HTC EVO 4G : Sprinting to 4G... or rather 4G WiMAX/3G EV-DO Rev. A

Sprint unveiled the HTC EVO 4G at CTIA : "America's first 4G phone" will be "Coming Summer 2010", and offer "3G/4G mobile hotspot capability-extend the power of the Now Network"*.

4G ?!? Don't expect LTE but simply 4G WiMAX combined with 3G EV-DO Rev. A. Yes, WiMAX got the 4G label**, just like DECT was 3G ITUwise.

But this HTC EVO is far from being a dud, dude. It also features :
- from Google : Android 2.1, Android Market (30,000 apps up to now), and among Google mobile services clearly advertised by Sprint : Google Talk and Google Voice.
- from HTC : a 4.3-inch screen ("with unique kickstand for easy media viewing", a connection "to your HDTV so you can watch HD movies" on a bigger screen), HTC Sense UI (with "social networking integration with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and more"), 1,500 mAh Lithium battery, dual cameras (8 megapixel primary, 1.3 megapixel front-facing), proximity and motion sensors, digital compass, 1 GB ROM, 512 MB RAM
- from Qualcomm : 1 GHz Snapdragon processor
- from the air : Wi-Fi, GPS Navigation, Stereo Bluetooth, FM radio
- for the plug-ins : microSD Card slot, micro USB, 3.5 mm headset jack, HDMI output...
- from Sprint : Now Network, Sprint TV...

Yeah. The operator is not doing much beyond rolling out his 27-market WiMAX network and putting a sticker on the phone. The real PR winners here are HTC, Qualcomm (stuck to its proprietary 3G but associated to "4G"), and even more Google : Android starts outhyping iPhone, and Google mobile VoIP gets a front seat.

Hoping that Sprint's networks and HTC's batteries won't spoil the fun.

mot-bile 2010

* see now.sprint.com/evo
** as we saw earlier ("Aloha's long goodbye, Standards Wars Episode 4G and the phantom menace"), the ITU has been kind to WiMAX.

Hop-on - yes we can

Hop-on, Inc are into mobile gambling. And judging by their recent press releases, they kind of hit the jackpot in Las Vegas.

Because Hop-on are also into mobile phones ; the disposable, no-screen, no-frills, GBP 10 / USD 20 kind of mobile phones. And their stuff seems to be flying off the shelves around the CTIA Wireless show :

- 20080318 news : 50,000 "pieces" of GSM/CDMA Dual Mode PDA HOP2001 for $ 16 M... Yes, that's $ 320 apiece - I guess there was the heck of a pionneer premium / development fee along with it.

- 20080410 news : 10,000 "phones" sold as part of test purchases

- 20080418 news : 150,000 "pieces" a day now !

Now don't ask me how many "pieces" make a "phone". I'm already all thumbs as far as gallons, stones, inches and feet are concerned.

Yet those metrics sound good.

I mean if you are doing the PR for this kind of company.

Bad Boys over the Finnish line

Who said the bubble and strass years are behind us ? CTIA Wireless 2005 welcomed a new kind of keynote speaker : Sean "P.Diddy" Combs, Chairman of Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment Group. At the very moment another bad boy, WorldCom's Bernard Ebbers, was waiting for his sentence (85 years ? now that would be long distance, chum).
Another show, another miracle : at CeBIT 2005, Symbian announced their agreement with Microsoft (a license for Exchange Server ActiveSync protocol). After a key entry point for consumers (Windows Media Player, remember "the times they are a-changin" ?), the main gateway to the business targets (i.e. e-mail, calendar, addresses, files...). G-RIM prospects for BlackBerry, already threatened by new competitors signing operators by the dozen with their no-logo solutions (ie Visto) : Rest In Misery (BlackBury) or Resell It to Microsoft ?
But don't think Redmond has crossed the Fin(n)ish line yet. The momentum is on the likes of Samsung Electronic rather than Nokia, so Bill Gates had to listen to what President Hwang Chang-Gyu said at the second Samsung Mobile Solution Forum. Fortunately, the Korean maverick learned from Olilla's bravado and decided to declare war to... intel : you led the PC era, we will dominate the mobile age, and with a strong customer focus. In which case I strongly advise Samsung to adapt their speech to endusers. The six disruptive innovations announced to over 700 IT enablers in Taipeh would sound like a Star Trek dialect to the ears of John and Jane Smith : "1Gigabit mobile DRAM; a System-in-Package (SiP) that carries a 300MHz mobile CPU; a 1Gigabit (Gb) NAND Flash memory, a 256Megabit (Mb) mobile DRAM for mobile phones; a qVGA resolution, one-chip display driver IC (DDI); a 260K color DDI for active matrix organic light emitting diodes (AM OLED); and a 2.5-inch qVGA TFT-LCD for MP3 players". At this pace, they'll dominate the whole hyperspace before this small broadband world.

mobile payment : hibernation is over for the Near Field Communications forum

Showtime for FeliCa Networks : the DoCoMo-Sony JV will provide chips for all Japanese MNOs. KDDI signed the agreement last September and Vodafone KK just joined suit right after one more lousy month (their market share is not likely to improve dramatically until they replace that problematic 2G of theirs with a reliable and comprehensive 3G service). Just to remain one step ahead, DoCoMo announced at the same moment a deal with East Japan Railways around this mobile payment enabler developped by Sony Corp but with a specific branding ("mobile suica").
When 3 fierce competitors on a major W-CDMA vs cdma2000 market decide to use the same solution for such a key entry point, one can expect a big boost for mobile commerce. We're talking about Vodafone, DoCoMo (who as usual insists on the packaging of the solution with i-mode), and KDDI (a relatively small player but the herald of the CDMA Development Group in a huge market).
This surely is bad news for such competitors as Moneta (time will tell whether they can make it abroad as a solution as well as as a business model), but this goes far beyond the mobile players' arena : the likes of DoCoMo and Vodafone don't want Procter & Gamble / Procter & Gilette dictating them the way mobile payment will work (remember RFID ?), and Sony are just pleased to open a real new biz opportunity to brighten their IR slides. Yet in Japan Sony is much more than the Sony you know and the conglomerate just reorganized their financial businesses' organisation around Sony Life Insurance Co., Ltd., Sony Assurance Inc. and... Sony Bank Inc. Because Sony is also a bank and because SK Telecom is almost a bank, reproducing the successes of mobile payment overseas will certainly not be a walk in the park (the French MNOs know very well you cannot make mobile payment happen without involving big banks).
To know where the wind is blowing, watch out for potential changes of memberships in the various m-payment fora : will Sony or FeliCa join the Mobile Payment Forum (the only cross-industry m-payment forum) ? will DoCoMo join simpay (the operators' forum where Vodafone has a seat) ? or will Vodafone simply let his KK collect some Ks on its own in Japan ? will all these players keep staying away from the Mobile electronic Transactions forum ?
Even better lads : along with many other organizations, that MeT forum and the Mobey Forum (the one meant for and by the big banking institutions) just announced they joined the NFC Forum as non profit members. Yeah, the very forum I was mocking at the other day because of the abandon of its website released a bombshell on february the 24th. Sony happens to be a founding sponsor member of this forum, along with Nokia and Philips (LG and RF Micro Devices being non sponsor members and Korea's ETRI a non profit member). So in their first press release in ages, the NFC Forum announced a potentially disruptive conference at CTIA Wireless 2005 next month and an impressive cast of new members : Microsoft, Visa International, MasterCard International, Samsung, Motorola, NEC, Texas Instruments and Panasonic / Matsushita Electric Industrial Co become both new sponsor members and members of the board (just to make sure you know both where and how hard the wind is blowing), and Gemplus, Logitech, Smart System Technologies Inc, Skidata AG, Cetecom Spain, Giesecke & Devrient, JCB Co Ltd, 3ALogics Inc join as non sponsor members.
Well. Nice crowd, but still no MNO to be seen.
So you thought Vodafone & DoCoMo were wise enough to chose the same solution in Japan ? They're just about to realize that while their US counterparts (Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Cingular, Sprint-Nextel) demonstrate the advantages of wireless retailing in New Orleans, LA, the whole industry will signify their independance in the same Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.