CTIA show

Some important and interesting trends in mobile software came out of CTIA 2009. At the center are online content management, integrated communications, and mobile VoIP calling.

Remote management

On the all-in-one mobile in-box front, Skydeck and RocketVox introduced variations on the theme of the online in-box where you can manage and store some combination of text messages, visual voice mail (transcribed voice-to-text), VoIP, and an address book. The free soon-to-be Google Voice will be the service to beat, or to at least outwit as this area develops.

Microsoft also showed the beginnings of its online MyPhone Mobile backup and syncing service, in beta. Voice mail isn't yet part of the plan, but contacts, calendars, tasks, photos, and document back-up and management will be.

Sharpcast launched a refurbished remote access application for BlackBerry phones. SugarSync for BlackBerry now lets you open, edit, and save documents if you have office software. The previous version worked with photo viewing only.

Communications

On the visual voice-mail-only side of the spectrum, YouMail was showing its rich management applications for BlackBerry and iPhone (yet to be released). Movius, which sells solutions to carriers, was displaying a low-tech method for owners of mass market feature phones like the Motorola RAZR to receive an SMS with the name of the contact that left a voice mail, and a callback number to dial.

Emoze peddled its straight-to-consumer application for Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Java phones that pushes text and rich format, HTML e-mail to cell phones, compressing messages at 80 percent. For lower end Java phones in particular, this freemium app focuses on boosting a basic phone's feature set without draining battery life or tying up the phone.

Last week, when Opera Software announced Opera Mobile 9.7 for business partners, the Norwegian company also mentioned that a version for consumers would come "soon." At CTIA 2009, Opera told CNET that "soon" means May.

Everything is the same but the rendering.

(Credit: Opera Software)

What sets Opera Mobile 9.7 apart from the current 9.5 beta version for Symbian and Windows Mobile phones is the inclusion of Opera Turbo, a rendering and compression engine that shrinks data down to 80 percent. What's more, the Turbo engine uses the exact same server engine as Opera Mini's, Opera's proxy browser for Java phones.

This is interesting. An effort to speed up Opera Mobile using Opera Mini's rendering servers means that the full-Web Opera Mobile was simply not fast enough for Opera's liking--or, perhaps just not as fast as some of the competition. Opera showed off side-by-side versions of Opera Mobile 9.7 in action, one with the Turbo feature on, the other with it off. Turbo-ized surfing was indeed much faster when squeezed through the server, though photo quality predictably took a hit. Yet if speed is what you're after--especially over shaky EV-DO, EDGE, or other 2.5G cellular networks--Turbo gives you options. Yet, does feel in one sense like Opera is taking a step back. Does this mean that Web surfers don't really want the full mobile Web, or that speed trumps all else?

As I mentioned, Opera Mobile 9.7 alpha is still a bit raw. For one thing, you have to manually turn the Turbo booster off in a buried advanced-options menu. Switching back and forth between Turbo and regular settings would be a pain for users who might easily forget. Why turn it off? The Turbo enhancement is terrible for AJAX-heavy Web pages like Google Maps and for streaming video, both of which require high image quality. Eventually, Opera says that the Opera Mobile browser will be able to autodetect the page type and switch Turbo on and off automatically, making the exchange seamless, though that may not happen by the time the beta is released to the public in May. Hopefully, it will be perfected when the general release drops, probably some months later.

Thursday I told you about the launch of Zer01, a new VoIP carrier. At the time, however, information was slim since the carrier's Web site was out of service, which isn't a great sign. But it's back up and running now, and I got a chance to meet with CEO Benjamin Piilani at CTIA.

First on my list was to ask how the carrier isn't a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), even though it depends on major wireless carriers to operate its services. As Piilani explained it, while MVNOs buy capacity from a carrier and resell it later, Zer01 has its own IP backbone and only uses carrier networks to interconnect or roam.

As I mentioned in my previous post, starting July 1 Zer01 will offer unlimited voice, data and messaging for $69.95. According to Piilani, unlimited will mean just that--you'll even be able to use Zer01 devices for laptop tethering. The price includes all takes and fees less a $30 activation fee. Zer01 will not require a contract or credit check.

Use the HTC Touch Diamond with Zer01.

If it foes live, the $69 price would be cheaper than major carriers. Only T-Mobile charges a bit less with an unlimited plan of $85 per month. The service will be nationwide, though Piilani acknowledged that like a standard wireless carrier, coverage will not be perfect everywhere.

All Zer01 services operate as data, which means that you won't be interacting with a standard cellular network. Also, each Zer01 device gets a fixed IP address and it opens a separate VPN session to the company's servers when placing calls or using data.

Partner carriers will get a share of Zer01's revenues, though Piilani declined to give details on the carriers and the revenue split. Zer01's services will work across the entire GSM spectrum including GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and HSDPA.

At present, Zer01 supports only Windows Mobile smartphones, but it promises to support more operating systems in the future. Also, while it has just five devices in its lineup for now--the Pharos Traveler 117, the Pharos Traveler 127, the HTV TyTN II (aka the HTC Kaiser), the HTC Touch, and the HTC Touch Diamond, you can use your own unlocked smartphone if you wish. All that's needed is a Zer01 SIM card.

After a second pass, I have to admit that Zer01 certainly sounds intriguing. I still wonder how exactly they're going to pull it off, so we'll have to wait and see what happens.

LAS VEGAS--It seems there are going to be as many ways to run a mobile application store as there are stores themselves.

RIM's BlackBerry App World is a model of how mobile OS vendors are trying to balance consumer needs and carrier needs.

(Credit: Maggie Reardon/CNET)

One of the big topics this week at CTIA 2009 has been mobile applications, as Research in Motion unveiled BlackBerry App World and Microsoft talked about its forthcoming Windows Marketplace for Mobile. The dam has truly broken with mobile applications; for years, most consumers seemed indifferent to third-party applications, but now they are viewed as an essential part of any smartphone, just like they are on a PC or Mac.

Most of the credit for that trend has been prompted by the success of Apple's App Store, as both Apple's friends and enemies in the mobile world will readily admit. But few competitors are attempting to pull off Apple's my-way-or-the-highway approach, preferring to integrate the wireless carriers in a nod to the entrenched power those companies have in the mobile world.

Some might argue that's because they don't have devices with the consumer cachet of the iPhone. But it's clear after talking to several companies on the sidelines at CTIA that they think there's a way to make sure they offer quality software to their customers without cutting the carrier almost completely out of the equation, as Apple has done with AT&T.

Still, the burning question is whether the carriers and handset makers will permit software companies to do what they do best, or whether they will continue to try to put their stamp on mobile application development in order to avoid their possible fates as "dumb pipes" or widget makers.

"There's a big measure of trust there," said Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation, which was created by a foundation of carriers and handset makers to develop software that provides a common underpinning for developers to write mobile applications. "We have to trust that the companies that build the devices and the operators that package this know what they are doing."

The idea of mobile application stores is not new, but the faster networks and more sophisticated devices available these days have created a way for users to download applications directly to their device, bypassing the PC altogether. There are various ways that mobile companies are approaching this new reality.

Apple's approach has been covered exhaustively. But Apple has a unique advantage compared with its competitors: its applications only have to support two devices that are essentially identical (the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G), and for the most part Apple works only with a single wireless carrier per country. Therefore, it can have a central application store and guarantee that those applications will work on any iPhone, and at the same time not have to worry as much about ensuring its carrier partners have unique ways to sell the same phone.

Billing strategies
But while RIM, for example, is launching BlackBerry App World with the money flowing outside of the carrier's control through an exclusive relationship with PayPal, co-CEO Jim Balsillie made it clear that he would find a way to make sure the carriers have a chance to participate in the billing for those applications. "Different carriers have different billing strategies, so it's quite frankly a bunch of work," he told The Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft is likewise steering a middle ground, with plans to let carriers offer their own "store within a store" inside Windows Marketplace for Mobile and giving users the option to choose how they want to be billed: directly via credit card or through their monthly wireless bill.

The idea that the carrier owns the billing relationship with the end user for almost all of the mobile experience is virtually sacrosanct for everyone but Apple and AT&T. But there is a concern among some in the mobile industry that carriers will extend that relationship to demand a role in creating software and services for end users marked with their own brand.

Verizon did nothing to assuage those fears by announcing plans to join the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) this week, essentially signaling that it plans to make sure Verizon-stamped software appears on future handsets regardless of what operating system is running underneath the layer presented to a phone's user.

To be fair, there are valid reasons why carriers are so concerned about the types of applications that run on their networks. Modern wireless networks are more fragile than one might think, as demonstrated by the problems AT&T encountered when iPhone-bearing geeks descended on Austin, Texas, for SXSW 2009 and brought local AT&T data service to a crawl.

Still, Aaron Woodman, a director in Microsoft's mobile communications business, thinks carriers fundamentally understand the shift that has taken place in the mobile industry over the last several years.

Form vs. functionality
For years, the business of selling mobile phones was about making sure you had phones that looked good and ensuring distribution ran like a clock, Woodman said. But over the last decade, business phone users started to demand features in addition to style, and that trend has exploded with the consumer demand sparked by the iPhone.

"People all of the sudden were walking in and asking for core level of functionality, and that started to change the conversation from about sourcing devices to functionality," Woodman said. "That functionality is going to be very difficult for operators to provide with significant help from others. Expertise and experience (in one area) doesn't yield expertise and experience in another area."

Organizations like Symbian, which controls the world's leading smartphone operating system, believe the balanced answer is to create an "app mall" rather than an "app store," according to David Wood, executive vice president for research at the Symbian Foundation.

For example, Symbian will do the dirty work of processing, certifying, and hosting the applications, but will give its various partners their own storefronts within that mall to sell Symbian-certified applications as they see fit. Microsoft's approach is somewhat similar. This way, carriers can feel they still have the opportunity to sell their software and services to end users without operating system vendors having to cede control of the user experience on a modern smartphone.

As has been often stated, the beauty of the modern mobile computing market is that established business models and philosophies from the PC market or older cellular phone market aren't necessarily relevant: several executives will (privately) admit they are essentially making this up as they go along.

There's little doubt that Apple's iPhone has shaken up this market the way Apple's Macintosh shook up the personal computing market 25 years ago. But unlike the past, several companies--not just two--are going to dictate the future of the truly personal computer.

And since different people want different things from their mobile phones, there's room for more than one approach to selling smartphones and mobile applications. There is not, however, room for seven approaches, which means operating system vendors, handset makers, and carriers will have to be extremely vigilant about evolving customer perferences in a world where consumer tastes can change virtually overnight.

The universal mobile communications in-box is emerging as a trend at CTIA 2009 in Las Vegas. Variations on the theme combine visual voicemail, text messages, e-mail, calling, and call forwarding in one online deck that's as easy to manage as your e-mail in-box.

RocketVox is a slick, powerful freemium in-box that's a long shot against Google Voice.

(Credit: RocketVox)

Skydeck (Skydeck review) has a traditional e-mail layout that does calls, voicemail, text, visual voicemail, and call control for a fee. RocketVox is a great-looking private beta that manages e-mail from multiple accounts (including Gmail), IM, SMS, voice-to-text, VoIP calling, visual voicemail, faxing, conference calls, calendars, and screen sharing with a vague social networking angle. RocketVox is currently an AIR application that will graduate to a Web service later down the road, and will also take on a freemium model ranging from $10 a month to $25 for professionals.

The much lighter YouMail does a visual voicemail Web service and mobile management app, also with the in-box metaphor, but emphasizes social interaction and customization, like personalized greetings in addition to technical offerings like voice-to-text transcriptions. At CTIA, YouMail announced an upcoming iPhone app that has been submitted to the App Store.

Even Microsoft has been touting its online mobile backup and sync service, MyPhone. MyPhone is in very early beta stages and can't do too much at the moment beyond syncing photos and text messages in a searchable in-box, but it will become more capable as Microsoft nears its Windows Mobile 6.5 release, in which MyPhone will play a larger role. Look for contacts, calendars, tasks, multimedia content, and documents as the service matures.

A glimpse of the Google Voice in-box

(Credit: Google)

Despite the diversity, the forthcoming Google Voice--with its universal number, visual voicemail, and advanced calling features--could mow them all under when it enters public beta. Google has been effective at dominating much more established software providers with its technology, its brand clout, and its ability to integrate with other successful Google services.

Since Google Voice will be free, Skydeck, RocketVox, and YouMail are in big trouble on the voice transcription front. YouMail has a niche that Google could well blow open with its own customization features and on-phone management app. RocketVox is the most compelling solution of the bunch at this year's show, but it's going to have to really work some magic to counter Google Voice's advance. Ironically, Microsoft's less feature-rich MyPhone backup and sync service stands the best chance of gaining its own identity, if only because it will come preloaded onto Windows Mobile 6.5 phones and will provide a seamless, out-of-the-box solution for those phone owners. This is definitely a space we'll be keeping a sharp eye on in the coming months.

(Credit: DataViz)

DataViz announced on Thursday that it is now offering Documents to Go Standard Edition version 1.0 and a beta version of RoadSync through the Android Market. The two applications will give T-Mobile G1 and HTC Magic owners the capability, for the first time, to work with Microsoft Office documents and get support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.

Documents to Go has long been available for Windows Mobile and Palm devices, but now Android users can finally have the capability of viewing, editing, and creating Word and Excel documents through the productivity suite. The suite's editing capabilities are vast, including support for track-changes, multiple zoom levels, bold, italics, underline, bulleted and numbered lists, embedded pictures, insert and delete rows and columns, cut, copy, paste, undo, redo, save, and save as. You'll be able to use your smartphone's touch screen, trackball, and keypad to perform such tasks.

The app supports native Word and Excel files from Microsoft Office 97, 2000, X, XP, 2003, and 2007 for Windows (and 98, 2001, 2004, and 2008 for Macs), and files can be opened whether they are transferred via Bluetooth, USB, memory cards, or as an e-mail attachment.

More good news for the corporate set is the availability of RoadSync. Though available only in beta right now, the app finally brings direct push synchronization with Exchange Server 2003 and 2007, and the beta supports push e-mail, attachments, and contacts.

Both applications are available now through the Android Market. Documents to Go Standard Edition will be offered for a special introductory price of $19.99 (regularly $29.99), while RoadSync beta is available as a free download until May 31, 2009.

LG Lotus with ATSC Mobile TV

(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET)

LG Voyager showing local TV

(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET)

Aside from showing off its latest handsets, LG also took the opportunity at CTIA 2009 to demonstrate Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) mobile digital television on some of its phones. ATSC is the new digital television standard that is replacing NTSC, and LG has been helping to develop a mobile version of the standard in the form of embedded chips.

An LG Netbook that is connected to a USB dongle with ATSC reception.

(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET)

At the show, LG incorporated these chips in the LG Lotus and the LG Voyager, and showed off live local TV on both handsets. There is no real service fee involved, since it's basically receiving the television signal over the airwaves like you would with a rabbit-ear antenna. Reception would depend on broadcasters, and whether they would allow a portion of the channel capacity to be dedicated to mobile viewers. Broadcasters have already announced that they intend to launch mobile DTV across 63 stations in 22 markets some time in the near future.

This isn't restricted to just cell phones, of course. There's hope that this will extend to a new generation of handheld TVs (most of the existing analog models were rendered useless due to the digital TV transition), personal media players, in-car television without the need for satellite, USB dongles for use with laptops or Netbooks, and more. It'll be interesting to see what this new standard will bring to the table.

Microsoft's Robbie Bach (left) and Gian Wilson demonstrate how Windows 7 offers built-in software for connecting to 3G wireless networks.

(Credit: Maggie Reardon/CNET)

LAS VEGAS--Microsoft had little new to say about its Windows Mobile phones at CTIA 2009, but reinforced its intention to play in all the future arenas of personal computing.

Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, ran through essentially the same news that his boss, CEO Steve Ballmer, presented about six weeks ago during the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Spain. The company demonstrated how Windows 7 has built-in software for connecting to 3G wireless networks, showed off some of the features of Windows Mobile 6.5, and played a quick video highlighting its mobile application store, Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

The demonstrations were all geared around Bach's central theme of the "three screens": the PC, the television, and the mobile phone. Microsoft intends to make sure Windows is able to give people access to their personal data, information, and services on all three of those screens.

Microsoft spent as much time showing off how HP's Mini 1000 Netbook is capable of connecting to 3G wireless networks with software built into Windows 7 as it did demonstrating Windows Mobile 6.5, and barely mentioned Windows Marketplace for Mobile during a week when mobile application stores are a big topic.

But Bach promised that Windows Mobile phones will be the subject of Microsoft's next big advertising push, and said the company's partners will have 10 phones running Windows Mobile 6.5 ready when that operating system arrives in the second half of this year.

(Credit: Mozilla)

LAS VEGAS--At CTIA 2009 on Thursday morning, I sat down with Mozilla's Jay Sullivan, vice president of mobile, to get a hands-on demo of Firefox's in-development mobile browser, code-named Fennec.

In addition to using Fennec on a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet with my own two hands instead of on a desktop emulator, I also saw a new feature in action that is poised to give Fennec the edge over rivals, when it enters the mobile-browsing marketplace.

During our meeting, Sullivan also dispensed with a few more details about Fennec's road map and hinted at a final name.

First, the name: I've been calling the app-to-be "Firefox Mobile" because for nearly everyone outside of the tech bubble, "Fennec" just won't cut it. When I asked for a clue, Sullivan replied that "mini" or "mobile" implies a watered-down browsing experience.

"We want to create something worthy of being called Firefox," Sullivan said. This means there's a good chance that Firefox for mobile phones may be named just plain "Firefox," with separate mobile builds being designated by operating system--Firefox for Windows, Mac, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and so on. Thinking about transition devices such as Netbooks or future phone-laptop hybrids, Sullivan said, makes you question the distinction between what's "mobile" and what's "standard."

Second, the edge: Mozilla's attitude toward Fennec's future name heavily hints at what it can do. A few weeks ago, Fennec took on support for Firefox extensions. One of these is Weave, an add-on that on the desktop backs up your "Awesome Bar" contents--bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history.

When used in conjunction with Fennec, Weave synchronizes these between your desktop and mobile phone, which can save you tons of typing when you're starting a search. It can also populate your bookmarks and commonly used search terms, so you don't have to spend an hour setting up your new Fennec browser to mirror Firefox.

What's more--and this was the slickest use case by far--whichever tabs you had up when you left the desktop, you can pick up again on Fennec. The Weave add-on is ready to try, if you have Firefox 3.5 beta installed on your desktop.

The Weave add-n sits just below the tabs when you swipe the screen to the right.

(Credit: Mozilla)

While Opera has already implemented a similar content-syncing service, Opera Link, to sync bookmarks, search history, and notes between all Opera browsers, on the mobile phone, Fennec's implementation of the concept looks faster and easier to work with when it comes to open tabs.

On Fennec, you'll slide the screen to the right, tap a small button, and see a list of your synced sites. Search bar content from the desktop will appear when you begin typing a term or URL.

Third, the road map: Fennec beta 1 is already available for Nokia N810 Internet Tablets, and Sullivan says he expects one or two more beta cycles before the application will be released for Nokia's Linux-based Maemo platform sometime in summer. After that, Mozilla hopes to kick off a beta version for Windows Mobile by the end of the third quarter, followed by a Symbian version later this year.