Newsletter Archive 7

Newsletter 7 - 2001

1. Mobile Advertising - Software for wireless web applications
2. Mobile-Linux Distribution: ccLinux
3. Swisscom offline for several hours
4. Check your grades on the wireless web
5. Microsoft joins the mobile hardware industry
6. GPRS-Chatting
7. Bluetooth 1.1 a giant leap from 1.0
8. Hutchison to help out Italian 3G project
9. 3G Company goes bankrupt
10. Consumers sue Palm for PC-damages
11. Nigeria might be the wireless market of the future

1. Mobile Advertising - Software for wireless web applications

For the first time it is possible, to turn already existing free wireless web applications into profitable applications, through customizable showings of advertising banners on every wanted point in the application. Control your advertising and get more money with your wireless web applications. Easy integration of the Advertising-Module in Office-, Shop-, Entertaiment-, Community-, or other wireless web applications for GSM, GPRS and UMTS. In case there are no or not enough users, CheckCom can provide you with over 1.000.000 users for your country. (Only applicable for certain countries.)
For the owner of the module there are many customizing possibilities over the web interface: set times for advertising showings as graphics or textlink depending on the user profile, time of day, certain events or location based and many more parameters. In addition to that, the module automatically generates a statistic, which gives you detailed information on the user habits, which advertisings they like etc. This data will be very useful for communication with your advertising partner about the positioning of ads and for correctly billing the partner. www.checkcom.com With this module the entire advertising activities of icwap.net are controlled and monitored. www.icWAP.net

2. Mobile-Linux Distribution: ccLinux

ccLinux is a small system based on Linux, a free U*IX clone. It can be booted and run directly from CD-ROM, and therefore it needs no extra installation. ccLinux is easy to handle because it is menu-driven. Since ccLinux runs directly from CD-ROM, there is no need for installing Linux on the PC. This is extremely useful for presentation or demonstrations as well as for security reasons. The main purpose of ccLinux is to demonstrate WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) to people who are not experts in Linux or in the details of implementing a WAP environment adhoc. ccLinux provides an infrastructure for GSM-dial-in, a WAP-gateway (ccWAP-Gateway) and a dialout module. As a bonus, ccLinux also includes a WAP-browser (ccWAP-Browser) translating WAP content into HTML pages for web browsers. ccLinux can also be used for Linux PDAs, embedded systems, POI and POS Terminals Please order a Demo version of ccLinux here: http://www.checkcom.com/ccLinux.htm

3. Swisscom offline for several hours

The most popular telecommunications company in Switzerland experienced a total blackout for more than 10 hours. More than 3 million people -including police, firefighters and other crucial services- were unable to communicate during the incident. Swisscom stated that the problem might have been caused by their software from Alcatel which caused one of the main network computers to shut down for several hours. Luckily, the important governement agencies could use other ways to communicate (i.e. walky-talkies) or this shut down may have caused some serious problems. Swisscom is know thinking about suing Alcatel for damages. (www.swisscom.ch)

4. Check your grades on the wireless web

Students from Trier or Nuremberg (both in Germany) can soon check their grades on the wireless web. The access is granted only if the person has the right password. The 2 universities are also discussing other interactive services for their students and faculty. Other American universities have also started paging services where students can look up their grades with simple back and forth messaging.

5. Microsoft joins the mobile hardware industry

Microsoft has announced that it will buy shares of the mobile phone manufacturer Sendo. The decision was made out of strategic thinking that the software giant will have better control over the introduction of the
Smartphone. Microsoft has already Sendo under contract for developing prototypes for "Stinger", which is Microsofts mobile operating system. Sendo, the British mobile manufacturer stated that the new operating system will be revolutionary. "Stinger" is not likely to be introduced this year, but Microsoft is doing anything to speed up the process. (www.microsoft.com)

6. GPRS-Chatting

German friends of chatting can act out their hobby on the run now, if they own a Motorola Talkabout 192. This phone is GPRS-capable and can be used to chat with the speed that GPRS provides. A few mobile phone providers have already integrated this chatting service for their customers. Experts are betting on GPRS-chatting to be extremely popular in the near future.

7. Bluetooth 1.1 a giant leap from 1.0

Experts are finally seeing a breakthrough of the Bluetooth technology coming. With the start of Bluetooth 1.1, many of todays problems with Bluetooth might become a thing of the past. The old 1.0b standard was
actually too open for interpretation, which made the standard somewhat unusable, because many companies would just build on the standard and create their own. Now, the new Bluetooth 1.1 standard will establish bigger rules, while still being a kind of foundation to work with. The interconnectivity between different brands, operating systems and devices has been the focus of the developers.

8. Hutchison to help out Italian 3G project

The Asian telecommunications giant Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. has decided to finally help out a struggling Italian 3G project. The company will try to raise as much as US$ 4.5 Billion from banks, suppliers and out of their own pocket. With this project Hutchison wants to establish a stronghold in the European 3G market. Since the stock market has not been merciful to Hutchison either, the company has a hard time to find banks which will offer good conditions on a loan of that caliber.

9. 3G Company goes bankrupt

Even before 3G has started, the telecommunications company Broadband Mobile had to already declare bankruptcy. The company has promised to be one of the first operators to have running UMTS networks in the biggest cities of Norway, Spain, Italy and Germany. However, because of unforseen difficulties with the building of the UTMS networks and some misled investments Broadband Mobile had to file in for bankruptcy this August. What will happen to the different licenses is not clear at this moment, in some cases -such as Norway- they might not even be re-sold again. Experts believe that Broadband Mobile is only the first of several 3G companies which will fall because the spendings are just too great for something that will start to be profitable in 10 years from now.

10. Consumers sue Palm for PC-damages

Some US Palm users are suing Palm for several million US $ because they have destroyed or damaged the motherboards of certain PCs. The users said that while the Palm Pilot was synching some unknown error caused motherboards in PCs to stop working correctly or stop working at all. Unfortunately Palm is not informing the public about the details (i.e. which types of Palm Pilots have been used etc.). If the lawsuit will successfully prove that Palm Pilot or software of Palm has caused these errors, Palms reputation all over the world is likely to suffer, which could cause a big slump for Palms stocks.

11. Nigeria might be the wireless market of the future

The regular telephone networks in Nigeria are nothing short of a nightmare. Constant blackouts, frequent overbilling and other technological and political problems are making the Nigerian telephone situation inacceptable. While it has over 120 million inhabitants, there are less than 0.3 % with a phone, and an even smaller percentage owns a mobile phone. Nevertheless, experts assume that a mobile network infrastructure might be the solution to the never ending problems with the regular phone cables. If there is a big foreign company who could put up a few antennas, the wireless market in Nigeria is very likely to explode, because there are no other working phone lines.

Next