Once GPON a time in the East

SK Telecom announced their 2.5 Gbps service over GPON (Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network), 5 Gbps and 10 Gbps packages by EOY 2018.

SK Broadband already covers 40% of Korea, and targets 80% by 2020. Showcased in Pyeongchang* and at the recent Inter Korean Summit by KT, 5G shall be launched partly in March 2019 (3.5GHz and 28GHz auctioned), and nationwide in 2022. 

Don't worry about filling the pipes in a country that demands everyday faster services. The traditional mecca of extreme online gaming (MMORPG and esports) is getting addicted to blockchain and bandwidth-hungry services (MelOn HD, Amazon Prime...). If IPTV remains less popular than in France, subscriber bases keep catching up. SKT's broadband and mobile units now claim respectively 4.46M and 8.88M 'Monthly Active Users' (a 25.5% gain YOY for the latter, branded Oksusu).

SKT maintains its leadership over KT for another demanding service, A.I. assistants**: NUGU reached 3M users Q1 2018 (+9.6% YOY - 5M expected EOY), GiGa Genie 'only' 710k. And they are bound to leverage this key entry point in Korean households after the acquisitions of quantum sensing leader ID Quantique ('quantum-safe cryptography' from Switzerland), and the nation's second security service provider ADT Caps.

3M subs for NUGU, SK Telecom's A.I. assistant (presented here by plastic surgery - enhanced artificial assistants)

Anyway, SKT and KT are compelled to boost new streams of revenues: both posted small decreases in revenues following the switch to new accounting norms, and the sword of Damocles that has been threatening to strike them for 7 years might just do that: the Supreme Court confirmed that MNOs can't postpone anymore the slashing of their outrageously expensive plans.

mot-bile 2018

* see "South Cow-rea already cow-nected to 5G". Note that 77.9% of KT subscribers are already on LTE.
** according to them, people using simultaneously smartphones, fixed internet, and A.I. assistants at home will still enjoy more than 800 Mbps over GPON.

Alphabet Inc. or Google Offshore? Driving Investors MAD

So Google opened its books as Page wrote a letter announcing Alphabet.

"G is for Google"
G is for acceleration
G is for the G-spot of investors
G is for gee!

But wait. Is that an Easter Egg on Alphabet Inc.'s website (abc.xyz)? Does Larry Page plan to drive investors MAD?

Why Alphabet? Of course there's the Standard Oil of the Internet syndrome, the urgent need for transparency ahead of big decisions from European regulators (not to mention the need for creative ways of securing massive offshore war chests), Page's love for the Berkshire model (as if Larry and Sergey were about to move into Warren Buffet's house in Omaha), or why not Page's quest of eternal life (in the beginning was the Alphabet?)...  

Anyway, Google seems to be gaining agility at the financial level (from a conglomerate to a holding company), but it it true at the operational level? Yes if you consider for instance partnerships of equals with third parties, or internal / external coopetitivity. Not so much if you consider the implications of transparency. Beyond what each unit earns, transfers between units will have to be measured in terms of money and resources. Even if subsidiaries are allowed to use the Ferrari engine for free like any other partner team, how about these in-house engineers who did all the fine tuning at critical entry points, sharing all key knowledge across the organization? Is core business at risk of becoming less fast, more furious? Let's see how this Service Pack (Sundar Pichai) performs.

Will Alphabet remain Google? Now I see a classic net company from the late 90s, maybe even a VC surfing the bubble with its core cashcow and a decent portfolio featuring potential great spinoffs, managing risk with different levels of priority, ready to dump activities as quickly as it ventures into new ones...

What matters is not whether ABC/G sells for USD 700 a share. 

Time matters. Time is of the essence.

And I'm afraid time is more likely to become a luxury in Alphabet City.

Not just because the Founding Father of The Great Foundation may not be as eternal as he wishes he were.

mot-bile 2015

With WhatsApp, what Facebook gets is what you pay

With 450 M active users of one of the most pivotal services - messaging, WhatsApp is already an interesting catch for Facebook. But the best thing about WhatsApp subscribers is that in order to keep the service after the first year, they must pay a fee. Only 99 cents a year for now, but on a messaging platform, you can plug in an infinity of free or paid apps.

How many of these 450 M active users are actually paid subs? Probably much less than the half, since the bulk of the growth has been made over the past 12 months (e.g. 350 M active users back in October 2013). The key question is how many will want to pay knowing that Facebook will be tempted to peek into their messages and somehow monetize stuff. Beyond advertising, off limits according to Facebook; WhatsApp already pledges to bar ads, and Facebook needs new kinds of revenue streams, preferably CtoC or BtoC for a change. I bet that WhatsApp user fora are going to scrutinize any changes in the fine print of privacy and terms...

Business models are one thing, brands and platforms another: they too open up new horizons for Menlo Park at a time when churn rates get worrying.

Today, Google rules with the two most powerful search engines, its main service and YouTube... but both are free. Facebook already raised many eyebrows when it launched its vanity URL service precisely because terms and conditions opened the door to future fees, and a non-free Facebook could be the final straw for many users on the verge of deleting their accounts. Keeping WhatsApp as it is sounds a wiser bet to collect recurrent fees from hundreds of millions of endusers, but wisdom doesn't seem to exist in Zuckerberg's dictionary.

Anyway, the winner is WhatsApp founder Jan Koum: waiting one year before giving in to Facebook's siren calls proved very profitable for him.

mot-bile 2014

In Memoriam Minitel

Tomorrow, they pull the plug. At long last, Minitel will finally be put out of its misery.

This box materialized France's Videotex service Teletel, arguably the world's most successful predecessor to the web. Imagine, in the early 80s, elder citizen in rural areas connecting every day to consult their bank accounts, to purchase train tickets, or to chat in (sometimes naughty) fora. Imagine, in the early 80s, a thriving online ecosystem full of editors, developers, service providers, online advertising agencies... The loser was the enduser, of course, who was charged heavily for every minute online. But down the road, the pedagogy of the market was done (complete with the strident sounds of dial-up connections).

Minitel turned out to be both a blessing and a curse for France. In the early 90s, the Minitel lobby managed to prevent the French government from investing in the internet because the business model was highly profitable for the operator (then the PTT monopoly, now France Telecom), as well as for the biggest service providers (fellow public owned companies like SNCF, the banks...). But internet laggard France would catch up once its ecosystem migrated to the web, rich of a long experience in online services. Heck. Even a short one did the trick for me: working for France's leader in online gaming back in 1993-94 bulletproofed me for the madness that followed. And because I experienced the last throes of the Minitel, I could tell why such media darlings as AOL or NTT DoCoMo's i-mode would eventually fail (the latter even benchmarked the Minitel's business model and proprietary system).

We frogs loved to hate this French-Franc-guzzling old timer, with its screen and keyboard stuck in the 80s, stubbornly squatting next to our cool new DECT phones.

Now we'll long for the quaint touch of Minitel's rectangular keys each time we visit the museum of ancient communications.


mot-bile 2012

Huawei Vision : a view from the cloud

Huawei Vision runs on Android 2.3 but comes with a 160 Gigabyte spot in the cloud for every owner, positioning the Chinese player at the strategic gateway between that soft spot and its own hardware (scheduled for September in China, along with 4G). Apps agregation starts with the usual suspects : music, images or video that you may not want to transfer forever from laptop to laptop or to XX century storage solutions (ie CDs, DVDs).

Hardly disruptive : Alibaba just launched a similar concept, and of course Apple made a splash with its iCloud earlier this year. But Huawei was supposed to be essentially about hardware.

Sounds like that business model may not be sustainable anymore. Clouds may pass in the sky, replaced with new UFOs, but the truth is starting to sink in : smartphones are not much smarter than computers, and differenciation is getting more and more difficult every year. Worse : product cycles are even shorter and being cool never lasts long.

Food for thought for Samsung, who's been threatened by the Nokia syndrome even before claiming the leadership in handsets. But at least the Finns did venture into new business models. Never forget that OVI preceded Apple's App Store iOs by one year.

Of course, back then, Jorma Ollila was already gone, and Steve Jobs still cool.


mot-bile 2011

Communication-finance convergence: KT joins SKT

Seems like SK Telecom's debuts as a credit card operator (see previous posts about the SKT-Hana Bank deal) spurred the competition. Korea Telecom announced yesterday that their participation in BC Card, the national leader, would increase from 1.98 to 35.83% after purchases from Woori Bank (20%) and Shinan Bank (13.85%). KT also negociates a further 4.03% participation with Busan Bank.

Lucky Koreans MNO: they can become content majors or financial institutions just by signing checks. And they formed a common lobby with other financial institutions to promote mobile banking in Korea (SK Telecom and KT with Mastercard, Shinhan Card, Samsung Card).

"Finance-communications convergence" comes handy as MNOs need to completely revamp their business models : voice revenues keep decreasing, and the data equation went crazy.

Significantly, KT is now insisting on Wifi coverage in its smartphones advertising campaigns, and promoting uCloud for consumers also as an IPTV service (Smart TV tomorrow I guess). Remaining a leader in cloud computing is an absolute must... and it sure beats car rentals as diversification (KT are also campaigning about that peripheric service of theirs).

mot-bile 2011

2nd Million for TU Media - 2nd country for SK Telecom - Citi JV

June 25, 2009 ? Apparently a good day for SK Telecom PR :
- subsidiary TU Media signs its 2,000,000 th customer
- JV with Citigroup launches mobile banking services in the Philippines, a few months after Hong Kong

The SK Telecom - Citibank Philippines JV (Mobile Money Ventures LLC) is definitely good news : in Hong-Kong, services were more about portfolio management than actual personal banking and transactions - what Citi Mobile Banking (CMB) is all about in the Philippines. These browser-based services shall soon be implemented in other countries, and confirm the operator's international ambitions in mobile finance (see recently "SK Telecom's Wild Hana Card").

But is TU Media really a success ?

Many European players would love to boast 2 M mobile TV paid users, but 2 M is not even equivalent to 10% of SK Telecom's customer base and for this operator, a 10% penetration after 4 years doesn't seem very impressive.

Besides, to claim its second million customers, SKT's S-DMB unit took more time than it did for the first : TU Media was launched in May 2005 and reached the 1 M mark in December 2006.

Indeed, TU Media was in a very poor condition last year, both financially (mounting debts) and commercially (it claimed only 1.3 M subs in June 2008, a gain of 300,000 in 1.5 years). The 700k customers gained over the past 12 months are the result of what appears to be a make or break move by the owner : SKT went up in the company, injected KRW 55 bn more, and offered massive discounts to its own mobile subscribers... to the point that an undisclosed proportion of its "paid subscribers" don't have to pay to enjoy the service* !

As a consequence :

=> TU Media becomes more competitive with terrestrial accesses (T-DMB), which have been free since the beginning (launched in December 2005) : as we saw ("3M DMB subs - SBSM on its way"), that's the reason why they are much more popular. T-DMB claims the bulk of Korea's 20M+ DMB-enabled devices (every other handset is OK for mobile TV).

=> At the corporate level, TU Media is now more a MNO's Business Unit than the initial stand alone operator. The very few people who didn't use SKT as their mobile phone operator are encouraged to join the leader, and for the rest, TU Media looks almost like an option among others.

=> TU Media has been burning a lot of cash, and a sustainable TU Media requires more differenciation, and even greater efforts :

- Technological differenciation is not necessarily positive : in covered areas, terrestrial has theoretically an edge over satellite for indoor. SKT does enjoy a truly nationwide coverage, and propose an in-car access offer (TU Rideon - KRW 11,000 / mo - 3 yrs offered for Basic) as well as a real time traffic service (TU TPEG - KRW 3,000 / mo), but T-DMB is very popular for buses and coaches.

- Content and added value services remain key, and SKT will not always surf on such events as the Beijing Olympics, a major boost for subscriptions last year (the whole population was hooked and literally always on one way / media or another)... but not very differentiating since several broadcasters offered the same images (SBS clinched the exclusive TV rights for the next Olympic Games). The only "paid service" operator could try and lock some key rights to pimp up its own premium channels TU Entertainment and TU Sports (both available through the TU Select service : 1 channel for KRW 2,000 / mo, 2 for 3,000, 3 for 4,000). Other premium services feature TUBOX (movies PPV for krw 1,000 or 1,500 apiece) and PREMIUM 19+ (adult for krw 3,000 / mo or 1,200 for 2 days).

Still now, SKT seems to be as much pushing the service as trying to pull it out of a ditch. The technological landscape keeps evolving and in 2012, fixed and mobile broadband will reach respectly 1 Gbps and 10 Mbps. Typically, SKT is investing massively in optic cabling (from 5,000 km to 88,000 km) through SK Networks.

But mobile TV has found a public anyway, and SK Telecom is not the kind of player to abandon leadership easily. Particularily in such a key vertical.

So it brought along TU Media in its trials in Thailand, so...

... not to be discontinued yet.

But stay tuned.


* With TU Media, you pay only for subscription charges. Neither for traffic nor for content, except for movies on demand (NB: these days, KRW 1,000 is about USD 0.78) :
- Basic rates are KRW 6,000 for TU Slim (9 TV channels + 16 audio), idem for TU English (10 TV + 16), and KRW 11,000 for TU Basic (unlimited 21 TV + 16 audio)
- SKT customers enjoy a 6,000 discount on basic rates, which sets Basic at 5,000... and Slim and English services at zero

Kindle 2 v. Print

Kindle has grown up since November 2007 (see "Kindle Kindle little star - take my Word"), carving itself not only a sweet spot in the e-book market, but a new market altogether.

Oprah provided a major boost last autumn but unlike Obama, Amazon couldn't deliver the goods all the way, missing a major holiday season. Jeff Bezos introduced yesterday the much anticipated 2.0 version : same buckled-up business model, same price ($359), but Kindle is now slenderer than an iPhone, it can synchronize with other devices, and it can read (text-to-speech features).

There's much talk about competition with other devices (from Apple to Sony, from handsets to notebooks...), or multidevice text delivery platforms (ie shortcovers, launching later this month), but less about coopetition with content providers at a time when most newspapers are struggling. Many closed shops, others give up printing (ie The Christian Science Monitor didn't even wait for Election Day), others try repositioning while downsizing (ie Newsweek). Did I notice that Kindle added more shades of grey, to enhance the reading experience when you come across a picture or say an ad ?

Amazon is revisiting its relationships with key partners as well as with prosumers, inviting users to submit video comments, joining the self-publishing wave with an improved Digital Text Platform that will benefit both the company beyond the Kindle...

Like Google, Amazon can leverage on a killer combo of comprehensive customer knowledge management and key monetizing tools (AdSense, online sales).

License IV

France went for a hybrid or double-stage solution to their 3G dilemma : since no 4th operator could enter the market without a ticket discount for all players (see "3G license part III - France's fourth wedding or a funeral ?"), the Government and NRA ARCEP decided to split the remaining spectrum.

The potential new entrant will get 5 MHz of 2.1 GHz + 5 MHz of 900 MHz (call for tender expected by EOY 2009), and lawmakers will discuss about what to do of the last 10 MHz of 2.1 GHz, probably putting back incumbents in the loop (friendly auction ?), and about how much this license will cost. I guess a little bit more than the EUR 10,000 a year needed for a Licence IV, which allows bars to sell alcohol without dishes (I mean dishes for food, not for satellite access).

The almost concomitant consultation about 4G allows incumbents to fry some fish or remain one step ahead. Analogic TV spectrum (the 2.6 GHz and 790-862 MHz bands favored by LTE) will be freed in November 2011.

An ambitious new entrant should position itself on both 3G and 4G, as well as on the fixed broadband last mile, where ARCEP is carefully monitoring the development of FTTH / FTTO : trials are under way (until March 31st), and a precise regulatory framework will be published before this summer.

Without a claim by Iliad/Free, the Regulator wouldn't have reserved 3M numbers starting with 06 for the new entrant, who would then have mostly to rely on 07 numbers, soon to be devoted to the same purpose.

Strong of more than 4M subscribers and on the way to 5M by EOY 2011, Iliad-Free remains the front runner and main lobbyist for the 4th license. The company already brought major disruptions to the French market, starting with their ISP business model as none Networks, and most dramatically by introducing the successful home "box" concept, now implemented by all incumbents (Orange Livebox, SFR Box, Bouygues Bbox). In an agressive lobbying campaign, Free announced 1,000 euros savings per year per household with 3 mobile subscriptions. With brand new pipes to fill, unlimited offers seem likely.

But it may take a new and wealthy partner (not a commodity nowadays) to build the said pipes : optic fibers were already a major challenge on the fixed access with a EUR 1bn CAPEX planned by 2012, but covering a country as geographically challenging as France with a 3G network is quite another.

That, or another disruptive "none Networks" model... not to mention "other networks" : Free already holds the only national WiMAX license*.

Or "another player", or course. Foreign (ie Orascom and the usual suspect...), national (some day, Carlyle will have to monetize Numericable's 4M subs), or more probably a combo of the two. But the deepest pockets could hesitate between player #4 and player #3, should Martin Bouygues seize the opportunity of this reshuffle to sell its mobile arm.

Yet another scenario ? No one goes for the network. Incumbents won't accept too cheap a price tag nor too loose coverage obligations for the new entrant... even if Bouygues Telecom was not precisely crushed for being behind schedule.

---
addendum 20090205

The price tag is eventually EUR 206M per 5MHz, similar to the 619M paid by each incumbent for their 15MHz load. Free may only take 5MHz, but the Government reminded the audience the existence of coverage obligations, insisting on a contribution for rural areas...

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.

Sideloading live concerts

Nokia claims that 75% of mobile music downloads are actually sideloaded via the PC. So while competitors launch "traditional" online stores (PlayNow for SonyEricsson), the Finns teamed up with Universal Music Group to offer "Come With Music" packages : a sexy name for a classic hardware + 12 month subscription package... except the service is unlimited music downloads, and the mobile operator is out of the loop.

Orange Music Store eventually tries to catch up with the Vodafone platform, but at the same moment SFR Live Concerts puts the bar one notch higher. Vivendi must have noticed that the business models of music majors are changing, that album / track sales go down while live events and merchandizing go up. Majors are trimming off their catalogues, renegociating contracts, competing with concert producers, and building participating platforms to scoot new talents across the web 2.0.

So Live Concerts makes sense. So did SK Telecom's Auditions 6 years ago...

Kindle Kindle little star - take my Word

The first of its Kindle ? Over the past decade, we've seen much nicer ebook readers than Amazon's ugly $399 gizmo. The size, weight, shape, vertical scrolling, the next / previous page system, the keyboard, or E Ink are cool, but Kindle is definitely not meant for LG Shine nor iPhone lovers - even though one may find a couple of book readers* among those.

And anyway, the aim of the game is not to propose the sexiest device but to set the standards for ebooks. Beyond hardware, this is about softwares, formats, DRM... and sustainable business models.

And this is truly wireless. Not Wifi but CDMA2000-EVDO (as usual, Sprint Nextel provides the radio for a new disruptive player). But the customer won't be charged for airtime.

This is not a phone but a reader with a restricted connectivity : the main revenues are supposed to be books. A New York Times Best Seller or New Release will sell for $9.99, and overall, there are over 88,000 books available in the Kindle Store (amazon.com/kindle). And Amazon has already been a 99¢ store for paperless short stories for over two years**.

Compulsive readers could help Jeff Bezos break even, but he still needs to make sure all buyers will actually use the device on a regular basis. Usages that bring the dough, not like reading on and on the same thing (including The New Oxford American Dictionary included in the purchase).

Well. This reader has a rather restricted connectivity (dubbed "Whispernet"), and the only way to read something that wasn't imbedded is to access or download it over the air. Amazon offers all you can read Wikipedia.org, and you can browse for hours the store - no doubt other things can be ordered this way, but no card reader for book readers, and the capacity is limited to 200 titles (500 to 800 k files). AmazonKindle kindly declines files that are neither Word documents, nor pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG), nor HTML, nor TXT.

You can download such files through a personal kindle e-mail at the rate of $0.1 each. That's a start. You can subscribe to blogs and news services from $.99 / month each. That's getting juicy. And Amazon can bring partners or open the web step by step and cent by cent as they please. That's smart to start from such a low point, but I'm not sure everybody will follow all the way.

Whatever. The proof of concept would help Amazon export this service to all other devices. And turn 3G handsets and PMPs into even more multimedia players***. Come on. You don't need 3G just for a 500 to 800k file every other month.

* I mean actual books, not the Bridget Jones / Devil wears Prada / Shopaholic series.
** see "Google Mob (pay .99 for the unshorted version)" (20050823)
*** after all, you can already use your PDA or iPod or iPhone as a sort of ebook

Saint Hubert Mobile, pray for customer hunters

1.18% of the market, that was Frederic Nihous's score at the French presidential elections last April. Predecessor Jean de Saint Josse got 4.23% back in 2002. How much will Sebastien Harle d’Ophove get ?

The founder of Saint Hubert Mobile, the first MVNO by hunters for hunters, must be roaming the corridors of CPNT (Chasse Peche Nature et Tradition), the French pro-hunting pro-rural party / lobby who pushed Saint Josse and Nihous, not to mention 245 candidates for the recent legislative election. "SHO", who used to work for Belgian MNO Base, needs to build another base from scratch. And the first logical step is to try and scare up a few preys among the 420,645 people who casted a ballot for Nihous 2 months ago.

Oh my deer... niche marketing if I ever saw one !

Saint Hubert, patron of hunters, is hosted by MVNE Coriolis... not much of a guarantee either. These days, fellow French and European MVNOs are hunting investors more eagerly than they are hunting customers. Bad vibes for Ten Mobile, debitel, TDC... not to mention Amp'd in the US (under cash perfusion from Verizon Wireless).

easymobile tries to survive by changing business models in a Blyk. I come for free, advertising can finance everything, I'll grow the helluva big customer base and be the king of the hill.

How many "free" ISPs survived ? At least those could bloom in a dial-up, non-broadband era...

Actual hunters won't waste time nor bullets for such poor game.

Vivendi Mobile Entertainment : Vizzavi's Second Life ?

The epitome of early WAP failures for many, Vizzavi happened to be a very successful portal : it opened the gates of Universal for Vivendi and of Mannesmann for Vodafone. Never mind the few commoners using the service door during the JV's short life.
This time, Vivendi Mobile Entertainment* means non virtual business. A paid business model leveraging on the group's successful subscription-based business models : Canal+ and SFR claim 10 and 18M subs in France, Vivendi Games 6M worldwide just for War of Warcraft, and Universal Music does sell a few tunes here and there too.
Somehow, the new portal will compete with a couple of powerful partners, but that could prove easier than growing up in a family of brands with strong egos. Yet, this time it may work, and not only because of the commoditization of broadband : Vivendi seems ready to play it smart and sexy.
Each member of the family looks fitter, more confident, a leader in his own field, more concious of its own role than a couple of years ago, when all frontiers were blurred but convergence still a joke.
I wish Cedric Ponsot and his teams the best, and the time of their lives.


* I prefer the full version to this Vivendi ME reminiscent of Windows Y2K OS

Dell @ Wal-Mart - everyday low profile

Michael Dell used to boast about a constistent strategy relying from the start on his own Intelligent Design. Then came the first Darwinian inputs : diversity with AMD (Intel partly outside), IdeaStorming for Ubuntu (Linux inside)...
Now this : indirect sales. Through no other than Wal-Mart if you please (one year after the trials in two malls - Dallas, TX and West Nyack, NY).
Shaking the very core of the Business MoDell... but more trivially following a natural trend : you cannot skip the real life presales customer experience.

Dell eventually realizes some of their customers like to be asked "what makes you unique ?" But some analysts will ask Dell "what makes you unique now ?"


sites : ideastorm.com, ubuntu.com.

Google too big to be true ? - discussion

(Following "Google's next moves" (20070518), answer to the question "So you think that they have gotten to the point where their size is getting in the way of innovation?")

Not that early. They are closer to Cisco circa Y2K than Microsoft right now. Besides, their DNA is supposed to protect them from the Redmond syndrom.
Yet, size does matter. Neither at the HR level nor at the geographical level (nice Mountain View over the valley), rather in the business focus area. Yahoo! did lose some focus at a certain point, Google may go too far the other way.
Google seem stronger and reached the stage where they cannot vanish overnight, but their model remains fragile, they are surrounded by big question marks, and their evolutivity is not guaranteed.
They grow a rather logical way, never going for real disruption nor actual pervasiveness, which makes them look titanic and overexposed to regulator radars considering their age. They are not competing with key customers, but they are turning into the web's Wal-Mart. It's difficult not to make business with them but you wish there were alternatives out there and would seize any opportunity to put some eggs in other baskets. Moreover, it will be difficult for them to switch to a different spot when needed.
So they are great predators, but I feel some unease as they grow. While analysts keep applauding each time they catch a nice prey, I remain cautious.

iPhone, you Zune - soon on Apple TV

Apple reached an agreement with Cisco on iPhone trademark issues on time for MacWorld and the CES.
Apple reached an agreement with Yahoo! on mobile searches and Google on mobile mapping.
Apple reached an agreement with Microsoft on the compatibility between iPhones and Mac / Windows.
Microsoft warned Apple : phones are a tricky business and even Redmond eggheads are struggling. Adding a keypad to your iPod won't solve everything. If it were the case, we would be launching our own Zune phone. And if we knew how to solve anything, we would even have launched a good Zune in the first place !
Apple TV is not so HD (720p instead of 1080p), not so high storage either (only 40G), not so multimedia (games ?), and definitely not so innovative... but anyway, the iPod itself is far from being the best Portable Multimedia Player around. And Apple is Apple.
Is it ?
Apple is no more about innovation but about hype. Apple is no more "Apple Computer" but "Apple Inc". Apple doesn't make computers anymore ; Apple sells Apple.
Sony also used to enjoy the sometimes too comfortable position of the "cool" brand.
Actually, Sony should be leading the multimedia convergence, being into computers, TVs, handsets, game consoles, and even entertainment. It unfortunately tackled convergence with hardware solutions (Memory Stick) while Apple focused on software (iTunes, iPhoto...).
Neither will dominate because either way, the industry doesn't like standards owned by only one of them.
Apple TV will certainly contribute to the democratization of enhanced home entertainment. And iPhones will sell, even at such a high price. But the more they do, the sooner iTunes will be forced to open up, and Apple itself to change business models.

Voda results and a DVB-H Kartel

German MNOs definitely took their time to answer debitel's M-VNO - DMB combo*. Vodafone, E-Plus, O2 and T-Mobile unsurprisingly decided to push DVB-H, but their joint approach may prove counterproductive : it looks like clumsy lobbying from all 3G auction winners / losers (Telefonica included), with the benediction of the main lobbyist behind European UMTS then and DVB-H now (Nokia, a former Finnish timber company building forests for towercos). The message : we paid the price for your bad spectrum allocation management so this time let us do our job. We'll take care of everything and TV operators will enjoy an efficient one-stop-shopping system. Mobile TV belongs to us not to them, we need to recover some of our losses thank you.
Losses ? Voda painted their net loss of 21.9 billion pounds a rather T-Mobilish pink in a "Delivering against expectations" section where they "meet or exceed all financial guidance for FY05/06". Meet "financial guidance", the latest financial indicator... a sure hit after the 2000-2002 EBITDA wave, even if all analysts are not bound to dance on this one that easily.
Other remarks :
- over 5% of total revenues for the FY (10% for the last month) were generated by "3G devices", which means "3G" itself delivered much less than that.
- one year after the French NO (to the constitution as well as to the sale of SFR), Europe seems to have stalled. Spain looks fine but Voda warns the audience : fiercer competition in 2006 means weaker results ahead.
- messaging put aside, data jumped an impressive 60% but only represents 3% of controlled service revenue. Revenues can be "stimulated" but margin will improve much quicklier across the Red Empire through a much less glamour "disciplined execution".
- dividends are definitely following a positive curve but in such a context that sounds like a strategical dead-end
- The Verizon Wireless operation comes handy and I'm not sure it will be the case in the future. I see neither strategic vision nor long term commitment in the following statements : "Vodafone's board will always consider shareholder's value", "Vodafone is happy to remain in the US with its existing stake". Actually, I don't think shareholders are happy to remain with the existing lack of strategy.

Now moving on to the "Mobile Plus" revolution (which could be translated by "we cannot survive as mobile only but we cannot scream our loss of face so loudly so let's label fixed services as mobile extensions") : Vodafone At Home and Vodafone At Office were very much needed, and tapping into the advertising well makes perfect sense, but the company seems to define itself as a follower.

If I didn't expect Voda to turn into a daredevil overnight, a cultural shift demands at least some affirmation from a leader. Here, a "customer demand led" Vodafone cautiously dips a timid toe inside the fixed arena ("only the fixed services customers want") and doesn't even expose its own brand in the advertising field where it is so much relevant : to me, leveraging on Google only, a rival in location-based services, instead of developping the Vodafone brand is a strategic mistake.

Well... I've definitely not been very kind to Vodafone lately, but I'm holding no grudge against them. Only expressing some frustration considering what they could do. I felt the same about Orange a few years ago and I hope it won't take them as much time to deliver.

* see "CeBIT unnovations" (20060312)

Apple - something rotten beyond the Kingdom of France

Proprietary digital media players are now illegal in France : consumers should be able to play the tunes they purchase on any given platform.
RealNetworks, Microsoft and Sony have less to lose than Cupertino's darling : Apple is even more iTunes dependant than iPod dependant.
If abandoning the French market won't kill the group, clinging to a non-durable business model certainly will. Steve Jobs can't say he wasn't warned : his company has a knack for narcissist autism.

Count your beams

NTT DoCoMo's expansion strategy has always been clear : globalizing, diversifying beyond voice and widening the reach of mobility itself.
Internationalization's been quite shaky for DoCoMo the investor, and rather disapointing for DoCoMo the Application Service Provider / Licensor : FOMA remains basically local and i-mode subscriptions remain minor overseas. Yet, step by step, more spots are covered. Israel and Russia are joining the i-mode community and even if the service manages to limit it's penetration to 5 to 10% everywhere it exists, that's sustainable. Not the massive revolution many dreamt of but DoCoMo didn't leverage on their 1999 momentum. By the time i-mode reached Europe, WAP was back on tracks with decent services and a better business model.
Diversification beyond voice is no more a strong asset for DoCoMo, who don't even rule in the area. They're better at widening the reach of mobility. The collapse of Simpay definitely means good news for FeliCa but I'm not sure ToruCa™ can make it overseas. This information-capture concept requires handset upgrades (coming up soon in Osaifu-Keitais), but also specific writers / readers at the other end. Asking consumers to wave their handsets in front of new devices doesn't appeal as much as leveraging on RFID or even improving the good old beaming system so that they can transfer pictures or videos from their handsets to their TV sets.
Just like FOMA with W-CDMA, IrSimple is supposed to be an IrDA improvement - in other words : DoCoMo gains a TTM advantage in the short term and potential fees in the longer term. ITX E-Globaledge Corporation and Sharp joined this new "global standard". Simplicity is very much needed. Humility could help too.