Windows of opportunity

Nokia merged their S40 and S60 platforms with Symbian, and their destiny with NTT DoCoMo and SonyEricsson in the open source race against Google and the Linux family. But the Symbian Foundation is not competing with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ; it's only inviting people to stop throwing money out of the Windows, and to put Apple in the same (waste ?) basket. The aim is not to become the sexiest techno on the market, but to make sure the bulk of the value remains in familiar hands.

Which could be a moto for Qualcomm. The San Diego Chargers want to surf on ip.access' success in femtocells, and their strategy is to purchase the joint and collect the royalties. Business as usual, but will ip.access remain as popular ? Will Qualcomm succeed in closing the door to competitors or in motivating them to enter through the windows ?

Virgin Mobile USA decided to open wide both in a Totally Unlimited move : get all you can spit voice for $79.99 / mo, and add 10 bucks for a data combo. Some commuters may prefer working from home to spending a little bit less than a hundred a month for a little bit more than 20 gallons of oil.

Samsung SDI Co designs windows that generate solar power. This BIPV (Building Integrated PhotoVoltalic) technology could help Korean buildings become more energy efficient. Or Korean mobile phones to charge while catching a sun tan ? Uh. Not such a brilliant idea. My deduction is that induction will do this at a quicklier and safer pace (more "electric Wifi" demos are expected this August at the IFA / Internationale Funkausstellung in Berlin).

Cool summer

One year after launching a disposable 2G prototype, Apple decided to actually deliver a decent iPhone. If you're into mobility you'll notice the HSPA and GPS tags, if you're into music you'll chose between a 8GB and a 16GB version ($199 or $299). Steve said there were cool SDK gizmos on board as well.

Orange UK's Tom Alexander is talking about marketing issues. The guy came from Virgin and his predecessor Bernard Ghillebaert from Mobistar. Mr Ghillebaert will be learning about Customer Experience at the Group level. Orange customers may be learning about the brand's fabled cool factor - 90s stuff the younger generation could dig.

And the mother of all mergers may eventually reshuffle the cards on the US market : this summer's DNC Convention in Denver could turn out to be friendlier than expected for Barack Obama. So despite Colorado's scorching heats, no sweat there either.