And a good number of these announcements surround Android. The Open Handset Alliance’s platform certainly seems to be picking up some momentum, and handset manufacturers and operators are so keen to get their hands on it that they’ll let Google get away with pretty much anything. Even if that means the internet outfit set up shop on their turf.

Mountain View’s finest this week announced plans to open up its own consumer sales channel, selling the debut ‘Google phone’ direct to punters. The first Google-branded device, the Nexus One, will be manufactured by Taiwanese Android specialist HTC and features a 3.7″ OLED display, five megapixel camera and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. It runs on Android 2.1, the newest version, also known as Eclair, and boasts features like a voice-enabled keyboard allowing users to speak into any text field. (Pedant’s uprising: Once it’s voice-enabled, doesn’t it cease to be a keyboard?) It also comes with a bunch of popular Google applications, including Gmail, Google Voice and Google Maps Navigation.

On its own, the phone retails for a laughing-in-the-face-of-the-economic-downturn $529, or $179 with a T-Mobile USA ‘Even More’ plan (and subsidy), which starts at $39.99 per month. But the only place interested parties can buy the phone is Google’s online store. You can’t purchase it at T-Mobile USA’s site – a marketing decision which has set a few heads scratching, including the Informer’s.

IDC‘s John Delaney takes the question a step or two back: “So let’s say, at least, that this looks like the best Android phone to hit the market so far. That begs an important question: why would Google produce the market’s best Android phone, at the risk of annoying its licensees who are also producing branded Android phones? More generally, why is Google entering the phone business so directly at all?” Delaney said.

The analyst believes that Google sees phones as a means to an end. And that end is to build a large user base for Google’s mobile service offerings; to expose that user base to advertising; and to collect the data its user base generates. In other words, Google wants to be everyone’s starting point when they use the mobile internet.

But that’s what Android was designed to do anyway, with other companies shouldering the burden of handset production. This latest manoeuvre suggests Google feels that existing Android phones are not effective enough in this regard and has resorted to the old maxim that if you want something done, do it yourself. But if Google’s entry into the handset space represents a public raspberry at its licensees’ efforts so far, does it not risk upsetting them? Android leader HTC obviously doesn’t mind, having built the Google device anyway and Delaney reckons Android’s other licensees are sufficiently reliant on the platform to swallow whatever bile Google’s move into the driving seat might cause to rise in them.

If they are annoyed, the main Android licenses are keeping quiet, unlike Isa Dick Hackett, daughter of the late Philip K Dick, acclaimed science fiction writer and author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Hackett, who now seems to be responsible for squeezing as much out of her father’s estate as possible via her production company Electric Shepherd Productions, has been venting spleen in the US press over Google’s use of the moniker Nexus One. She claims the term ‘nexus’ has been lifted from her father’s novel and is a trademark infringement on ‘Nexus 6′, the model number of the renegade androids in the story. In response, and perhaps not unreasonably, Google is claiming to have used the term nexus in its original sense – as a connection or means of connection.

Whether Google’s plans converge on success is another question, and the biggest drawback in the Nexus One announcement is price. At $529, peanuts it ain’t. For its plan to work, Google needs to get as many of these devices into users’ hands as quickly as possible. So the forthcoming announcements from other operators such as Vodafone and Verizon will be key to the venture’s success and it will be interesting to see what future Google-branded devices cost as a standalone purchase.

What future devices look like is anyone’s guess. Back to CES where hardware manufacturer HP unveiled the first smartbook to run the Android operating system. The forthcoming device, which nestles in the, probably very small, space between the smartphone and netbook, uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon QSD8250 chipset platform with integrated Scorpion central processing unit delivering speeds up to 1GHz with a ten inch display.

Smartbooks, which as a niche-within-a-niche were invented last year by Qualcomm, seem popular at present, and earlier this week, electronics firm Lenovo claimed to be first to showcase another Snapdragon-based smartbook running a different flavour of Linux.

Android, meanwhile, also made an appearance on a dual screen e-Reader announced at CES. The Alex (odd name for such a device), made by US-based Spring Design, makes use of Android to provide full-fledged web browsing capabilities, as well as email access and a number of other applications available to the operating system. It also features a 3.5″ colour LCD screen with virtual keyboard as well as a paper-like 6″ EPD screen. Connectivity is provided via wifi, GSM and EVDO/CDMA. The Alex (the name gets odder the more you see it) will go on sale at the end of February for $399 and will later be available in bookstore Borders. Presumably, like the Amazon Kindle, a cellular contract will not be required. Instead the cost of connectivity will be rolled in to the price of downloadable ebooks.

The appearance of such devices is interesting in that it shows that a wireless product can be a revenue generator even if the end-user is not a direct subscriber to the mobile network that serves the device. It opens the door to advertising-supported mobile services and many more business models under which customers can enjoy the benefits of mobile connectivity without having to pay a subscription fee.

Back to handsets though and Motorola has announced another device in its Android line-up in the shape of the Backflip (stupid name but, let’s face it, better than ‘Alex’), which will be available in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia during the first quarter.

Trying hard to differentiate itself, Motorola has given the Backflip a “reverse clamshell design,” which means the phone, when closed, has a QWERTY keyboard on one side, and a screen on the other. Open it up and you can see them at the same time, and use a trackpad on the back side (on the inside when it’s closed), so you can navigate around the touchscreen without getting your fingers in the way of what you’re looking at. You only have to do this, though, if you’re daft enough to buy one. Years ago the Informer heard a Motorola handset executive concede that the firm had a written policy of designing away from proven UI strategies taken to market by sector leaders in a bid to differentiate itself. It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now.

Once again, Motorola has skinned the OS in its own style with the interface known as MotoBlur that focuses on social networking and streams all contacts, posts, messages and photos from sources such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Gmail in once place on the home screen.

Motorola has also been working in conjunction with Adobe, as part of the Open Screen Project, to develop Flash Player 10.1 so it works on Android. Integration of Flash browser extensions in Motorola’s Android devices is expected in the first half of 2010. Motorola said it will be deploying the full Flash Player broadly across its Android product portfolio going forward and will also release Flash Player updates for existing devices such as the Droid once Adobe releases the software.

Flash is increasingly seen as an essential part of the web experience, and Flash Player 10.1 has been designed to work on smartphones, smartbooks and netbooks as well as PCs and other internet-connected devices to extend this experience. Yet its absence has long blighted the iPhone’s spec sheet.

The closest the iPhone will get to Flash is as a native application rather than the in-browser player. Developers will be able to use Flash Professional CS5 to export applications for the iPhone, but this only means they can create standalone applications that can be downloaded from the App Store and not incorporate Flash into websites for display in the iPhone’s Safari browser.

Maybe it’s just coincidence, or maybe it’s a sign of the increasing rivalry between Apple and Google, but on the same day the Nexus One was announced Apple upped its own game on Google’s home turf; advertising.

On Tuesday, Apple confirmed rumours that it has acquired mobile advertising firm Quattro Wireless, something of a competitor to Google-owned Admob. Terms of the deal weren’t released but Apple is thought to have spent in the region of $250m and $275m on the purchase.

The Quattro advertising network offers display advertising, SMS/MMS/shortcodes, rich media, video and custom programs including in-app advertising. The company has its own Q Deliver ad server, Q Elevation targeting platform and Q Analytics analytics engine, which may suggest that Apple has plans to encroach upon Google’s territory in the mobile advertising space.

In another bid to take the shine off the Nexus One announcement Apple was also blowing its trumpet about the fact that more than three billion apps have been downloaded from its App Store in the 18 months since the shop front opened its doors. Android Market and the other app stores have their work cut out for them in order to reach these kinds of numbers.

The explosive growth of mobile subscriptions in the emerging markets might offer some hope here, however. Indian operator Aircel this week tapped up application services firm Infosys to build it an application store catering to Aircel’s almost 30 million mobile subscribers. Infosys will use its white label app store platform Flypp to power the shop front, which will host mobile applications drawn from an Infosys-managed ecosystem of independent software vendors.

But it’s unlikely that the types of applications in Aircel’s store will be anything like those now common to the iPhone and Android app stores, seeing as all of Aircel’s subscribers are still equipped with 2G GSM handsets and generate a monthly ARPU of $2.36 according to Informa’s WCIS database. Instead we can expect to see mobile money and SMS-based m-payment applications, which are already driving data revenues in the emerging markets.

Soldiering on with its attempts to crack the more mature markets this week was US handset vendor Palm, which announced the expansion of its webOS developer programme to Europe. Following the launch of the programme in the US, which has seen about 600 new paid-for apps available for Palm devices in the last two months, the firm is bringing it developer initiative to Europe, starting with the UK, Ireland, Spain and Germany from March. As of the start of 2010, Palm has just over 1,000 applications available in its App Catalogue, which caters to webOS-enabled devices such as the Pre and the Pixi – both of which got an overhaul this week.

Palm has doubled the storage and increased the application processing power on both the Pre and the Pixi, suffixing in the new models with ‘Plus’. That’s all well and good but the most interesting thing about the new models is their ability to act as mobile broadband hotspots allowing up to five wifi-enabled devices to make use of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus’s 3G connection for backhaul.

This is a concept which seems to be winning interest in the operator community at present, something the Informer finds a little strange given all the recent noise about femtocells and moving traffic off the macro network.

But some carriers seem intent on using wifi-enabled devices to shift traffic on to the macro network, including Palm’s partner Verizon Wireless and rival US provider Sprint, which on Wednesday unveiled a 3G/4G mobile broadband hotspot made by Sierra Wireless.

The Overdrive allows up to five wifi devices to be connected at any one time and backhauls the connection over Sprint/Clearwire’s WiMAX network, defaulting to the provider’s EV-DO network when out of WiMAX coverage.

The WiMAX connectivity is the selling point in this case and Sprint’s not shy about telling users what they can do with that bandwidth, referencing such connection intensive applications as HD movie streaming, mobile TV, music streaming and gaming.

The Overdrive will be available from January 10 for $99.99 after a $50 mail-in-rebate with a two-year service agreement.

Back to Europe now and back to operator basics, where Orange UK is planning to improve the quality of users’ voice calls. The mobile operator has revealed plans to launch High Definition Voice on its mobile network in 2010. HD Voice promises superior sound quality by capturing a greater range of the caller’s voice, the hitch however, is that a new handset will be required.

Now there’s an upgrade proposition if ever the Informer’s heard one. Never mind upgrading to get fancy new data services and apps, how about crystal clear voice. HD Voice uses the WB-AMR (Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate) speech codec, which benefits from a wider speech bandwidth of 50-7000Hz compared to the current narrowband speech codec of 300-3400Hz. The WB-AMR codec also delivers significantly enhanced sound quality while utilising the same network resources, Orange said, “making it sound as if callers are actually in the same room.”

Orange said it is already working with leading handset manufacturers on the development of devices to be rolled out later this year. The operator said the launch of HD Voice in the UK follows two years of investment in the operator’s mobile network, which has resulted in 3G coverage to more than 93 per cent of the UK’s population.

Far be it from the Informer to burst the Orange bubble but, given the ups and downs the O2 UK network has been experiencing as a result of increased data usage lately, the Informer reckons Orange would be better off concentrating on getting its network to cope with the influx of data traffic first.

Happy New Year,

The Informer

Android serves up Eclair

Developer of the Android mobile operating system, the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), has released the source code for version 2.0 of the platform, until now only seen on the Motorola Droid.

Android 2.0, otherwise known as ‘Éclair’, includes new features such as support for multiple accounts, quick access to contact information, support for Exchange, search functionality for SMS, flash support for the camera, digital zoom, support for a virtual keyboard, with an improved keyboard layout, support for double tap zoom and a refreshed interface for the web browser along with support for HTML5 .

Interestingly, within a few hours of the source code being released, the Android hacker community had got version 2.0 up and running on the oldest Android device available – the G1 – despite the fact it would be unable to handle the latest incarnation of the platform.

Android

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It occurred to the Informer as he was flicking through the Smartphone Special supplement, which will be distributed at the SEE show in London next week, that the Symbian Foundation’s new branding betrays a lot of what’s going on beneath the surface. It’s very chaotic and busy, full of flying fish, cows with jetpacks and a sheep on a unicycle. A bit gimmicky you might say. The Informer is told that all Symbian employees will have the big yellow heart that forms the new Symbian logo emblazoned upon their business cards. But the gimmicks don’t stop at the branding. During the keynote sessions there will be a rule that nobody is allowed to ask a question verbally – all questions have to be submitted via Twitter. The Foundation even open sourced the sessions at SEE, allowing community members to organise sessions themselves, and participate in speed dating type business card swaps at certain stands at certain times.

But there’s an even more curious change taking place behind the scenes. David Wood, one of the platform’s old guards – he was an employee of Psion back in the EPOC days and a co-founder of Symbian – is leaving the Foundation. At quite short notice too it appears. Why, the Informer was only chatting with him the other day and he made no mention of his plans to leave the organisation, nor is it clear from Symbian’s and Wood’s respective announcements whether he left of his own accord or was nudged out. The Informer heard from someone with an inside track that there was a difference of opinion between Wood and some of the other Foundation top brass over what the strategy of Symbian should be. It seems that Google’s got the market all shook up, causing havoc by flooding the space with a cheap smartphone platform that establishes its own services to users. Technically, Symbian may be the superior platform, but it isn’t cost effective when stacked up against Android due to a longer integration cycle. Wood has been a long time proponent of building a solid platform, complete with good tools and documentation, which might go against the new ethos the organisation is adopting to combat the threat from Android, and when the question was asked – whether he fit into the ‘new’ Symbian – the answer it seems, is “no”.

Interestingly, Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation, recently made some comments about the changes taking place, and how the much reduced workforce had been affected. Broadly speaking, there are three groups of employees, Williams said – those who are cautiously optimistic about the new ideas of the foundation; those who are on board, the true evangelists, like Williams himself; and those who do not accept the fundamental shifts in the business and will need “a heck of a lot of work” to bring them round. Or not, as the case may be. Indeed, Wood, who called the Symbian Foundation an ‘experiment in openness’, was given the title of ‘catalyst and futurist’. The Informer notes that while the point of a catalyst is to speed up the change in an experiment, it remains unchanged by the process.

Anyway, this week saw the first open source version of the Symbian OS kernel released under the Eclipse public licence, a milestone reached a whole nine months early. Yet somehow the image of the sheep, wobbling along behind the open source crowd on its one wheeled cycle seems strangely fitting.

So from one peculiar rebrand to another, where this week’s award for most pointless rebrand goes to mobile video processor firm Movidia, which has changed its name to Movidius. Apparently the ‘us’ suffix reflects the “connectivity of the social network” and is nothing to do with the firm wanting to sound less like a brand of shampoo and more like a comic book villain.

Sticking with villains, Turkey’s infamous Uzan clan has made a reappearance in the news in what must be one of the mobile industry’s longest running soap operas alongside the Nortel financial scandal and various mobile radio patent disputes. Apparently Motorola and Nokia have been tipped off to a hiding place for some of the $3.4bn owed to them by the Uzans. If you remember back in 1998, the Uzans, which then owned Turkish operator Telsim, got vendor financing from Nokia and Motorola to buy a GSM licence and roll out the network. Shortly after deployment the repayments dried up, the family was involved in a number of scandals including the collapse of a Turkish bank, had most of its assets seized and subsequently went on the run.

The Informer wonders where the hiding place for some of this loot might be. A desert island? An underground bunker? Or perhaps not. If memory serves, Cem Uzan, who sought asylum in France while facing up to 45 years of porridge on numerous counts of fraud, embezzlement and other forms of book cooking, was at one point hiding thousands of Telsim prepay top up cards in an empty swimming pool at his holiday villa.

It’s results time again and one company that most certainly did not make off like a bandit is Ericsson, which took a beating during the third quarter of 2009, watching its net income dive 74 per cent year on year, dragged down by poor demand and further hits from its joint ventures.

Net income for the period shrank to SEK800m, down from SEK2.9bn in the third quarter of 2008. Net sales were also down 6 per cent year on year to SEK46.4bn, compared to SEK49.2bn in the third quarter of 2008.

“Sales of network equipment declined due to lower demand in the current tougher market environment. Despite lower volumes, Network margins remain stable. The strong development in Professional Services continued,” said Carl-Henric Svanberg, president and CEO of Ericsson. Svanberg said the credit environment is still tight in several emerging markets, however, other markets, including China, India, US and Japan are showing good development.

Earlier in the week joint venture and chip firm ST-Ericsson said net loss for the third quarter of 2009 shrank to $112m, compared to a loss of $213m in the previous quarter. Net sales were up to $728m, compared to $666m in the second quarter of 2009, but down from $1bn in the third quarter of 2008. Meanwhile, Sony-Ericsson watched its net loss for the third quarter increase to €164m, compared to a loss of €25m in the same period last year. Sales dropped to €1.6bn for the three month period, down from €2.8bn in 2008, while unit shipments were down 45 per cent year on year to 14.1 million, giving it a market share of about 5 per cent.

This latest round of financial results give an interesting view on where the power lies in the mobile industry. While the traditional telco firms continue to take a battering in the economic storm, everything is coming up roses for Apple and Google.

Apple this week reported its “most profitable quarter ever,” racking up $1.67bn in earnings for the quarter ended September 26, compared to $1.14bn in the year ago quarter. Revenues were also up from $7.9bn a year ago to $9.87bn in the 2009 quarter.

The Californian firm sold 7.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing seven per cent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. The latest version of the device – the iPhone 3GS (the ‘S’ stands for ‘speed’) – was launched in June 2009.

Last week, in stark contrast to Nokia’s results, Google claimed the recession is all but over, reporting an increase in net profit for the third quarter to €1.6bn from €1.3bn in the same period last year. During the earnings call, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said: “Mobile is a high-growth business for us already, with 30 per cent quarter-over-quarter growth in mobile searches in the third quarter.”

Google was one of an unlikely pair of bedfellows, alongside Microsoft, getting jiggy with social networking phenomenon Twitter this week. The firm with a business model that still eludes the Informer announced a collaboration with Microsoft’s Bing search engine that will see the platform used to help it provide real time web indexing of the entire public Twitter feed. But not to be outdone, Google will also be including up to the minute Twitter updates in its own search results, which alongside Microsoft, appears to stress just how important real time information is in the battle for internet search ownership.

Google’s mobile OS venture Android was causing a stir again as US carrier Verizon Wireless appeared to be positioning Motorola’s second Android-based handset to go toe-to-toe with the iPhone.

In an advertisement that started broadcasting this week, Verizon turned Apple’s marketing on itself with a video that proclaims, “iDon’t have a real keyboard, run simultaneous apps, take five megapixel pictures, customise, run widgets, allow open development, or have interchangeable batteries. Everything iDon’t, Droid does.”

While it’s entirely possible that ‘Droid’ will just be the name given to Verizon’s forthcoming portfolio of Android-based devices, it is thought that the next Android-based handset to emerge from Motorola’s labs will be officially named the Droid, and is none other than the device code named the Sholes. The word on the web is that the handset will hit shelves in the first week of November, which ties in nicely with the recent advertising pitch.

The struggling US vendor’s first Android handset known as the Cliq in the US and the Dext elsewhere, was unveiled in September but will not be available until nearer Christmas, so it might be the Droid that comes to market first.

Motorola’s not the only one gunning for Apple. In what threatens to turn into another long running soap opera Nokia has filed suit against Apple for allegedly infringing ten wireless patents with the iPhone. The claim includes all models sold since the device launched in 2007 and is likely to take years if it goes to court. On the one hand Nokia might be able to claim a cut of every iPhone sold, but on the other, the Finnish firm could have its own patents ruled invalid.

While Motorola’s trying to regain some of its cool with aggressive advertising and much thumb-biting at Apple, struggling web giant Yahoo is going about it in an altogether different fashion. The firm was forced to issue a public apology after hiring scantily clad women to give attendees at the Taiwan Open Hack Day – an event for developers – lap dances.

Needless to say the stunt has backfired and many developers have been blasting Yahoo on blogs and forums for sullying a well respected developer event.

The debacle reminds the Informer of a drinks party he once attended at the invitation of a certain software and multimedia firm in deepest, darkest Soho. After being greeted with drinks by waitresses wearing nothing but body paint, and refusing the bizarre and downright dangerous offer of a combined haircut and lapdance, he made his excuses and left. On the way out he was approached by a mild mannered lady in a pinstripe suit who asked him if he “Would like a lady for the evening?” The Informer politely declined the offer but it left him wondering how the company in question slips that one though on expenses. Still, this was in the days when the tech sector was awash with cash and company strategies were fuelled by gourmet coffee. That said, if the recent behaviour of Google, Apple and Yahoo is anything to go by, a return to those good-old-bad-old days might be just around the corner.

Take care

The Informer

These are the droids you are looking for

The driving forces behind Google’s foray into the mobile platform space  -  The Open Handset Alliance and the Android Open Source Project – have shown off developments for the operating system which will allow handset builders to deploy the platform on yet more devices, even as it is gaining some significant traction in the market.

The latest flavour of the Android SDK version 1.6 also known as ‘donut’, introduces a number of new features including support for CDMA and additional screen sizes like QVGA and WVG; gesture APIs to support finger gestures in apps; a text-to-speech engine; and a quick search box that developers can use to integrate Google Search services within any application.

An experimental Android feature out of Google Labs also promises users a new browsing experience in the shape of Fast Flip that claims to “combine the best elements of print and online articles.” Fast Flip allows users to ‘flip’ left and right through news headlines and feeds, while tapping the screen brings up a short summary of the page and zooming allows users to see the content in greater detail. Google said the offering is designed to speed up the web browsing experience by making the flow ‘seamless’ and delivering more personalized content.

Devices running Android 1.6 are expected as early as October, 2009, and handset vendors are falling over themselves at present to get their own Android-based devices onto shelves before the lucrative holiday period starts.

Among those joining the throng are South Korea’s LG Electronics with the announcement of its first Android-based device. The company said that the LG-GW620 features a three-inch, full touchscreen and slide out QWERTY hardware keypad, with a focus on email and social networking services, although finer details were scant. More details on the device will be revealed closer to its launch in Europe in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Meanwhile struggling US vendor Motorola has started its fight back, with the unveiling of its first Android powered smartphone known as the Cliq in the US and the Dext elsewhere. With a somewhat similar form factor to LG’s offering, the Cliq/Dext features a 3.1 inch HVGA touchscreen, with a full size, slide out QWERTY keyboard nestled underneath, a five megapixel camera, 3.5mm headset jack, wifi, GPS, and support for up to 32GB of removable memory.

As is the trend among most vendors that have adopted the Android platform, Motorola has skinned the OS in its own style and developed an interface known as MotoBlur. The Cliq will be available exclusively via Android fan T-Mobile USA in the US in time for Christmas. Under the name of Dext, the device will also be available with Orange in the UK and France, Telefonica in Spain and America Movil in Latin America. None of the operators have yet revealed pricing or tariffs for the device.

The forthcoming Cliq is expected to be the first of many Android-powered devices from Motorola. The beleaguered US manufacturer has been ratcheting up its Android strategy over the summer, hiring developers and sinking yet more resources into the platform. Christy Wyatt, vice president of software platforms and ecosystem at Motorola recently said: “We believe Android and open software has the freedom and flexibility to foster innovation, accelerate time to market, and deliver the most personal and customized mobile experiences for consumers.”

But if the rumours are correct, the Cliq might not be the first Motorola Android handset to hit the shelves in 2009. In an advertisement that started broadcasting mid-October, Verizon Wireless turned Apple’s marketing on itself with a video that proclaims, “IDon’t have a real keyboard, run simultaneous apps, take five megapixel pictures, customise, run widgets, allow open development, or have interchangeable batteries. Everything iDon’t, Droid does.”

While it’s entirely possible that ‘Droid’ will just be the name given to Verizon’s forthcoming portfolio of Android-based devices, it is thought that the an Android-based handset to emerge from Motorola’s labs will be officially named the Droid, and is none other than the device code named the Sholes. The word on the web is that the handset will hit shelves in the first week of November, which ties in nicely with the recent advertising pitch.

Late in 2008, Moto announced plans to slim down its handset platforms portfolio, from over 20 different combinations of operating system, silicon and user interface (UI), to just three handset platforms—Android, Windows Mobile, and its own proprietary OS, P2K, which is used on devices such as the RAZR. As a result, Motorola’s portfolio will shift to the higher end of the handset tier, although the company is gambling that over the next few years, the Android and Windows Mobile platforms will filter down through the mid-level so it can still address the mass market.

And finally, Android has won further support from its biggest cheerleader to date   Taiwan’s HTC – which recently unveiled what it is pitching as a mass market device   the Tattoo. The handset, which owes its moniker to the fact that it is highly customisable, was available in Europe first at the beginning of October, and will roll out in markets around the world in the following months.

The Tattoo is the second phone to use HTC’s in house designed Sense interface, the first being the Hero. Speaking at the recent launch of the Sense UI, HTC CEO Peter Chou said: “Our strategy with HTC Sense is to allow us to differentiate ourselves, and also to build a closer relationship with people.” Chou revealed that HTC has spent the last three years covertly developing a ’specialist software team’ to sit alongside its hardware unit. This has brought hundreds of software engineers to the company, which specialises in Windows Mobile and now Android handsets, he said.

“Today we probably have the most Android and Windows Mobile developers outside of Google and Microsoft,” Chou said. “HTC has spent millions of man-hours developing a better HTC-branded software experience that makes all of this simple and engaging to customers.” Buyers of the Tattoo will also be able to design and purchase their own unique handset covers to alter the physical look of the phone as well. The device includes Google Maps, search, Google Mail, and Android market. It also features a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, 3.5mm stereo headset jack and expandable microSD memory.

Nokia sees future in Windows, Linux

Meanwhile, handset king Nokia is looking further afield. In August, the Finnish handset giant gave its clearest indication yet that it is looking to reduce its reliance on the Symbian platform by announcing a collaboration with Microsoft and making another foray into the mobile Linux space.

Nokia clearly feels the need to make some changes. The firm is feeling the pressure from its rivals and has seen its market share shrink in recent quarters. Second quarter 2009 handset market data from Gartner revealed that while Nokia leads the market overall—and is still number one in the crucial, high-growth smartphone sector—it is losing points across the board. The Finnish vendor’s handset portfolio is skewed towards the low end, where the market is contracting, and Gartner said that Nokia’s flagship smartphone—the long-awaited N97, which it was hoped would cement Nokia’s position in the high end—“met with little enthusiasm at its launch” earlier this year.

As a result, the vendor is reaching beyond its Symbian heritage in a bid to plug gaps in its line-up. One such move is an expansion into the burgeoning ultra-portable computer market, in partnership with Microsoft. In what is one of the most significant developments in the firm’s recent history, Nokia unveiled its first mini-laptop product, the Booklet 3G, in late August and revealed that the device will run a version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

Analysts said that Nokia’s decision to go with Windows, rather than a Linux-based OS, which had been anticipated, was the most surprising element of the announcement. But there was identifiable logic in the decision. “There has been some disappointment with Linux netbooks so far,” said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner. “Nokia’s brand is big in the mobile phone space but not in the PC space. Having Microsoft on board will give Nokia a little more strength in that market.”

Powered by Intel’s Atom processor and weighing in at 1.25kg, the Booklet features HSPA and wifi connectivity as well as A-GPS and integrated Bluetooth. But while the Booklet represents Nokia’s bid to get a foothold in a new hardware sector, it was also designed to showcase the firm’s Ovi service portfolio. The launch, Nokia said, was “another important ingredient in the move towards becoming a mobile solutions company.”

Milanesi conceded that the provision of a device and service ecosystem will be a key differentiator in the netbook space and will help Nokia to distinguish itself from the likes of Asus and Acer. But she stressed that Nokia is floundering at the top end of the mobile handset market, having not done enough to compete with the slick new wave of user interfaces led by Apple’s iPhone. “Usability issues have made it difficult for Nokia to exploit the potential of its phones,” she said.

The introduction of the Booklet came shortly after Nokia and Microsoft announced an alliance that will see the two companies collaborate on the design, development and marketing of mobile enterprise platforms, including Microsoft Office Mobile and other business communications software for Symbian devices. The initiative will look to introduce software for a broad range of Nokia smartphones, starting with the business-focused E-series range.

The two companies will also jointly market these offerings to enterprises, carriers and end users. New business products are expected to appear in 2010 and dedicated teams will be established in both companies to work on the new initiative. Microsoft business division president Stephen Elop said the deal would focus on email, collaboration, Web 2.0, SharePoint, instant messaging, presence and other rich Office mobile applications, including the ability to view, edit, create and share Office documents with mobile-optimised versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft OneNote.

Less than a week later, the Finnish company announced plans to introduce more high end devices on the Linux-based Maemo platform. The first of these is the N900, which follows on from Nokia’s previous generation of internet tablets such as the N810, and uses the latest Maemo 5 software, which supports multitasking and allows users to have dozens of application windows open and running simultaneously.

The N900 improves on Nokia’s previous tablet devices by actually giving it cellular connectivity and phone features. However, the device still boasts a touch screen and full QWERTY keyboard, supported by an ARM Cortex-A8 processor, up to 1GB of application memory and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration, a five megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics, with 32GB of storage, which is expandable up to 48GB via a microSD card.

“With Linux software, Mozilla-based browser technology and now also with cellular connectivity, the Nokia N900 delivers a powerful mobile experience,” said Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice president, markets, at Nokia. “The Nokia N900 shows where we are going with Maemo and we’ll continue to work with the community to push the software forward. What we have with Maemo is something that is fusing the power of the computer, the internet and the mobile phone, and it is great to see that it is evolving in exciting ways.” The Nokia N900 will be available from October with an estimated retail price of €500 excluding sales taxes and subsidies.

Back in June Nokia hooked up with Intel to “define a new mobile platform beyond today’s smartphones, notebooks and netbooks” using Linux and open source technologies such as oFono, ConnMan, Mozilla, X.Org, BlueZ, D-BUS, Tracker, GStreamer, and PulseAudio, sparking rumours that the company was preparing to branch out beyond Symbian. When MCI recently quizzed Nokia on its commitment to Symbian, the company would only say that it “remains strongly committed to its current open OS software strategy for smartphones, which is based on the world leading Symbian software.”

Google rolls out latest flavour of Android - donut

The Open Handset Alliance and the Android Open Source Project rolled out the latest version of the Android SDK this week—version 1.6—also known as ‘donut’.

Android 1.6 introduces a number of new features including support for CDMA and additional screen sizes like QVGA and WVG, gesture APIs to support finger gestures in apps, a text-to-speech engine, and a quick search box that can integrate Google Search services within any application.

These latest developments should allow handset builders to deploy the platform on yet more devices, even as it is gaining some significant traction in the market.

On Monday LG Electronics became the latest to join the throng with the announcement of its first Android-based device. The LG-GW620 features a three-inch, full touchscreen and slide out QWERTY hardware keypad but other details are scant. Meanwhile struggling vendor Motorola has started its fight back, with the unveiling of its first Android powered smartphone known as the Cliq in the US and the Dext elsewhere. It features a 3.1 inch HVGA touchscreen, with a full size, slide out QWERTY keyboard nestled underneath, a 5 megapixel camera, 3.5mm headset jack, wifi, GPS, and support for up to 32GB of removable memory. And avid Android supporter HTC recently showed off its new Tattoo, which it is pitching as a mass market device.

Google said the industry can expect to see devices running Android 1.6 as early as October.

Get more news and analysis on Android in our Hot Topic section

In related news, Google’s experimental division, Google Labs, unveiled a new browsing experience for Android and iPhone users in the shape of Fast Flip that claims to “combine the best elements of print and online articles.”

Fast Flip allows users to ‘flip’ left and right through news headlines and feeds, while tapping the screen brings up a short summary of the page and zooming allows users to see the content in greater detail.

Google said the offering is designed to speed up the web browsing experience by making the flow ‘seamless’ and delivering more personalized content.

Google targets in-app advertising

While mobile advertising has so far proven something of a slow burn, the rise of the app store in 2009 is expected to bring in-application advertising to the forefront of the industry.

Google, with its vested interest in mobile via the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) and the Android platform, is already making headway in this particular area, and is targeting app store pioneer Apple too.

On Wednesday, the web giant opened up the beta version of its AdSense platform for mobile applications.

AdSense for Mobile Applications allows developers to earn revenue by displaying text and image ads inside iPhone and Android applications.

“Advertisers are looking for ways to reach potential customers when they are engaged with mobile content, and application developers are looking for ways to show the best ads to their users. We have already had a successful trial of this service with a small number of partners,” said Google.

The latest wave of smartphones, with Apple’s iPhone at its crest, certainly offers a wider range of potential forms of engagement. Rival mobile advertising firm Admob serves adverts onto around 40 per cent of the world’s iPhones, Thomas Schulz, the firm’s managing director for EMEA, told telecoms.com recently.

“A lot of the ads we’re doing on the iPhone are running in applications because, in the iPhone world at least, apps have a big chunk of the traffic,” he says. “You have more visually appealing models like trailers, revolving canvasses. You occupy the page and you can link to a click to call or a map, whatever you want. What we’ve seen in terms of click through on these ads on the iPhone is a multiple of what we’re used to because the ads are more appealing.”

Revenues are also higher than the norm, Schulz says. “There’s a very wide range but, in general, it’s definitely making more money. It generates more money for the publisher, that’s for sure.”

Google has posted a video of Howard Steinberg, director of business development at developer Urbanspoon, talking about in-app advertising.

This really takes the bad PR biscuit: Apple this week had to remove an app from the store called Baby Shaker; a game in which a crying baby pictured on screen must be silenced by shaking the handset (and activating the accelerometer). Nice. This generated a good deal of negative comment, as you might imagine, with one infant health campaigner even going as far as to accuse Apple of encouraging people to shake actual babies to death.

Well, steady on, the Informer thought, there’s no evidence that Apple wants people to go out and commit infanticide, let’s make that quite clear. Rather, what we have here is an example of very bad taste. What makes it interesting is that Apple is renowned for the totalitarian control it exerts over which applications are allowed into the hallowed virtual halls of its marketplace which rather suggests one of its staff gave Baby Shaker the thumbs-up.

A PR booboo this may have been, but it hasn’t dented Apple’s financial performance. Strong iPhone sales – 3.79 million units, up 123 per cent year on year – helped the company’s Q109 revenues up to $8.16bn, compared to $7.5bn for the previous year. Net profit was $1.2bn, up from $1.95bn in 2008.

Fellow handset maker Samsung turned a profit for Q1 as well, netting $461m – better than its Q4 results but still more than 70 per cent down on Q108. It was the phones wot won it, as other units, such as LCD screens and memory chips are having a bit of a shocker. It wasn’t enough to please the markets, though, and Samsung’s shares dropped by 3.67 per cent in Seoul.

In other handset news, Google promised this week that 2009 would be a big year for its Android OS platform. With almost four months of 2009 already gone, though, and only one Android handset currently on the market, the Open Handset Alliance – the grouping that centres on the Android platform – has some way to go. It was announced this week that the HTC Magic, Android handset number two, which was unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona two months back, will debut in the on May 5^th with Vodafone in the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy and France (with SFR).

Vodafone, along with the rest of the UK mobile operator community must be tired of 3UK, with its disruptive ways. All that work those poor carriers have done to protect their business models and pricing strategies and that pesky 3 – which long ago discovered the futility of control freakery – comes along and starts giving customers better value for money, damn it!

The latest ruse from 3 CEO Kevin Russell and his merry band is to allow 3 customers to make free Skype to Skype calls without incurring data charges. From the beginning of next month, anyone with a 3 Skype-enabled handset will be able to Skype to their little heart’s content and it will be free as a bird. And from the summer this will include users with unlocked handsets and 3 SIMs, even if the Hutchison-owned carrier didn’t supply the handset.

“Communication through the internet is exploding. Internet calling or VoIP, social networking, instant messaging and email are used by millions in the UK every single day. They are open to all on their PCs and laptops. We want people to be free to communicate from their mobiles in the same way as they do from their PCs,” said Kevin Russell, CEO of 3 UK. Russell is gambling that free Skype will act as a customer adhesive, as well as encouraging users to initiate more traditional calls, send more text messages and browse the internet.

IDC research director John Delaney commented that the latest move was in line with 3′s policy of going things “that other operators are reluctant to do”. Other UK carriers, of course, have tried to suppress Skype by insisting that the application is removed from handsets by vendors. But Delaney reckons that 3′s latest move will not really mess with existing call revenues, given that most Skype calls are made to PCs rather than other mobiles.

“We think it is unlikely that Skype will significantly cannibalise conventional call revenues, at least until the number of Skype phones reaches a much higher percentage of total phones in use. If the number of Skype phone users in the UK gets into the tens of millions, voice cannibalisation will become a more pressing issue – but we suspect that’s a problem that 3 would love to have to deal with,” Delaney said.

Meanwhile, investment tycoon Richard Li – son of Hutchison-owner and Asia’s richest man Li Ka-shing has quite a different problem to deal with, finally relinquishing his bid to buy out Hong Kong carrier PCCW for US$2bn. The deal has been the focus of a drawn-out legal battle, and Li’s withdrawal came hot on the heals of an Appeal Court judgement that blocked the deal, in light of allegations from Hong Kong’s financial market regulator that the shareholder vote had been manipulated. The other major shareholder in PCCW is China Mobile.

Not too far away, in Taiwan, lonely WiMAX pioneer Clearwire is looking for a pen-friend in Global Mobile, one of six WiMAX licensees in Taiwan, according to local reports. The Informer always thought that money couldn’t buy you love, but it looks like it might in this case, as Clearwire may have to take a stake in the Taiwanese carrier in order to secure the strategic alliance for which it yearns. Not least because Global Mobile might not be able to launch without a further capital injection.

Although the six 2.5GHz WIMAX licences in Taiwan were awarded in July 2007 – three for the northern part of the island and three for the southern part – none has yet managed to launch commercial service. Lack of funding, combined with the economic downturn, has been the main reason for the delay.

The economic downturn was also responsible for a profit warning from Deutsche Telekom this week, which said that EBITDA would be up to four per cent lower for 2009 than was originally expected.

Monthly ARPU (average revenue per customer) in the US fell as a result of lower roaming revenues due to a decrease in consumer travel, while the rollout of the carrier’s 3G network increased expenditure and costs. Polish operation PTC suffered considerably from the sharp decline in its home currency, the Zloty, which fell around 26 per cent year on year against the Euro. Meanwhile T-Mobile UK recorded a significant drop in revenues of around 21 per cent due to the fall in the value of Sterling.

Michael Kovacocy, European telecoms analyst and sector strategist at Daiwa Securities, offered a downbeat assessment of the firm’s UK position “Based upon our analysis, the UK business suffers not simply due to the existence of one too many competitors. T-Mobile UK’s problems go deeper, in that market maturity has combined with macro-economic weakness to drive customers increasingly towards price-sensitive behaviour and SIM-only offers. We have been bullish on the prospects of SIM-only for some time, but there is a difference between being a leader and 1st mover (Telefonica/O2 and “Simplicity”) and a follower,” he said.

To make matters worse, T-Mobile’s German network suffered a nationwide collapse on Tuesday, leaving nearly 40 million customers without voice and SMS. No details have yet emerged on the nature of the outage, although some reports suggest a “software glitch”. D’oh.

DT will doubtless have been delighted to hear of Viviane Reding’s latest achievements, as the European Commissioner for the Information Society and Media’s proposals for data roaming price caps were voted in by the European Parliament on Wednesday. As of July 1, a text message sent from abroad in the EU will cost no more than €0.11 instead of €0.28 today, and the wholesale price of data will be capped at €1 per MB, compared to an average wholesale price of €1.68 per MB. The wholesale cap will fall to €0.80 in 2010 and to €0.50 in 2011.

Mobile operators will also be required to bill roaming calls by the second from the 31st second of the call at the latest, which will end the current practice under which consumers are overcharged by up to 24 per cent, the authority said. European consumers are expected to save up to 60 per cent on their bill for using a mobile phone abroad in the EU as a result of the caps.

“Today’s vote marks the definite end of the roaming rip off in Europe,” said EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding. “Thanks to the strong support of the European Parliament and the Council, the new roaming rules were agreed in the record time of just 7 months. Just in time for the summer holidays, European citizens will now be able to see the single market without borders on their phone bills.”

It’s just a shame none of us can afford to go on holiday any more.

Take care

The Informer

Android invasion in 2009

Web giant Google has promised that 2009 is going to be the year Android comes into its own, which may cheer up industry watchers disappointed by a weak showing from the platform so far.

Speaking as the company announced its financial results on Friday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, said Android, which is backed by Google and developed by the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) is “going to have a very strong year” this year.

“There are announcements happening between now and the end of the year which will be quite significant from operators and hardware partners in the Android space,” said Schmidt, “and which will really fulfil much of the vision we laid out more than a year ago.”

Despite the fact that only one device – HTC’s G1, available on T-Mobile – has made it to market so far, Google claims that the platform’s open source strategy is working and the company is aware of many device vendors which are using the operating system.

HTC was the only company to come out with a solid addition to the Android portfolio in Barcelona this year in the shape of the Magic handset.

But Schmidt also said that Android has already been ported over to netbooks and similar devices. “Another one of the great benefit of the open source model, and we’re excited that these investments are occurring largely outside of Google,” he said.

And last week, Google also gave developers a sneak preview of the next generation of the Android platform, based on the much hyped ‘cupcake’ branch of the operating system.

Although the company is not recession proof, Google still turned in encouraging figures during the first quarter of 2009, with net income rising to $1.4bn during the first quarter, from $1.3bn a year ago. Revenues were also up to $5.5bn, from 5.1bn in the first quarter of 2008.

Non-cash impairment charges primarily related to investments in AOL and Clearwire hit $277m in the first quarter of 2009, compared to $286m in the fourth quarter of 2008. Also, in the fourth quarter of 2008, the company recognised $1.09bn in asset impairment charges related primarily to investments in AOL and Clearwire.

Google bans tethering app from Android Market

To date it’s been Apple that has come under fire for the draconian vetting process prospective applications have to endure to make it into the App Store. But this week Google is taking flack from the developer community after banning a tethering application for Android.

Seth Lemons, one of the developers of the Wifi Tether app for the Android platform has had his program banned from the Android Market by the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) for violating the Android developer distribution agreement and T-Mobile’s terms of service.

Tethering is one of those troublesome technologies that has already run into trouble with Apple because it allows a users to connect another device, such as a laptop to their handset via wifi and surf the web using the 3G data connection. However, the operators carrying both the iPhone and the Android G1 device have terms and conditions which state that the accompanying data connection is to be used on the handset only, and users connecting via tethering will be kicked off the network.

When the iPhone App Store first launched in 2008 one of the first apps to be removed was the NetShare application by Nullriver, which allows users to tether their iPhone to their PC and use the device as a 3G modem, but violated AT&T’s terms and conditions.

The developers of the Android tethering app seem disappointed over the OHA’s decision because Android is pitched as a totally open platform.

“This raises some interesting questions about this “open” platform. Android phones are supposed to be released for other carriers in the future, right? Does this mean that apps in the Market have to adhere to the ToS for only T-Mobile, even when other carriers sign on? Will all apps have to adhere to the ToS for every carrier that supports Android phones? Why is all of this enforcement Google’s job, in the first place? If T-Mobile wants to force people to pay for broadband plans in addition to their phone data, it’s their job to either make that attractive to users or strongarm them into it by, say, instituting data caps,” said Lemons.

Vendor and carrier attitudes seem to be changing however. Apple recently revealed that it is working with operators that carry the iPhone to allow tethering in the upcoming version 3.0 release of the iPhone firmware.

Time for change

In 2008, two relative newcomers finally made their mark in the handset space, jointly setting the scene for a major shift in the direction of the mobile operating system market in 2009.

Towards the end of last year, web giant Google’s foray into the mobile market looked like it was picking up significant steam, with 2009 likely to be the year when Android comes into its own.

Already the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) has a member base more than 40 strong, and Android-based devices are expected to come out from all the main handset vendors – with the notable exception of Nokia-over the next 12 months.

Ever since the Symbian Foundation was formed in the wake of Nokia’s complete acquisition of the company last summer, the number of players developing software platforms have been thinning out. In early January this year the death knell sounded for UIQ Technology, the software company jointly owned by Motorola and Sony Ericsson. The UIQ platform, which really only ever featured in handsets from the two owners, has been absorbed into Symbian.

Perhaps in a show of foresight, the Symbian Foundation proposed to introduce an open source licence model for Symbian and the S60, UIQ and NTT DoCoMo’s MOAP platforms, and has itself won considerable support in the industry.

Meanwhile, in the background, the fragmented Linux market underwent some consolidation, as the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum folded its activities and membership into the LiMo Foundation, pooling efforts and resources to help unify Linux-based mobile platforms and accelerate the emergence of common mobile Linux specifications.

Unfortunately, these organisations lack the presence of Google, which with only one device yet available, is seeing Android build up considerable momentum. Drawing heavily on the open source ethos as well as Linux-based building blocks, Google and the OHA have effectively reduced the cost of software to close to zero, making it an attractive proposition for handset builders in these straitened times.

The G1 with Android, manufactured by Taiwanese vendor HTC and available via T-Mobile in the US and UK, shifted an estimated 1 million units by the end of 2008, up from earlier projections of 600,000. And the portfolio of Android-based handsets looks set to swell its ranks over the coming year, with devices confirmed by HTC, Kogan, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Kyocera, Asus, Garmin, Huawei, LG, Samsung and Toshiba.

Google’s ambitions are clear. With mobile broadband adoption exploding-Informa Telecoms & Media reports that at the end of June there were 14 million HSPA subscribers in Europe, growing by 3 million every quarter-and big screen handsets becoming popular, Google has tweaked its mobile advertising options to better support the newest breed of mobile operating systems.

But the real pressure is being applied by Apple, which has experienced unforeseen success with the iPhone and has raised the bar from a technical perspective. Although the company is a long way off infringing on the market share of the handset market’s leading lights, it’s already putting the boot into smaller vendors like Palm. During the second half of 2008, industry analyst Canalys reported that the introduction of the iPhone 3G and Apple’s expansion into more countries helped propel the vendor to second place in the smartphone market, taking it above RIM for the first time.

By way of response, rivals have been forced to mimic Apple’s touch screen user  interface, high performance and easy to use development tools, and in early January, Palm came out swinging. Jumping on the cloud computing bandwagon, Palm webOS allows consumers to pull their contacts, calendars and personal information down from the internet, wirelessly.

A key feature of the Palm platform is synchronisation of information between multiple services, so if the same contact is listed in the user’s phonebook and on their social networking sites, both contact details are pulled into the same interface. Likewise with multiple conversation platforms such as text message and email.

The first device to support the webOS platform is the Pre, which will be available exclusively from Sprint in the first half of 2009. Palm’s idea, it seems, is to tap into the vast developer ecosystem already being pillaged by web companies and handset vendors who were more ahead of the game.

In the last couple of weeks Apple has boasted of the availability of more than 15,000 applications in the App Store with more than 500 million downloads under its belt. The vendor recently relaxed restrictions on the App Store approval process, allowing third party web browsers into the marketplace, marking an about face on previous guidelines which banned third party apps from replicating the functionality of the native iPhone installation. The company also tweaked its iTunes marketplace to allow iPhone users to download music on the fly. Until now, users had only been able to make purchases and downloads over wifi or by syncing with a PC. The move will give Apple a stronger position in the mobile music market as it goes up against rival offerings from the operator community as well as other handset vendors, with app store announcements being all the rage at Mobile World Congress.

Nokia jumped on the app store bandwagon, announcing plans to open its own marketplace in May. Billed as an extension of its mobile services platform, the Ovi Store will allow content providers and developers to upload their own applications and sell their wares to Nokia using consumers and enterprises. The Ovi Store will consolidate the vendor’s current content services, including Download!, MOSH and WidSets to a single channel. Available content will range from applications, games and videos to widgets, podcasts, location-based applications and personalisation content for Nokia Series 40 and S60 devices.

Meanwhile, software giant Microsoft was banging the app store drum at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, confirming plans to launch a mobile content marketplace of its own. Details of the app shop were thin on the ground however, with the Redmond Giant only revealing that the marketplace is due to launch in the fourth quarter of this year, with a showcase of around 20,000 apps, of which two thirds will be targeted at consumers. And Version 6.5 of the Windows mobile platform will see the company push even further into the consumer space with a flashier user interface and easier access to information by reducing the configuration and number of clicks required.

Playing catch up to some degree, Finnish handset vendor Nokia recently launched its first full fledged touch screen gadget, the 5800 ‘Tube’ handset at the end of January. The Tube is the first device to be based on Symbian S60 5th Edition, which finally includes support for touch input and tactile feedback, while enhanced display resolution with a widescreen mode make a more engaging visual experience.

It’s still only February and already this year looks like its going to see heated exchanges between the leading handset vendor and the new pretenders Google and Apple as well as a potential comeback from Palm, with web-based functionality and touchscreens becoming the most important weapons of all.