It´s amazing what Nokia has done in a year. That was my primary impression from the first day of the show. Partly that´s because the first thing I did was attend the firm´s press conference. But mostly it´s because Stephen Elop has delivered what he promised to by accelerating Nokia´s execution to a point that would have been scarcely credible just a couple of years ago.
The retail store is back in vogue as operators look to inject the customer experience into the first and most influential touch-point in the customer relationship lifecycle.
Under the threat of a strike from Barcelona’s transport workers’ union, the TMB, that could disrupt next week’s Mobile World Congress, GSMA has issued a statement promising to reveal its contingency plans on Saturday. With more than 60,000 visitors expected to attend this year’s event, many of whom will be relying on the city’s public transport network, the disturbance to the event could be significant.
Japanese electronics vendor Fujitsu has announced its intention to launch smartphones and tablets into the European market just as mobile operators are looking to reduce the number of device vendors they work with. Fujitsu has a 20 per cent share of the Japanese mobile device market, according to Robert Pryke, director of Fujitsu’s European device business.
Gartner has published its mobile device numbers for the final quarter of 2011, reporting that 1.8 billion units were sold to end users across the year, up 11.1 per cent on 2010. Smartphones accounted for 31 per cent of all device sales with 472 million units sold, up 58 per cent year on year.
Telefónica Digital, the cross sector services arm of the international operator created in September last year, has announced a strategic partnership with mobile commerce provider Sybase 365. The deal will see the two firms collaborating on Telefónica’s m-wallet proposition, which will include a range of mobile financial services.
The handset market is more competitive than ever, and success is increasingly being defined by performance at the top end. 2012 will be the year of the Windows Phone push but can Nokia and Microsoft really compete with established leaders like Apple, Android and Samsung?
David Ffoulkes-Jones, CEO of CEM solutions provider WDS, shares his views on how operators can develop customer experience management into a true competitive differentiator.
As more websites move to encrypt their content and user data, more questions are raised over the future of Deep Packet Inspection. But advances in heuristic classification mean that DPI systems will still be able to function in an encrypted world.
Orange Austria, owned by France Telecom, is to be acquired by Hong Kong’s Hutchison, which competes with Orange through its 3 Austria operation. The deal, worth €1.3bn, consolidates the third and fourth players in the Austrian market.
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