Bottoming Out” By Maisie Ramsay
Nokia’s profit fell 66 percent in its second quarter as the weak global economy continued to hit sales.
Profits fell to €380 million, or 10 European cents per share, from €1.10 billion, or 29 cents per share, last year. Sales also took a beating, sliding to €9.91 billion from €13.15 a year earlier.
Still, the company beat earnings estimates by one cent per share and managed to increase its global market share from last quarter. Its portion of the global handset market now stands at 38 percent, and the company managed to expand its smartphone market share to an estimated 41percent.
"Competition remains intense, but demand in the overall mobile device market appears to be bottoming out," Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in the company’s earnings statement.
Nokia, the world’s largest device maker, is showing signs of strain. The average selling price of a handset fell to €62 from €65, and the company said it expected that figure to continue to drop. It also forecast that its market share in the mobile device market would remain flat in 2009 compared to last year. The company had previously predicted it would increase its market share this year. Nokia maintained its previous demand estimate, which predicted a 10 percent drop in industry volumes for 2009.
“In the coming quarters, Nokia is likely to continue to face increased competition, especially from LG, Samsung, Palm, RIM, Apple and HTC,” says Julien Blin, principle analyst and CEO of JBB Research. He expects 2009 to continue to be a rough year for the company, but expects demand to pick up in 2010.
“Nokia appears to moving in the right direction, focusing on mobile app/services and the highly competitive low-end touchscreen smartphone market,” he says. “…in the coming years, Nokia is well positioned to sustain its leadership in the handset market and become a key player in the mobile applications/services space.”
FCC Names Wireless Bureau Staff By Wireless Week Staff
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced four senior appointments to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB), including new bureau chief Ruth Milkman.
Milkman is currently special counsel, leading the transition effort in the chairman’s office. She served at the commission between 1986 and 1998 in a variety of positions, including deputy chief of the International and Common Carrier Bureaus and senior legal advisor to former chairman Reed Hundt, with responsibility for wireless issues and spectrum policy.
Other new senior members of the WTB team include Senior Deputy Chief James Schlichting, Deputy Chief Renee Roland Crittendon, and Deputy Chief John Leibovitz.
Schlichting has been at the FCC for nearly 24 years, most recently as deputy chief and acting chief of WTB. Crittendon has been at the FCC for eight years, most recently as chief of staff and senior legal advisor in the office of former Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, where she was responsible for spectrum, broadband, international and public safety issues.
Leibovitz was a staff member on the Presidential Transition Team, where he helped to coordinate the Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform working group. Prior to the transition, he worked as an entrepreneur and strategy consultant in telecom with an emphasis on the wireless sector.
Motorola Picks New Marketing Chief for Mobile Unit By The Associated Press
SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (AP) — Motorola said Wednesday it has picked a former Samsung Electronics and Pizza Hut executive to lead marketing efforts at its struggling cell phone division.
William Ogle, most recently chief marketing officer for Samsung, will take on the job, reporting to Sanjay Jha, Motorola's co-chief executive officer and CEO of Mobile Devices.
The move comes as Motorola looks to spin off its cell phone division into a stand-alone company and boost its performance with a push into the smartphone market.
In April, the division reported a $509 million operating loss for the first three months of the year.
As part of a turnaround effort, Motorola plans to launch new smartphones using Google's Android software some time in the fourth quarter.
The company has not said when the spinoff will happen.
In a statement Wednesday, Jha said Ogle has a "proven record of implementing successful sales and marketing campaigns."
Ogle served as chief marketing officer at Pizza Hut for 12 years before moving to Samsung. Before that he held marketing positions at Procter & Gamble and Sara Lee.
Officials Ask for Help Controlling Prison Cell Phones By Brian Witte, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — State officials appealed to members of Congress on Wednesday to give states a new tool to control illegal cell phone use by prison inmates and quickly ran into protests from the phone industry.
Industry representatives say jamming signals could interfere with legitimate service and 911 calls.
Prisons around the nation are grappling with rising problems from prison inmates using cell phones to coordinate criminal activity. Officials are backing legislation to change the law to allow states to use cell phone jamming technology to render cell phones useless in prison.
Texas State Sen. John Whitmire, whose life was threatened by a death row inmate with a cell phone, said cell phones smuggled inside prisons are the fastest growing and most alarming development in prison contraband in Texas. He said corrections officials are in "a war" and need the jamming tool.
"Short of jamming and a complete shutting down of those phone signals, I don't think we can remedy the problem," Whitmire told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. "It is a public safety problem."
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, is sponsoring legislation to change the law to make it possible for states to use the jamming technology. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., is the lead co-sponsor for Democrats. A companion bill is pending before a House Judiciary subcommittee.
Steve Largent, president and CEO of CTIA, testified that he didn't believe cell phone jamming would fully address the issue. He told the committee there are better technological alternatives.
One alternative Largent proposed is called cell detection, technology that would enable prison officials to find a cell phone used inside a correctional environment without sending an interfering signal. By detecting the cell phone, prison officials could find and confiscate cell phones in prison without interfering with citizens' cell phone use or public safety channels.
Largent said another approach to the problem would be to use technology to manage wireless access in a prison. Managed access would restrict cell phone use in a certain area to people who are authorized to use it.
"Put simply, the right solution is one that effectively prohibits access by those who should not have it while ensuring that law-abiding citizens and public safety users enjoy the most reliable service possible," Largent said.
The dangerous and far-reaching aspects of prisoner cell phone use were illustrated in Maryland two years ago, when a Baltimore drug dealer used a cell phone to plan the killing of a witness from the city jail. In May, Patrick A. Byers Jr. was convicted of murdering Carl S. Lackl Jr., who had identified Byers as the gunman in a previous killing.
Gary Maynard, secretary of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, emphasized that the problem is a national issue, noting that California prison officials collected more than 2,800 cell phones last year — two times the amount found the previous year.
"We need to fight technology with technology," Maynard said.
Maryland has made a request to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for a 30-minute demonstration at a Maryland prison that houses federal inmates to inform Congress about available technology to combat illicit cell phone use.
Last week, South Carolina's prison chief said corrections directors in 26 states signed on to a petition he sent to the FCC asking federal regulators' permission to jam cell phone signals inside state penitentiaries.
Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary for communications and information at the Commerce Department, cited the South Carolina filing in a response to Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's request to the NTIA. Strickling wrote that he has reached out to the FCC "so that the two agencies can develop a coordinated approach with respect to the jamming issue generally and your specific proposal in the state of Maryland."
The FCC has authority over non-governmental radio communications, while the NTIA has authority over federal uses of the radio spectrum.
Under current law, the FCC can only allow federal agencies — not state or local authorities — permission to jam cell phone signals. The FCC has denied two recent requests from the District of Columbia and Louisiana for test jamming sessions.
QIS Moving Ahead with Plaza By Monica Alleven
It’s been a little over a year since Qualcomm unveiled its
Plaza Mobile Internet solution. So where does it stand now?
The company historically has been patient in building up its customer base for specific areas, establishing the BREW ecosystem and evangelizing FLO technology for mobile TV.
With Plaza, the company continues to hold discussions with operators in North America, Europe and Latin America, where there’s an interest in providing a better mobile Internet experience on mass-market phones, says Noam Raffaelli, managing director of Plaza Mobile Internet at Qualcomm Internet Services (QIS).
Operators see widgets, which is part of the Plaza platform, as means to drive more data traffic and data users. The aim of Plaza is to offer end-users the familiar Web channels they’re used to daily on their desktop – but in a format geared for the small screen of a mobile phone.
QIS has a deal with a customer in South America, but it’s not ready to name the customer, which is expected to deploy the Plaza platform by the end of summer or early autumn. Stay tuned for more details.
Meanwhile, handset OEMs are offering up their own widget solutions. Doesn’t that pose a challenge for QIS in getting its solution out there?
Not necessarily, according to Raffaelli. Widgets are small Web apps that provide snippets to things of interest to end-users, like local weather or news. Some OEMs offer five or six pre-installed widgets, but they don’t offer the kind of customization that end-users desire. And there’s usually no ecosystem behind it, which is what Plaza is all about, he says. Qualcomm is leveraging its many years of experience with the BREW ecosystem. “It’s a very natural step forward,” he says.
From the developer’s perspective, Plaza provides a way to use common Web standards for their applications so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel for mobile. For operators, it offers the kind of sticky, branded data offering that’s open enough to create a true mobile Internet experience and flexible enough to allow for new means of revenue, such as advertising that relates to what people are most interested in.
Plaza’s widgets include the ability to get e-mail from commonly used programs geared for consumers as opposed to the type of e-mail offering via BlackBerry for enterprise consumers. It can be pre-embedded on devices or deployed over the air to reach devices already in the market.
Sony Ericsson Posts Another Loss in 2Q By Malin Rising, Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM (AP) —Sony Ericsson said Thursday it booked another loss in the second quarter as the global economic crisis continued to weigh on mobile phone sales.
The Ericsson and Sony joint venture said the loss of euro213 million ($299 million) compared with a profit of euro6 million a year ago. The result was the fourth consecutive quarterly loss for Sony Ericsson.
The company shipped 13.8 million units in the quarter, down 43 percent year-on-year. Sales for the period fell by 39 percent to euro1.7 billion from euro2.8 billion in the second quarter of 2008.
EQ Bank analyst Jari Honko said the report was largely in line with his expectations and underlines that Sony Ericsson is in "deep trouble."
"My future outlook for the company is pretty dark," he said. "I haven't seen any magical trick that could improve Sony Ericsson's position."
He said that although the weak handset market was causing difficulties for Sony Ericsson, it also had some "major company-specific issues" regarding its product strategy.
Sony Ericsson estimates its market share was over 5 percent in the second quarter compared with about 6 percent in the first quarter. It also reiterated its outlook for the global handset market to fall at a rate of around 10 percent in 2009.
"As expected, the second quarter was challenging and we still believe the remainder of the year will be difficult for Sony Ericsson," President Dick Komiyama said in a statement. "Our focus remains on bringing the company back to profitability and growth as quickly as possible, and our performance is starting to improve due to our cost reduction activities."
Shares in Ericsson rose 0.39 percent to 76.70 kronor ($9.84) in Stockholm, in line with the overall market.
Speaking at a conference call, Vice President Anders Runevald said that although the global mobile phone market is still deteriorating — especially in emerging markets — the decline has started to slow in Europe, North America and China.
The company's weak position has triggered speculation in the media that the company may need a cash injection, possibly altering the ownership structure.
Sony Ericsson's CFO Ulf Lilja acknowledged the company would need more capital in the second half of the year, but said "availability of financing will not be an issue." He said capital could come from the parent companies, from external sources, or from a combination of both, depending on what the owners find is the best solution.
In April, Sony Ericsson said it would slash 2,000 jobs, on top of 2,000 jobs cut last year, to lower costs.
On Thursday it said programs launched in 2008 to cut costs by some euro880 million are on track, with the full benefit expected during the second half of 2010. Since the beginning of the cost-cutting programs, Sony Ericsson has shed around 2,350 jobs, it said.
Google Voice Quietly Launches By Andrew Berg
For the past few weeks, Google has quietly been sending out invitations for its
Google Voice service, which the company announced in March.
On Tuesday, Google announced mobile apps for BlackBerry and Android devices that will allow users to more easily manage their Google Voice accounts.
Previously, to place a call using Google Voice, users had to dial their own Google Voice number from their cell phone or use the Quick Call button online. With the new mobile app, users can make calls and send SMS messages with their Google Voice number directly from their mobile phone. The app is fully integrated with each phone’s contacts, so users can call via Google Voice straight from their address book.
Additionally, the new application allows users to access their voicemail, read message transcripts, follow along with "karaoke-style" playback of messages, read SMS messages sent to their Google Voice number and access all their call history.
Google bought Grand Central, an Internet-based voice service, back in July of 2007. Since then, it’s been using Grand Central as a starting point for the evolution of Google Voice.
The new service provides users with one life-long “uni-number” that links to all the user’s other phone numbers (such as landline, cell, work, hotel). One call to that single Google Voice number can ring a handful of lines.
Apple Disables iTunes Sync Feature on Palm Pre By Rachel Metz, AP Technology Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple has shut down one of the most compelling features on Palm’s rival Pre smartphone, crippling the Pre's ability to
act like an iPod.
Users of the recently released Pre had been able to put music on it by using Apple's free iTunes software — a unique twist for a device not made by Apple. But Apple updated iTunes on Wednesday to block this feature.
Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said the update "disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre."
Palm spokeswoman Leslie Letts said Apple's move is a "direct blow to their users, who will be deprived of a seamless synchronization experience." For a workaround, she noted, Pre owners can stick to the older version of iTunes, move music from computers to a Pre with a USB cable or consider third-party music applications.
The iTunes software smackdown is the latest example of tensions brewing between Apple and Palm, which since June has been led by the former executive behind the iPod, Jon Rubinstein. Rubinstein became Palm's executive chairman in October 2007.
The $200 Pre includes a "multi-touch" screen like Apple's iPhone, letting users do things like pinch photos to zoom in and out. Apple was granted a patent in January related to certain multi-touch functions, though the effects on Palm are unclear.
Avian Securities analyst Matthew Thornton said Apple's move to squash the Pre's iTunes function could turn off some people looking to buy the Pre, since they might have considered the device as a way to consolidate their music player and cell phone.
Still, "it's not like 10 out of every 10 people who buy a Pre are going to use the device for their MP3 player," he said.
GetJar Surpasses 1.5 Billion Downloads By Andrew Berg
Apple isn't the only one racking up application downloads these days. GetJar, an independent app store, has surpassed 1.5 billion downloads. The company said the milestone is significant because it proves that consumer demand for apps is becoming a truly global phenomenon. GetJar currently hosts nearly 50,000 mobile applications available in more than 200 different countries.
A press release from the company reports the top five applications for download, with the Opera Mini Web browser taking the top spot at 17 million downloads. eBuddy IM followed at a close second at 16 million downloads, followed by Nimbuzz Mobile Messaging, mig33 mobile community and Google Maps.
The company also says that Adobe Flash technology-based applications have been successful on GetJar – some doing up to 20,000 downloads in one week. GetJar awarded premium placement to winners of the Adobe Flash Mobile Developer Contest.
“We’re glad to see that apps created with Flash technology contributed to GetJar’s milestone,” said Tom Barclay, senior product marketing manager, Adobe Flash Platform Business. “It’s important for Flash developers to look at services like GetJar to distribute their content to users across different mobile platforms and devices.”
While Ilja Laurs, CEO of GetJar, said GetJar does incorporate traditional means of attracting customers to its site, such as partnerships with carriers and OEMs, referrals are really the company’s bread and butter. “Eighty percent of Get Jar users download applications from GetJar because their friend got that application from GetJar. Applications trend through friend referrals.”
Briefs for July 16, 2009 MontaVista Software and
Quattro Wireless have both come out with products for Google Android. MontaVista has launched a service to help Android developers create commercial products that leverage the company’s expertise in embedded Linux commercialization. The service will include porting Android to custom platforms, third-party application integration and quality assurance and testing. Quattro’s contribution is a new software development kit for Android. The mobile advertising company says the SDK helps developers integrate advertising into their applications.
Nordic Semiconductor is sponsoring an innovation contest for Bluetooth-based technology. The contest, the Bluetooth Innovation World Cup, is a Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) competition initially targeting fitness, healthcare and sports products. The contest is intended to promote the deployment of the low-energy wireless technology. Entries will be judged on 10 separate criteria, including integration of other technologies, technical feasibility and commercial potential. The winner will receive euro5,000, a Bluetooth Qualification Program voucher and free exhibition space within the wearable technologies area of the ispo winter 2010 exhibition, an international trade fair for sports equipment and fashion.
AT&T’s wireline business and its largest union have tentatively agreed on a new contract for 18,500 employees in the Midwest, the Associated Press reports. Leaders of the Communications Workers of America reached the deal after nearly five months of negotiations with AT&T.
Samsung has chosen Cypress Semiconductor to supply the touchscreen for its new I8910 handset, also known as the OMNIAHD. The I8910 will be equipped with high-definition video recording and a 3.7-inch AMOLED display. Samsung chose the Cypress TrueTouch touchscreen based on its response time, gesture support and character recognition capabilities. Samsung also chose Cypress’ MoBL dual-port to connect the application and baseband processors in the I8910.
Registration is now open for the 2010
International CES consumer technology trade show. Registration for the 2010 International CES is free to industry professionals only through Sept. 30, with a registration fee of $100 going into effect on Oct. 1 and increasing to $200 on Jan. 2.
Global mobile brand consultancy
MobileBehavior has appointed mobile industry veteran Chris Golier as senior vice president, marketing. At MobileBehavior, a division of Omnicom Group, Golier will integrate the firm's mobile behavioral marketing services global clients and partner agencies. He will also be responsible for promoting the firm’s measurement model and real-time mobile intelligence products.
Strategy Analytics is out with another app store critique, this time for the BlackBerry App World. Though the firm praised the store’s “visually appealing storefront and intuitive user interface,” analysts criticized its approach to payments. Currently the only way to purchase content is with a PayPal account. In contrast, Apple’s App Store allows users to purchase content with a credit card, debit card or a PayPal account.