Serious Mobile

Serious Mobile’s new home

2009-02-28T21:28:00.001-05:00

Hello dear friends! This is the new home of Serious Mobile http://seriousmobile.wordpress.com/

Over the next few days I’ll be making posts on either http://seriousmobile.blogspot.com or here (seriousmobile.wordpress.com). Please do not forget to update your bookmarks here as this will be the permanent home for Serious Mobile for the foreseeable future.

Within the next few months I’ll be updating the name of Serious Mobile (name to be determined), but I’ll be stating the name change in each post when I’ve decided on a new blog name.

Thank you everyone for stopping by, commenting, and sharing your ideas as well has taking the time to read some of mine.

Enjoy your mobile lifestyle and don’t forget to share your adventures & findings as you continue to be mobile.

Nokia at Mobile World Conference 2009.

2009-02-28T12:02:00.000-05:00

I'm sure those of you that casually read my blog with no time to post, stop by because you wish to see some insight beyond what the other blogs post about devices.

I'll briefly tough on the devices this week not really about the obvious specs of course. But there is more than meets the eye that many are missing even amongst the popular and favorite forums (Symbian-Freak, AllAboutSymbian, Howard Forums, etc).

Nokia announced the E75 - an incredible QWERTY-Slider that allows for use of a Numerical keypad when you want it, while a full qwerty-keyboard when you NEED it. Nokia Messaging will come pre-loaded as part of the firmware; something I hope to see in an update of the incredibly popular, solid, and worth every penny the E71. However, there is something beyond the specs that the E75 offers that others are missing.

The E75 is a great thin qwerty slider and will do quite well with those consumers or professionals that work with personal Email (Gmail, Hotmail, YahooMail) or corporate email (Exchange ActiveSync or Lotus Domino).

What I like best of all is this allows users to charge the device with the MicroUSB port (Nokia missed this in the E71!) and the wall charger (2mm connector) so that people don't immediately through out their existing chargers. Nokia really should make a list of the small chargers that shipped with other devices available to potential/new buyers of the E75 so that waste piles are not filled up with charging.

PS: Canadian citizens are more intuned with helping the environement; however not enough companies are making electronics disposable enough. Major cities in malls should have a deposit box not only for phones, but also for batteries & chargers as well of Nokia phones. Make the barcode readers under the batter of phones readable so that phones are accepted into these automated Return/Recyclable bins - and the holographic image on official batteries readable for the same purpose. This should be done in All Capital cities in the Canada, USA, UK, and in China and Japan.

Offering a small incentive to users returning old products; working phones ($25-50 relative to country currency), non working phones($10), and batteries & chargers ($5-10) would change the environment significantly. Of course research into this idea is needed; placing a return bin in major malls in capital cities would work. This will this help the environment (global waste sites), and changing perception of how we dispose of our electronics.

OF course cash will not be dispensed but a credit to debit/credit accts to be issued or a voucher for purchasing software compitable with their future/existing replacement Nokia device or towards a future Nokia device purchase (phone/tablet/accessory). Voucher redeamable in Official Nokia Store or online in respective regions. Vote if you like this idea.

Nokia Ovi Store!

2009-02-16T09:15:00.001-05:00

Its finally here! What all S60 heads have been waiting for, complaining for and envious of other platforms! Something that "Download!" has been lacking in.

A True mobile applications store front!

I've spoken out in the community about such a store being more than just an applications database and store front. I've even tried to get the community to work on such a store and submitt it to Nokia; but alas I don't have the charm to invoke such passion in others. However it DID garner interest from an executive from Symbian-Foundation.

Now this application store has particular interest to developers in the industry. First Developers & users can follow along on Facebook site "Ovi Publishers" http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126684805051 and also register for access at https://publish.ovi.com/ in order to submitt your applications to take part in the 30/70 (70% revenue for each sale directly paid to developers)! This is HUGE!

What makes this application store unique is that it uses an intelligent database engine to recommend applications based on your geographical location, suggest apps based on your previous purchases and also based on your Ovi friends purchases - Even if their native languages are different from your own (app you purchase is in your prefered language set on the phone).

Now we finally have an applications store front to be proud of.

https://publish.ovi.com/

SonyEricsson tease with Idou at MWC 2009

2009-02-15T15:41:00.002-05:00

SonyEricsson Idou

Wow. In classic SE black styling, the pre-release TEASER of this phone - currently with no product # - is definately a sure sight for sore eyes since SE loosing in sales and just rehashing more of their same Walkman line phones.

For many years SE fans have wanted the ability to choose 1 great phone and whether they want a Camera centric or Walkman centric phone. Not since the K750i/W800i did users have this choice; albeit Wotan or DaVinci Server service & software.

This baby, Idou, has it all. GPS, WiFi with UPnP support - and considering W995 Walkman feature phone suporting PS3 compatibility its possible this could to. Also this phone has a 12MegaPixel camera with LED & Xenon Flash! Its said by SE to run "The OS is next generation of Symban" which could mean Symbian-Foundations first release or S60 5th Edition. Considering the unique CyberShot and Walkman GUI layer and capabilities I'm hoping for Symbian Foundation's first Symbian OS release. This device is slated to be released in the 2H 2009 as previously promised by SE.

Its still unclear if the SE will be using their proprietary memory (MSDuo Micro or M2) or MicroSD.

Pictures of SE Idou courtesy of Esato.com and Engadget.com - as I myself could not attend MWC_2009.

Ovi Live - A Blogging Idea for Ovi Services.

2009-02-01T12:53:00.003-05:00

Hi Ovi Team,

First of all I'd like you to provide such an excellent service that I'm going nuts on missing out on since I had to sell my beloved E71-2 due to hard economic times. I'll be buying another 3 S60 phones in a 3mth period due to a new job.

I'm hoping that Nokia Ovi Team has considered the idea of end users being able to create a Blog (free or at a very low yearly fee $10US)! This blog will, of course, allow collaboration & creation of ideas and content to be shared from our phones and using Photos, Videos, and maybe music (as background playlist for those visiting our live blogs) from our Shared on Ovi.

Think deeply into this. Calendar schedules can be shared (public/private being seperate - both sync'd to our phones as normal), and used for creating fan meetups, family get-togethers, business meetings, etc. Nokia could use this for new Nokia World and similar event notifications & invites per relevant users in an events region & to those previously participated.

Photos uploaded to the "Ovi Live" blog (my patent idea lol /just kidding), will automatically be sync'd to the users Share on Ovi public media space for archiving. Using geotagging so when clicked by another S60 device on the blog can open up Nokia Maps ;) . Videos with geotagging should also be considered by the Nokia S60 developers and also from Symbian Foundation for the next OS.

"Ovi Live" or "Ovi World" blog will use the beautiful software by Nokia ... Mobile WebServer. This will allow a LIVE and interactive content creation and location aware presence for S60 users across the globe! This is TRUELY "connecting people" as the Nokia slogan stands to represent. Live Feedback, live contact sharing, live photo sharing, Ovi community expansion, and of course keeping in touch with those we love, and sharing the neighborhoods across the world. The saying 'the world is a small place' would indeed be tangible.

For those curious about using the FREE Mobile Web Server please see the following link: http://mymobilesite.net/

For those of you S60 users still not using Share on Ovi, what are you waiting for its FREE and allows syncing your photos/videos/Contacts/Calendar/Notes ALL for FREE:
http://www.ovi.com/services/ (go ahead and create an account, and check your phone under Media to see it sync'd once you receive your SMS from the service). Hope to see you online, my name on Ovi is Jagga.

Should we welcome Blackberry back to S60?

2009-01-20T17:33:00.014-05:00

Should we welcome Blackberry back to S60?

Article from Reuters
RIM (RIM.TO)(RIMM.O) created the market for corporate mobile email and its dominant position has protected it from Nokia's attempts to crack the market in recent years.

However, "Clearly, things are heading towards the consumer market and that's where Nokia has its strength," Tom Furlong, head of Nokia's messaging services, told Reuters.

RIM has lately focused on developing its consumer offering.

Many of you are aware of Nokia’s decision to drop support for BlackBerry connect on their E-Series devices beginning with the Nokia E71 & E66, and now the E63. This, initially caused ripples in the S60 community, especially those that worked for corporations that allowed for BlackBerry Connect devices to be used on work corporate BES servers/services. This didn’t pose too much of a problem for those who’s corporate email infrastructure used MS Exchange as Nokia did have free software & agreement licence for Mail for Exchange product.

Nokia decided shortly after denouncing internal corporate messaging infrastructure support (Nokia IntelliSync Mobility Suite) and BlackBerry Connect support that they’d be focusing on the lucrative consumer market.

"With the Nokia messaging service, we are going after consumers, we are not going head-to-head with enterprise e-mail. We are trying to put mobile email to the masses, masses of people around the globe," he said.

"The service is up, people are utilising it, we are getting good traction and good follow up," Furlong said, adding the company expects to announce its first revenue-sharing agreements with operators for the messaging service within few months.

Since December 2008, Nokia’s focus on the corporate messaging collaboration service has taken great strides that the S60 community is beginning to see the benefits of; especially when it comes down to the bottom dollar in the this age of slumping markets and low finances.

IN TUNE WITH BUSINESS SENTIMENT

Nokia dropped development of its own corporate email product last year, choosing to partner with Microsoft (MSFT.O) and IBM (IBM.N) instead while focusing on developing phones for business users to better challenge RIM.

Nokia says the two deals enable it to mobilise close to 90 percent of corporate emails without any extra investment from corporations.

"I think that probably the dominant theme in 2009 in enterprises is going to be -- do we have to be spending that much money on that service," Furlong said.

I’ve already blogged about IBM Lotus Traveler, and so far a few reports on the web by Kevin S Pettitt are showing favorable results by this FREE corporate solution for S60; not just E-Series devices!

The other factor that was key to dropping the Blackberry platform altogether was the availability of a much less expensive alternative that still provides the essential "Blackberryesque" features of push email integration with Lotus Domino. I speak of course of Lotus Traveler, which this week was released along with Notes/Domino 8.5. Version 8.5 of Traveler marks a major milestone in the competitive landscape for push email, as it extends its reach to cover millions of Symbian smartphones (aka Nokia S60 based devices) and will put tremendous pressure on RIM considering Traveler is a free add-on to Domino.

The Blackberry TCO gets even more expensive when you want to hook it up to Domino because of the Blackberry Enterprise Server costs. If you do need to go with Blackberry and want to at least avoid the hassle of setting up and maintaining your BES, you might consider the Shared BES offering from Prominic, the wonderful people who host my Domino servers for mail and apps. Prices are inclusive of licensing and start at $150 for setup + $30/month per device (1-2 devices) and drops to as low as $20/month for 11+ devices. They also offer dedicated BES. About $400 per month, plus $10/month/device.

For me [Kevin S Pettitt] these costs would top $500 in the first year alone, which in addition to AT&T's extra charges make the $400 price tag of my unlocked Nokia look pretty reasonable. Of course, you do have to install Traveler somewhere, and it only runs on Windows (Linux Please!). I'll have to check with the Prominic guys to see if they might offer a "Shared Traveler Server" at some point, since my own hosted servers run on Linux. Right now I'm using a spare machine in my home office to serve as the Traveler server. Any way you slice it the expense compares favorably to the Blackberry/BES solution.

As you can see the costs are getting to be pretty favorable from the corporate perspective, and even more so from an end users perspective considering most corporations allow for OWA (Exchange) or iNotes (Domino Web access) and begin to heavily offload the costs of mobile email & collaboration to their employess [incl device costs, data plan costs – corporate price plans still in place, and device upgrade costs]. When end users consider that the Nokia E71, E66, and E63 allow them to keep their work and personal lives separate yet contained and manageable on 1 single device, and the plethora of applications available to them – true productivity applications then its going to be a better cost to implementation and less cost to support the RIM BlackBerry infrastructure and solution.

Fear not for those of you that just ‘must have BlackBerry Connect’ as a solution to your S60 devices.

When focusing on partnering with Microsoft and IBM for corporate mobile email, Nokia last year dropped support for the Blackberry email service, but Furlong said Nokia users would in future be able to use the service again.

"We are in the interim period of time when we have dropped support ourselves, and Blackberry is readying support for their service on Nokia devices," he said.

When it’ll be available is unclear at the present time, as we’ll have to wait for an official announcement from RIM to collaborate this news.

Interview comes courtesy of Tarmo Virki, European technology correspondent, Reuters.

Lotus Traveler on E71 insights come courtesy of Kevin S Pettitt of Lotus Guru.

Round table with Nokia Vice-President - Anssi Vanjoki

2009-01-18T14:58:00.014-05:00

Round table with Nokia Vice-President - Anssi Vanjoki

Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-Review.com had an exclusive interview with the Mr. Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia Vice-President. This interview evoked lots of thoughts for all readers while providing great insight.

One particular question that Eldar Murtazin posed to Nokia Vice-President - Anssi Vanjoki was VERY interesting and enlightening.

Speaking of the financial crisis – will it force Nokia to revise some of your plans regarding new products or market strategy?

A.V. Actually the economic downturn means that we have to speed things up, and instead of freezing some of our projects we need to do exactly the opposite. We have to make sure that all these new services and products launch on schedule, so we are focusing on getting everything done rather than postponing some of our solutions. Another thing about economic downturns is that it's exactly the time when new winners are built and we really want to be among them.

Nokia has not only the expertise, the programmer coder base, but also the finances to deliver low, mid, and top-tier devices and perfect or deliver new services that enable these Web2.0 (Internet & collaboration) devices. Yes Nokia isn't the largest & most powerful phone manufacturer in the world for no reason. Nokia is about Connecting People.

Over the past few years Nokia have been really pushing some of their new products on the US market. Will we see any changes in your US policy down the line, with the financial crisis raging out there?

A.V. I think that we will just continue with our strategy, although a bit faster than before, now that we have invested into a product development center based in San Diego that makes phones for the US alone (we have just started developing two products for Verizon, and more are to come for AT&T), so we are making great progress there, step-by-step.

This is an amazing BRIGHT star in the North American solar system. This brings great news to the delight of the North American marketplace as well as to S60 Ambassadors based here. With more presence of Nokia products - especially on AT&T and Verizon - it give us the ability to better highlight devices to potential users; especially with a subsidized pricing model that presents more value to end users. E71x just being released by AT&T; roughly 2 months after Rogers Wireless shows their efforts in earnest is working to Symbian & Nokia's favor. The Nokia 6555 flip is a great low range offering on AT&T as well.

However, why was there no mention of Rogers Wireless in the North American initiative? Why is it only the US market ever concerned or conceived as a potential marketplace? Does Eldar know that Nokia & Rogers have a strong relationship? Previously Nokia 6620 & 6682 being released here 3yrs ago, and recently Nokia N95-4 with 9 months of GREAT sales success and 3 months with Nokia NGage & Nokia Maps being a collaborative effort of features released to end users on Rogers?? Surely this NGage announcement is a milestone enough for Nokia not to forget.

There is one small segment of Eldar's interview that had me completely in disagreement. It was more of a question that I'm sure needed to be fielded to evoke the correct answer. Today's internet is NO LONGER about Search! This is so 4 years ago and to think that the worlds largest search engine and service provider's core business is around this is ludicrous. Here is a few recent events to back up my claim before I post the article question from Eldar. All the following quotes can be found from Google Finance.

Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc May Walk Away From Search Deal-Reuter
Thursday, 30 Oct 2008 10:00pm EDT
Reuters reported that Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc could announce a decision to walk away from their search deal by the middle of next week. The two Internet companies have so far failed to reach an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice on implementing their search advertising partnership. The deal, which allows Google to sell advertising for some of Yahoo's online advertising space, has drawn fierce criticism from advertisers, who fear higher prices.

Yahoo! Inc. Announces Termination Of Services Agreement By Google Inc.
Wednesday, 5 Nov 2008 10:32am EST
Yahoo! Inc. announced that Google Inc. has terminated the advertising services agreement the companies announced in June. Yahoo! continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court. Google notified Yahoo! of its refusal to move forward with implementation of the agreement following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo!'s proposed revisions to address the DOJ's concerns.

US Judge Gives Initial OK To Google Inc.-Publishers Pact-DJ
Monday, 17 Nov 2008 09:07pm EST
Dow Jones reported that a federal judge granted preliminary approval to a $125 million settlement between Google Inc. and authors and book publishers in lawsuits over digital copies of copyrighted books on the Internet. In an order U.S. District Judge John E. Sprizzo in Manhattan initially signed off on the settlement, in which individuals and institutions will be able to buy online access to copyrighted, out-of-print books through Google. Free access also will be provided to public and higher education libraries under the settlement. A fairness hearing, in anticipation of final approval of the settlement, is scheduled for June 11, 2008.

Here is Eldars question with Mr. Anssi Vanjoki's response; which I might ad is so on point for the direction of Nokia services.

Today’s web environment is more about content search rather than anything else. However, Nokia offers only very basic search capabilities on this front, and it’s clear that you will need to step up your efforts here to remain competitive. What are going to do about your search engines?

A.V. While there are some old-time players out there, that have been around for a very long while (like Google), we believe that Nokia isn’t that far behind in this field, it’s just that we had to start from a totally different position. Speaking of the modern search engines, they aren’t complex at all – to put it simply, they are all about indexing the whole world, every web page and resource. But when we get to coordinates and relationships between people, the algorithms required to carry out semantically important, intelligent searches are still not here, and naturally, we are investing significant resources into this field in an effort to make our vision of the future come true, where Nokia will be coordinating the whole world. And it’s obvious there is no way we can achieve that with technologies as primitive as indexing – we need to invent a way to tie up the user’s real life relationships with his virtual life and this problem is of a completely different scale.

You see, the future of the internet is not simply about search else every mobile device now would be entirely focused around that old concept. Sure every device has it but its NOT the "killer app" nor a major focus. Nokia is going better than that. Nokia's concept of the Web2.0 is for Creation, collaboration, and moving of data. Anything is considered data. Pictures, Videos, A monument, GPS data, eBooks, Music. Now Lets say your on a trip to visit the Taj Mahal. During your trip you take photos & videos and upload them to Ovi & your other community services - Flikr, etc. Although a picture is worth a thousand words, the GPS data embedded compiles those words into a story! Now your blog entry, or memoirs of your trip tell more, along with music tied to the Indian culture, the history of the Taj Mahal - video of the Taj Mahal with pictures tell its elevation, height, and with Notes from the tour guide tells MORE of tis history showing about its creators, reason for being created, place among nearby historical structures, and place in modern day structures of its home city & people. This is creating web2.0, and collaborating amongst users will to browse & experience your content. The goal of web services is to be what Brainiac was to Cryton in the Superman comics. Basic Internet search is what we have with Google's search site. IF Google has moved into Maps, Google Apps, and now Google Books & Financial data; search will always be there, but its no longer the driving vision of the internet that it once was.

Lastly, I'm ecstatic over their current silence - Nothing I can talk about - regarding Video as a service and offering!

Video uploads to Ovi
Ability to share over a WLAN/HSPA connection (LTE providers awaiting the fruits of such a service). Downloading or renting movie, cartoon, and special broadcast content. HBO is PRIMED for such a business partnership. Video is PERFECT for a rental service - with specific episode, movie and TV show downloads. Not ALL video content users wish to completely own although it would be nice. I'd like to see Disney, HBO, Pixar, CNBC, Reuters, BBCNews, and other content providers around the world - ESPECIALLY in other countries and languages partner with Nokia. Nokia's video service can be unique because with a partnership with BBCNews - users can contribute to their local content wiht their Nokia S60 N/E-Series phones. Nokia could go further and allow user created content to be uploaded to their service - or even to Youtube and similar services for a sharing fee with a percentage payable to N/E-Series users that create the content to be shared.

The biggest benefit for such a service is if Nokia begins to utilize 3D Video encoding/decoding chips in future products; especially ones that support 4:3 & 16:9 aspect ratio's with XVGA recording (30fps) and TV Out at such a resolution to a TV or HDTV.

Those are my weekend thoughts. Please feel free to comment on them here.

Nokia Concept: Phones without chargers

2009-01-17T00:50:00.007-05:00

Nokia began a big research & campaign on recycling that only recently is showing its fruits. Nokia’s global consumer survey reveals that 44% of old mobile phones are lying in drawers at home and not being recycled. Take a peek at Nokia’s latest survey, shows why only 3% of people recycle their mobile phones globally. Recycling means we don’t need to extract and refine as much material for new products, saving energy, chemicals and waste. If every Nokia user recycled just one unused phone at the end of its life, together we would save nearly 80,000 tonnes of raw materials. Nokia first began with packaging of their phones. (Packaging and user guides can be recycled at your local recycling scheme). Recently, Nokia is considering a new Concept Phones without chargers.

The first is already going to be reality with the N79 Eco, which is available for pre-order through Nokia's UK online shop and ships without a charger. Customers are expected to retain the charger from their previous Nokia device. The concept is part of a trial to save energy and reduce waste and is part of Nokia's power of we: strategy. Nokia will, for each N79 Eco sold, donate £4 to the WWF (a global conservation organization). It is likely the phone will be pre-loaded with 'power of we:' content - already available to existing users through Download! The Nokia N79 Eco costs the same as the regular N79 in the online shop - £319. This is an EXCELLENT concept and one I believe we’ll see more of. However it’s still only a stop gap solution.

Nokia really needs to consider the real cause for the need of this initiative is their worldwide dominance. Nokia makes several kinds of chargers for each model of their phones that is shipped worldwide. Many of these chargers are bulky – and many users that have used previous Nokia phones have kept their chargers, and batteries that work, hoping to be used in a new model. Unfortunately a major dent into Nokia’s Power of We: strategy is that not ALL these chargers are the same size for the majority of phones they’ve made in the past 2yrs to current date. And of those chargers that ARE the same plug size into the phone, the charge they give is very different. Case in point: My previous Nokia E71 has the same wall charger & plug as my daughters Nokia 6085 (flip), and my wife’s former 5300 Xpress Music ALL have different charges going to the phone and thus is incompatible!!

Nokia needs to STOP making so many varying chargers and charging ratings to the phones. They can still make varying capacities of batteries as the design of the phones will dictate the need for shape, charge capacity, and ultimate design thereof. However, 1 simple charge (be it voltage, mAh, watts) should be, in earnest, considered. Why?? Insane you say?

Consider this. Nokia can begin to design a MicroUSB to standard USB2.0 cable for ALL their future phones. This allows phones to be charged via a simple cable connected to the desktop/laptop PC in markets like UK, USA, and Canada. This allows for costs to drop, efficient computer charging & auto charge shut off can be done on the device. Some may think that it takes away from it being a mobile computer; or does it?! The wall charger with same MicroUSB port CAN be done for ALL models, which reduces costs and waste. Waste is reduced in the future because anyone with a world phone while roaming can purchase a charger without worrying about if the charge not only FITS, but will correctly charge the phone. Make the wall connection port a small unit with a small sliding connection to change its ability to be used universally around the world. MicroUSB cables are cheaper to make, currently available in most European & North American countries where the PS3 Sixaxis controller is sold as it’s the SAME cable. Lastly it’s easier to recycle. This allows for future phones to be sold without chargers for any user will to upgrade, and allows for users of recent Motorola RAZR phones, or RIM phones to switch over and not feel the pain of looking for a charger in emerged markets. Add to this, the ability for accessories not made for a 3.5, or 2.5mm headset jack or wireless nature can interface via the MicroUSB connection. Smart & eco friendly!

Nokia E71 Beautiful Connections

2009-01-13T20:26:00.016-05:00

Nokia has begun another E71 compaign, "Nokia E71 Beautiful Connections".

In this new product compaign over at http://www.nokia.co.uk/e71, Nokia aims to highlight 4 artists and their rendition of impressions & experiences over using the Nokia E71 - that they chose to share.

Now because its coming from artists and with such a limited audio and visual timeline to convey to us all - and to future S60 users, its done very artistic and esthetically. Rightfully so as the E71 itself is a work of art.

E71 a communication powerhouse! I myself recall just how powerful it was. It was the primary reason I upgraded from a simple feature phone to this masterpiece. Most smartphones forget to be what is important at its core - being a phone. The E71 traverses this boundary by being an excellent phone, but with the built in Contacts application searching for your saved contacts or dialing phone numbers (including ones with letters in dialing) it allows you the user to do so with simplicity. Email personal email in powerful IMAP push support natively is more than adequate but most of all (with your data plan) is FREE. No costly dedicated data plan like others entrenched in the marketplace hold you to. Should a cheaper data plan be available from your provider - you're not limited to specific choices due to a proprietary non open handset.

The E71 is a work of art. Everywhere I went it striked up conversations and on lookers asking about where to buy it, what can it do, and surprise at how THIN it is.

For such a successful device, and the power of software to enhance it, its no wonder its Nokia's best selling qwerty device.

Visit http://www.nokia.co.uk/e71 and take a look at the new E71 campaign and download the videos if you wish.

The Next Movement: Nokia S60

2009-01-11T18:05:00.007-05:00

Yes. Its beginning. Many S60 faithful users have seen it, adn only over the past few months (S60 Ambassadors initially) being vocal about it.

Stagnation

Many users of the N95 especially are still grasping on 'old-faithful', because from all manufacturers, nothing has been presented with such greatness! The N95 was a bold move a departure from the previous smartphone crowd it offered to be the jack of all trades while being exceptional at so many!

Today the defining moment for smartphones is NOT hardware (HW). Almost every manufacturer has the HW to compete with one another. High megapixel cameras, on screen photo editing, music playback + playslists, mulit-tasking/processors, 30-fps video recording (QVGA/HVGA/VGA), and TV-Out (still considered a luxury) are all apart of the competitions offerings. Many of Nokia's competitors are just catching up, on par with, or exceed in some way of these functions of hardware.

Hardware will become less & less the defining function of consumer or corporate purchases. Many devices with Windows Mobile have dual-core cpu's running at 1.3-2.2x the frequency highest used by any S60 device (369Mhz). Roughly 2 HTC devices employ dual-core cpu's running at 624-824Mhz speeds. Less than 8 years ago desktops where just hitting 1Ghz speeds. However although what choice of hardware will still play a partial, yet small role in our future purchases, the defining moment in smartphones is elsewhere.

Previously, the uptake in smartphones has been about software. Even today, no users (business/consumer) having a choice of their main smartphone will consider a platform without a plethora of software to support it & the users primary uses. All smartphones offer software as part of the core OS to fulfill a users primary uses. Most will come with trial software, or fully activated 3rd party productivity software to enhance a users capabilities. Most of these are stripped and replaced with branded links to a providers own sourced software to keep subsidized costs down. Without a wide range of quality & useful software, a smartphone cannot be considered as such, so what is the NOW?!

Going into 2H 2009 the main focus for selling & purchasing smartphones is Services & embracing the internet or Web2.0. Services will define how or why we purchase our smartphones! A Service is what is offered to the end user daily over of the course of ownership of their device (typically 6mths - 1yr). This includes Help (built in & contextual or online), PIM synchronization (beyond local wired/wireless connection), Music/Video services (subscription/purchase, exploring new talent/artists), Email & IM for Everyone (personal/corporate; from just about any source/industry), and finally Social.

Many within the industry claim to be experts or blog about specific components of services the competition offers. Only 1 has got the idea right from day one. Nokia! Nokia from day one was prepared for this tough economic times by creating smartphones for various target markets worldwide. However Nokia has stepped up their game. Creating Mail for Exchange (MfE) a software to work with the corporate MS Exchange Server service so many people use around the world. Signing a HUGE deal & expanding on it allowing it to be used on ALL of their S60 devices. Lets not forget about the ground breaking IBM Lotus Traveler for those on Domino Server, as well as Nokia Messaging for the rest of us wanting personal email pushed to our mobiles. Nokia didn't stop there, they created Ovi. Ovi is more than a web portal - its a synchronization service allowing the backup of PIM, Photos (also allowing sharing), and Video all sourced by your PC or from your device. Only 1 competitor offers this and its an afterthought for end users. For computers Apple solved a great problem that should be second nature to users of PC's for any extended time (avg 5yrs+); backup your data. Today users STILL have issues remembering when to backup their data on their PC's so how often do manufacturers think they'd do so with their smartphones? Turns out its rarely ever done. Do you see now how Services will define how you purchase your next smartphone?!

The ability to connect & convey the internet revolution/evolution has been king on the S60 for just under a 4 years and failed by many. However this is not the new paradigm that will change how we use our smartphones.

Web2.0. Web2.0 is how we input, move, delete or replace, or interact with our data online. Many of us and increasingly more of us live in the Social world. This will never go away, only change. The social or web2.0 paradigm is at the heart of what makes us human and at the heart of Nokia's slogan "Connecting People".

Web2.0 will allow us to communicate, share, create, or move data amongst ourselves & our peers. Either traditionally through a web browser (OSS Webkit) or through a various ingeniously designed widgets. Widgets can powerfully & efficiently convey just the information you need at a quick glance while allowing you to update data or interact within your social group. Nokia has had great experiences with Conversations, Share on Ovi, Nokia Chat, Mobile WebServer, and Sports Tracker/Vine. Simply posting your photo, or updating your status will not be enough for future users of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social online communities. But more and more sharing your data (experiences, poetry, photos/videos, an Email, etc) will more & more be integrated into these social communities (directly: supported by them as a service, or indirectly: supported by your smartphone). As you can see S60 is not a data consumption or data mover device like the iPhone platform waiting to be obsolete. S60 & the upcoming Symbian Foundation is primed for data consumption, sharing, moving & interaction. It always has been and always will be no matter the form of data you use.

Finding your data can be done in an applications such as S60's Search on all of Nokia's smarpthones (data is data so local or online is both integrated. Palm claims that mobile is in their DNA, but they're still playing catchup). Apple just in the last 2 weeks recently announced that their iTunes music service will be available on their iPhones via 3G not just WLAN. Another afterthought! Nokia has & is already offering "Comes with Music" on a range of 3 smartphones in various marketplaces worldwide that is accessible on your PC/Mac (via Internet) or on your smartphone (3G/WLAN) or directly connected to your PC.

IBM Lotus Traveler p2!

2008-12-26T00:53:00.003-05:00

IBM Lotus Traveler II

I've got some more details on the S60 implementation of Lotus Notes Traveler v8.5, and its looking VERY good indeed!

Nokia S60 device support

Lotus Notes Traveler 8.5 is now supported on Nokia S60 devices.
Lotus Notes Traveler provides the following functions for Nokia S60 devices:

* Automatic, two-way, over-the-air synchronization for e-mail, calendar, tasks, and contacts
* One-way synchronization from server to device for Notebook entries
* Read / Unread mark updates
* Full Email retrieval for truncated mail messages
* Attachment synchronization
* Data filtering options for email, calendar, and tasks
* Automated and manual problem reporting
* Email folder management
* Calendar invitation processing
* Integration with Lotus Mobile Connect

Using a Nokia S60 device

IBM Lotus Notes Traveler supports Nokia manufactured devices running the following operating system versions:

* Series 60 3rd edition
* Series 60 3rd edition feature pack 1
* Series 60 3rd edition feature pack 2

Lotus Notes Traveler for S60 client requires approximately 1 MB of free storage on the device to install Lotus Notes Traveler. If you need to collect traces or logs, you will need up to another 2 MB of free main device storage. Storage required for PIM and e-mail data is not included in the estimates and varies by user depending on how much data you are synchronizing to the device. Note that if you need to download the SIS install file to main device storage, then you will need an additional 1 MB of storage to hold the installation image. However the SIS file can be deleted after installation.

All delivery methods of downloading the Lotus Notes Traveler client installation file to a mobile device are supported. The following list includes some of the methods:

* Over-the-air (OTA) connect to the Client Download Web site
* Nokia PC Suite
* e-mail attachment
* Bluetooth
* Infrared
* Removable memory card

Use the following steps to install Lotus Notes Traveler Client from the Client Download Web site:

1. Power on the mobile device.
2. Launch the browser.
3. Point the browser to the Client Download Web site. Example of client download Web site URL: http:///traveler/index.html
4. Optional: Download the bootstrap file. The file can be placed in any location under the C:/Data or storage card.
5. Select Lotus Traveler 8.5 for Nokia Series 60.
6. Transfer the file to your mobile device.
7. Select Yes to install.
8. Select Continue.
9. When the installation is complete, the Lotus Notes Traveler configuration wizard starts.
10. Select Next to begin registering the Lotus Notes Traveler client.
11. Enter the following data:
* In the User ID field enter any valid Domino user name.
* In the Password field enter Domino HTTP password.
* In the Server field enter the Lotus Notes Traveler server host name.
* In the Access Point field select WLAN, GPRS, or Mobility Client.
12. Select Next.
13. Select the applications you wish to synchronize and select Next.
14. Select Finish and device synchronization will start.

Instructions for uninstalling IBM Lotus Notes Traveler client from the mobile device.

1. Select Menu > Applications.
2. Highlight IBM Lotus Notes Traveler.
3. Select Options > Remove.
4. Select Yes to remove application from phone.

Initiating manual synchronization

Follow these steps to manually synchronize:

1. Open Lotus Notes Traveler.
2. Select Options.
3. Select Sync Now.

Turning on or off automatic synchronization

Follow these steps to turn on automatic synchronization:

1. Open Lotus Notes® Traveler.
2. Select Options.
3. Select Auto Sync.
4. Select On or Off.

** Configuring the Client

Selecting mail for synchronization

Use the following steps to select mail for synchronization:

1. Open Lotus Notes® Traveler.
2. Select Options.
3. Select Settings.
4. Select Mail.
5. In the Sync mail field select On.
6. Select Done to save and close.

Steps for selecting contact and notebook entries for synchronization.

Use the following steps to select contacts and notebook entries for synchronization:

1. Open Lotus Notes® Traveler.
2. Select Options.
3. Select Settings.
4. Select Other Applications.
5. In the Sync Contacts field select On.
6. In the Sync Notes field select On.
7. Select Done to save and close.

** Configuring Home Screen

When Lotus Notes Traveler is installed, it will add the Lotus Traveler Mailbox to the Home Screen. For some devices, such as E71 and E66 series, you can configure the settings of the Home Screen application.

For E71 and E66 series devices you can configure the Home Screen to show only the mailbox on the Home Screen, or show the mailbox and unread e-mail headers.

Use the following steps to configure the Home Screen:

1. Select Menu.
2. Select Tools.
3. Select Settings.
4. Select General.
5. Select Personalisation.
6. Select Home Screen > Mode settings > Home Screen applications.

As you can see both IBM & Nokia have been hard at work and getting this application up and running in just shy of 2mths. This feature set is functionally on par with that of WM 6.1 Professional & Smartphone Edition devices & with RIM Blackberry platform devices.

Now if only I can get another S60 device, as I had to sell my beloved, yes beloved E71. My contract was up for my job and financial times as they are currently I needed to help the family out - kids needed a little something and the wife needed a small gift. This year I'm going to make it up to them BIG time and S60 is going to be there along the way taking those photos, videos, and lovely moments of happy times ahead.

Nokia Barcode - Thoughts.

2008-12-14T19:35:00.000-05:00

Many of you are owners of a Nokia S60 device. Some of you have the Nokia E71/E66 where the Barcode application is part of the firmware stock applications, and others have the N95 (various models) where you've downloaded this innovative application.

Personally I have yet to fully use it in real situation - other than just curiousity. However more & more companies are taking interest in the ability of phones with camera's to be able to read barcodes - specifically of the Datamatrix type (full credit for great explaination goes to Blazersforever on HowardForums site;

The barcode reader is designed to read Datamatrix codes, not UPC barcodes.
http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/
Here's a software to create your own codes:
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/service/imode/make/content/barcode/download/index.html

Over on that site, fellow S60 user JP started a great thread just over a year back (yeah I totally missed it), that he's updated with Pepsi beginning to take interest with a USA based ad campaign. Ricky Cadden, a fellow & well respected (by myself & S60 users in general) posted an interesting observation, that contacts within Nokia & fellow bloggers are beginning to have their business cards use this technology! Great & inspiring way to utilize a simple technology & invite others to investigate it > very "word of mouth" like.

Rcadden's post on HoFo led me to quickly & randomly post off my thoughts on this that I felt I should actually share with those of you that actually read this blog - if only in passing or by mistake (I thank you all)!

To paraphrase my own post (I am Prom1 on HowardForums.com) ...

What would be the next move for Nokia to push this code more and show its usefulness?!
1> All events should have posters with working 2D Barcodes. Events, blogs (RCadden you hearing this ;) ), contests for the curious, and even a treasure hunt page to a limited very sought after gift. Or links to mobile pages for recent services. Of a free extended trial of Files on Ovi, Nokia Maps for 1 region, etc.

2> Contacts to be further updated in newer firmware for S60 3rd Edition or 5th Edition (or software add-on). Contacts can now have users in 3 clicks (Contacts> Options> Send My Business Card) to send your contact info if saved: Name, Phone #'s, Email, & your 2D Card which internal software can decipher to open a link - hidden on Ovi (or selectable by the user to be public) - to save contact info to the phone & on your own Ovi (recipient).

3> 2D Bar codes on phone packaging that automatically activates the phones' warranty - and if selected offers extended info, specific updates to Download! on that phone only, maybe an offer for discount on 3rd party software (a code) or Nokia Accessories.

That is the power of marketing. I should really blog these random ideas from now on.

So I figured I would.

IBM Lotus Notes Traveler, coming to an S60 device near you!

2008-12-11T12:43:00.000-05:00

Lotus Traveler - Hero

Due to the changing economy and more competitive environment in business messaging, Nokia made an intelligent decision to revamp their business line of S60 devices (E71, E66, etc), and to refocus their business strategy. The first was the stop trying to compete for wireless collaboration & device management in the corporate product & services field. Existing deals would continue to be supported (IntelliSync), however competing and giving more revenue to a major growing competitor & very established in this field – RIM – did not seem a logical choice going forward. Recent software, Mail for Exchange – is very well received, after finally making it available for over 23 devices in the market place, based on the S60 platform. Mail for Exchange, and 3rd party software RoadSync are enabled through existing Microsoft Push Email & PIM Sync technologies via Exchange 2003 SP2 & Exchange 2007 is enough to make RIM squirm or at least take significant notice that Nokia’s decision to cancel further BBConnect development & licensing was not a half-baked decision. Later this month, Lotus Notes Traveler will finally be available – more on this significant news shortly.

Notes Traveler - Nokia Messaging Application view.

Although Nokia MfE & DataViz RoadSync is enough for RIM to take notice about Nokia’s endeavors for their E-Series & S60 platform, I’m sure RIM & their BES development team is going to stand at attention now that the cost of BES on Domino has a viable competition. Like MfE & RoadSync – Notes Traveler syncs Email (incl. Attachments), Contacts, Calendar, but also Journal & To-Do lists on any S60 3rd Edition device. Once installed – a Lotus Domino administrator can quickly setup the server to allow for secure synchronization. With E-Series built-in mobile lock & wipe settings (done over OTA), along with Device & Memory Card Encryption, this gives soho and medium (500 employees) business something to consider as a viable solution to their existing infrastructure. Not to mention, a full J2ME compatible SameTime Collaboration IM client – the same for BlackBerry’s & Windows Mobile devices – is also available for the E-Series devices.

IBM Lotus Traveler - S60.

IBM’s site as well as Nokia for Business sites has been updated on the upcoming IBM Lotus Notes Traveler application. Including screenshots.

Nokia extends IBM Lotus email access to 80 million mobile phones.

Lotus Notes Traveler

Notes Traveller - Configuration Wizard

Notes Traveller - Inbox

Notes Traveller - Calendar
Here you can see that it effectively & elegantly uses the E-Series new built-in Calendar.

Notes Traveler - Compose

Please note that Nokia’s IntelliSync – although no longer fully developed & sold to corporate business’, still lives. The latest report that I’m able to find is with the following press release.

http://www.nokia.ca/A4490005?newsid=-12727

Nokia’s Intellisync wireless email solution gives Bell Mobility the opportunity to offer its wireless clients a robust email solution that can be deployed on many devices,” said Jay Burrell, VP North America, Business Mobility, Nokia. “With Mobile email, users have the flexibility to access their emails anywhere and any time.”

Nokia Intellisync wireless email will allow Bell Mobility clients to have a fully synchronized, real-time email experience on their mobile devices by managing their corporate mailboxes remotely. Users can compose, read, forward, delete and reply to emails, as well as create, download and view, and also upload attachments. With bidirectional synchronization, users will not have to go back to their PCs to manage their mailboxes; tasks that are performed on the mobile device are synchronized with the server and are reflected each time the user checks his email on his PC, and vice versa.

“Our Mobile email service delivers a full-featured and secure email experience that's similar to that of a desktop email service," said Adel Bazerghi, Vice-President - Products for Bell Mobility. "This service offers our clients both convenience and ease of use in accessing their email in virtual real-time from their mobile phone."

Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email is part of the Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite that provides access to powerful collaboration tools such as email, contacts, calendar, device management and synchronization of files. Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email works on multiple groupware environments – ISP, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes or Novell Groupwise and can run on virtually any kind of device platform – Symbian, Windows Mobile or J2ME. Offering unmatched multi-device support, the Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite is a leading "white label" or private label wireless email and Personal Information Management (PIM) solution
Also note: Yahoo is one of the internet providers that uses Intellisync products. AutoSync Yahoo is a product written by Intellisync to sync Yahoo contacts, notes, calendars and tasks with Outlook Express and MS Outlook. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IntelliSync

Nokia Messaging.

2008-12-11T12:08:00.000-05:00

Nokia World 2008!

Wow! Such a powerful stance of Nokia making email messaging available for everyone! Currently free in beta form, and under the name Nokia Email Beta, messaging will harness the power of Nokia’s previous expertise, application prowess, and massive user base to deploy wireless email to millions, sorry billions of people across the world. What is even more impressive, is their ability, drive, and focus to bring it not only to users on S60 platform, but also to those users that prefer S40 phones by Nokia. Let’s take a look at Nokia Email Beta’s (ie Nokia Messaging) early beginnings.

The Intellisync Corporation is a provider of Data and PIM Synchronization software for mobile devices. The company was formed after the San Jose, California, based Pumatech acquired the Alpharetta, Georgia based Synchrologic in late 2003 and renamed itself in 2004. The company has won several awards for its mobile software and data synchronization software. Its primary competitor is Research in Motion. On January 31, 2006, stockholder approval was secured for Intellisync to be acquired by Nokia. On February 10, 2006, Nokia formally completed its acquisition of IntelliSync. Alright, so now you're aware of the technology behind Nokia Email Beta, something I was correct and the first to post on Symbian-Freak, HowardForums & blog about here.

From the more recent versions for the handheld, it was very business, no non-sense focused and straight to the point. I liked this approached and preferred it to the recent flashy GUI layout of Nokia Email Beta that responds somewhat slowly through transitions. From many years of support with the Blackberry platform I find it to be very competitive and productive vs the Nokia Email Beta layout. However, I’ve seen screenshots that contradict one another as I’m unsure which is the version in the first 3 screenshots vs. last screenshot.

Attachment Handling - looking like the native E71 email layout.

Reading Email layout is just simply perfect, not overdone.

This Nokia IntelliSync Mobile; looks more like the current Nokia Email Beta.

As you can see the differences in the layouts make a huge difference in productivity versus aesthetics. It’ll be curious to see if the last screenshot above – Nokia IntelliSync Mobile – is what Nokia Beta evolves to when it becomes Nokia Messaging – effectively syncing with Ovi. I feel the direct & efficient approach to messaging and calendaring that won the E71 & E66 so many accolades and immense sales (E71 is THE best selling qwerty device Nokia has ever made, btw) should not be deviated, especially if Nokia wishes to be taken seriously in the business field. Your opinion may vary.

A major change next year is that Nokia Email Beta growing up to Nokia Messaging is to finally, FINALLY allow for MSN Hotmail Email to be pushed & synced. Not only this, but AIM, and Yahoo IM is also going to be apart of Nokia Messaging. This is not a simple upgrade of the software but a MAJOR overhaul & endeavor! Something very much welcomed. Will it be free, nobody is certain - but an online interface for managing all your mail in one site will become apart of Nokia Ovi! Hopefully it'll be very simple, powerful, and look more fluid than what Google/Yahoo have done to import email from other providers on their sites. The ability to MSN/AIM/Yahoo IM is not just for S60 users, but also to S40 users are invited to the party! This effectively opens up Instant Messaging as a potential to taking over SMS as a priority form of efficient, and personal communications between people over the world – both mobile, stationary (PC), or semi-mobile (laptop).

MSN Live Hotmail

AOL Email

Gmail

Nokia Messaging IM Layout

AIM in use on S40.

IntelliSync footnote:
Nokia has announced that the IntelliSync Desktop product has been discontinued and the last date available to order the product is July 19, 2008. Product support will be provided thru July 19, 2010 if eligible for support. Nokia IntelliSync is a very powerful server & client application with many different components – however it has evoled.

Nokia - a shining Giant in a quickly shrinking world of crisis.

2008-12-05T01:48:00.000-05:00

Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Save the Children Finland in Partnership to Provide Water, Sanitation and Health Education to Alaba Special Woreda

The collaboration between Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Save the Children Finland was initiated as a response to the urgent needs of children and their families in Alaba Special Woreda, an area which is severely dependent on rainfall and, where people are forced to travel every day over 20km to fetch water during dry seasons.

"This partnership emanates from the belief that the solutions to emergency situations have to be driven by long-term sustainable efforts that centre on community upliftment," emphasized Micheline Ntiru, Head of Community Involvement, Nokia Middle East and Africa. "Forging partnerships with the local government and community is paramount to bringing meaningful change in any community."

"Children form the most vulnerable group that is worst affected by the current emergency, therefore our partnership strives to strengthen their right and access to water and sanitation, as well as enhance the livelihoods of the community," explains Dr. Tibebu Bogale, Save the Children Finland's Country Director in Ethiopia. "The project aims to improve the lives of thousands of children and adults with sustainable results that will allow new community development initiatives to be undertaken in the future."

THIS is a company that spends its money not greedily on its CEO's but ALSO on the needy people of the world that have NO chance in buying ANY of its products/services - and THIS in such a world financial crisis after not only announcing global sales of cellphones will drastically drop (makes sense why the N97 will not ship till 2nd QTR of 2009) but also that global marketshare and projected/estimated revenues to drop as well.

I don't see ANY company like this delivering advances in cellular collboration, education in communication - that Nokia World 2008 keynotes blew me away, but also not needing to advertise on human events like this. THIS makes me definately think more about Nokia's slogan in such broad avenues - truely helping people communicate - on need for survival on this one.

Nokia - a shining Giant in a quickly shrinking world of crisis.

Nokia extends IBM Lotus email access to 80 million mobile phones

2008-11-20T10:21:00.001-05:00

BIG News Mobile Email Addicts!!

Enough to put a thump in RIMM's stock price - even just a notch!

S60, Symbian's largest available OS on the largest selection of Handhelds just got a JOLT of caffeine! Thats right Nokia just announced, along with IBM that Lotus Notes will be accessible on the platform beginning next month!

Personally with IntelliSync no longer supported and myself working for a company that prides itself in security of mobile database integration & collaboration, not just email - Lotus Notes is HUGE!

Here is the details:

http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1271807
&
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4AJ4Z120081120

Nokia extends IBM Lotus email access to 80 million mobile phones
November 20, 2008

Lotus Notes Support for Nokia S60 Devices Expands Market Opportunity

Espoo, Finland and Armonk, NY, USA - Nokia and IBM today announced IBM Lotus Notes support for a number of Nokia's S60-based mobile phones, meaning that millions of Lotus Notes users are now able to access email with their Nokia devices. This also represents a significant market opportunity for IBM Lotus Notes -- which has 140 million licensed users -- with many Nokia customers now able to purchase Lotus Notes and access its collaboration capabilities on the go.

With this announcement, more than 80 million people - the number of Nokia S60 3rd Edition devices shipped globally* - can connect to corporate email accounts via Lotus Domino Server software known as Lotus Notes Traveler. This software provides real time access to email, calendar, address book, journal and to-do list data and will be available for Nokia devices in December 2008.

According to IBM's Institute for Business Value, this year, for the first time, more people in the world will have a mobile device than a land-line telephone. IBM predicts one billion mobile Web users by 2011 and a significant shift in the way the majority of people will interact with the Web over the next decade. In fact, mobile devices now outnumber television sets, credit cards and personal computers.

"This is another strong affirmation of our business mobility vision, which is to establish partnerships with the world's leading enterprise vendors. This collaboration means nearly 90 percent of business email can be mobilized with Nokia devices, without needing to purchase additional servers, middleware or licenses. With the presence, position and technology that IBM have in the corporate email market, they are an essential partner for us in enterprise," says Soren Petersen, senior vice president, Nokia. "People need to be connected to their email, information and network when they are out of the office and that has to be done conveniently and on their terms. Lotus Notes Traveler for Nokia devices is a great example of that."

"We are excited about IBM's growing relationship with Nokia and what this does for the build-out of the mobile Web," said Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president of IBM Lotus Software. We are literally freeing millions of people using Nokia's Symbian platform from having to rely on a desktop or laptop to access their important business communications. Working with the market leader like Nokia is a natural fit for attaining IBM's goals of maintaining the flow of business, regardless of time, distance or location -- all for no additional charge for both of our companies' current customers and a new opportunity for new customers."

This announcement is a major development in IBM's efforts to expand mobile support for the Lotus software portfolio. The ability to connect securely to business email is an example of Tomorrow at Work, an IBM initiative that examines a changing work environment and anticipates trends in technology, business, society and culture. Other IBM Lotus technologies that can be mobilized for anytime anywhere work include Lotus Sametime for instant messaging and unified communications, Lotus Connections for enterprise social networking and Lotus Quickr for social content sharing.

*The number of Nokia S60 devices shipped as of the end of July 2008

Nokia Unloader - Reduce the Strain of Your Office Stress!

2008-11-04T22:34:00.000-05:00

I LOVE this humorous Ad campaign!

Its smart, and purely fun to go through for those that work in tech support or are analysts or associates that negotiate deals for 15hrs a week and hit their peak of stress.

Follow the link; and many thanks Symbian-Freak!

Symbian Foundation & S60 - Mobile App/Social Store.

2008-11-01T22:42:00.000-04:00

Symbian Foundation & S60 NEED to innovate on the App store stage.

There is something manufacturers are doing recently that is waking up for the programming & user communities alike. At first it looked like a fad that the iPhone ushered in, until a fairly unknown non-professional programmer made over $1 million in sales for her application that was submitted in the ‘App Store’.

Yes, that’s right this App Store for smartphones is not a fad! However, the way they’re designed and implemented is still sort of a joke to those Smartphone consumers looking for more than just games or the 1/5 utilities offered. It’s more of an insult than a joke to long time Symbian users on many fronts; the most insulting is that the App Store or S60’s Download! Application (it’s been around for years now), does not offer very well known or unknown & powerful applications, utilities, nor support the entrepreneur/student programmer.

Offering an App Store is not done first by Apple & the iPhone, as Nokia’s Download! Debuted some time prior. RIM has recently made their version of it for the BlackBerry, but went one step further by allowing providers have their own app store for their offerings (apps, themes, ringtones, wallpapers, video clips, etc). My E71 has browser bookmarks, preloaded by Nokia, for themes, wallpapers, ringtones – yet when I load them the site is a dead end, informing me no content is available and to try again later. When on Earth is later, I get this same message for 2mths now! If I didn’t have such strong communities like Symbian-Freak, All about Symbian, and HowardForums, I wouldn’t be able to find applications, let alone the names of them to utilize (for a Google/yahoo search) the full capabilities on my S60 powerhouse.

A Smartphone is only as good as the apps available/compatible for it, and that its user can find to use (purchase/freeware download)! Other than that it’s just a glorified feature phone.

With this in mind there are some things that the S60 community, Nokia and the upcoming Symbian Foundation need, nah, MUST do for S60’s dominance, elegance, and power to truly shine in the face of a struggling market and with new competition (Apple OS, Android OS, LiMo Foundation).

I’m taking it upon myself and the Nokia Ambassadors to work together to compile an efficient repository list of S60 applications. We should also post this list on forums – which most of the most popular applications have already been done but in a more unified, updated, and efficient format. This would be easier, not just ourselves, but also for those newer users coming to S60 to find or be introduced to. This list should also define the versions (in a simplistic way, not overkill) that are compatible with the range of phones or that suit the phones due to resolution (not so relevant yet), screen orientation, and input orientation (if needed).

For example:

The first screen, when launched to show the 5 newest offered, and the 5 most downloaded for the week. Yes the week, not the month. A Second screen/page, showing

Applications:
1. Utilities
2. Communications
3. Office
4. GPS
5. Media
6. Social & Web
7. Games & NGage
Themes & Wallpapers:
1. Landscape
2. Portrait
Etc.

For example. Office can contain applications such as email, document conversion, or VoIP applications.

Applications> Office> Email:
Nokia Email Beta,
Nokia MfE (Mail for Exchange),
LonelyCat Games ProfiMail,
Good Technologies Good Messaging,
DataViz RoadSync.

Now we all know that email based applications are best suitable or used on a QWERTY device like the E71. Sure T9 S60 users will standup here and state predictive text is very fast but it also available on the E71. That said how many are aware of LonelyCat Games’ ProfiMail? For so long its offered HTML email, and been the staple of mobile email for any Smartphone & on S60 for years. Why? Because this application was designed for the Joystick, D-pad S60 user in mind before any S60 QWERTY device existed. Simple things like highlighting an email and previewing it at the bottom of the screen, pressing Right on the Dad to advance the preview. Same manner to move through its settings menu or better yet its robust and sleek bundled file manager Xplore is a dream using the D-pad I rarely if at all use the shortcuts. Yes it’s that efficient, to view, preview, and move files with 1 handed operation. So in the “Symbian & You Store” there should be a little blurb stating something to this effect about this application, not just what specs (like HTML, integrate with themes, etc) it can do. Much like a condensed mini review. The real review can be saved for users on the forums & sites I mentioned above. Beta apps always will have a home on such sites like Symbian-Freak, because well only the die-hards that must have the best will try it and report to those of us awaiting such goods. Programming companies need to offer incentives to users like this to get the best & most in-depth feedback as possible, making the applications more robust for the end user.

Now if the future mobile S60 store – I couldn’t come up with a better name, yet – shouldn’t just offer applications. Nokia needs to move to make their Ovi service capable with all current S60 devices & users, and open up to Symbian Foundation for future Symbian based devices. I’m talking about a well designed – even better than what I’ve laid out – store that not only offers Applications, Themes, Games, and wallpapers, but also that abilities that Nokia S60 users are already enjoying .. Share on Ovi. Ovi has and can fully become a Social, Backup/Restore, integrated space for the mobile Symbian user base.

Imagine not only purchasing, or downloading free Symbian applications, but also having access to backup your phones content (Network or WLAN), restoring into a new phone, purchasing music 1 track, album, or soundtrack at a time, but also the chance to register your phone for Nokia’s Comes with Music 1yr service. Of course Comes with Music should only be available to other phone models & users within the first 30days of purchase & using the phone on a network, as your phones warranty is done then. Sharing your photos and uploading comments is great on Ovi, but its quickly becoming something like a mobile Facebook. Soon users will be able to upload a site on Ovi, users could make a call to their friends, family and fellow community entourage and be forwarded to a visual site voicemail. They would also during leaving that video voicemail, interact with that persons mobile site, even upload content/details – just in case other members need that info, or the person is tied up in a meeting/date yet still has access to the web on their Symbian phone. The possibilities are boundless!

However, these imaginations, and thoughts of mine are very capable on the S60 and future Symbian Foundation platform, yet can only be achieved by those in power willing to offer us more than the competition and improve our experience. There are many more markets where Symbian or S60 is barely a whisper to the common user, where they think the best a Smartphone can be is the iPhone, never knowing so much more can be done and better suited to their lifestyle, opening up windows, doors, leaping boundaries.

To truly make this mobile store the greatest the mobile industry, and financial investors can see is the sheer breadth and wealth of applications available, but not just from large companies like DataViz, QuickOffice, Good Technologies, or Nokia itself. This mobile store should also embrace freeware, shareware, and other application bases available like Python environment apps, and Ruby apps. Last but not the least. The Student or entrepreneur programmer should also have a chance to have his wares noticed too by the larger user base. There are some bright minds with bright ideas out there that need attention, and I only see Symbian-Freak & All About Symbian sites highlighting them and their Python (PyS60 based) applications available for S60. Now they have their own community site as well. But many users, even Nokia Ambassadors are not aware of what is out there.

Nokia … S60 is not only about devices and the apps available, it’s the community behind that gave it its strength. We’re trying to help S60 grow, its time you and your collaboration of partners get to help those apps know the community as well.

Phone has 3G but not for my countr

2008-11-01T22:41:00.000-04:00

All too often my favorite phone OS – S60 – has varying phones from numerous phone manufacturers and having great styling and other hardware and features, yet the most amongst the most important function, 3G, is unusable in my country.

Many providers across the world, work with network equipment vendors (Nokia-Siemens, Ericsson, Lucent Technologies, or Motorola), and spend HUGE amounts of money to establish a 3G network. Mostly a 3G network that is compatible (UMTS/HSDPA/HSPA) with other providers for roaming capabilities across a continent. The network is ready, so why are the phones so snub-nose at making phones with great features, yet incapable of using the 3G worldwide. Too often phones are made with dual-band 3G, utilizing 900/2100 MHz bands. Hmm the first Nokia N-93/93i, N95-1/2, N82, N79, N85, Samsung INNOV8, SGH-L870, I-7110, SGH-G180, SGH-i400, etc. These are NOT the only models or manufacturers by the way, but I chose to list them because all these models are incredible even by today’s standards.

Nokia some two or three months finalized the long standing bizarre love-triangle, or court patent battle with Qualcomm, and friend Broadcom. And recently have been very quickly announcing and releasing new models (5800 XM, N-79, N96, and just this week the N85) with Tri-band 3G capabilities, but going further with 2 of those bands delegated for North & South American bands 850/1900Mhz – and including the widely used European 2100Mhz band for those globetrotters amongst us. If this was done years ago, I myself would have never made the mistake to stick with SonyEricsson another year and buy a subsidized K850i and saved for the N82 in March this year.

Does it not make sense for a manufacturer to have a production line that has support for 2 chipsets? Same phone model & design, just 2 chipsets: 1 to support Europe, Asia, and Africa, and the other for North & South America, and Australia? Are the bands for all these regions so different? There sure are enough chipset makers integrating support for ALL these bands before sale. The economies of scale allow for such a production process to be cheaper in the higher production numbers and better revenue for those phone sold in more markets.

Now, the new AWS bands in North America through this completely out of wack though. T-Mobile USA pretty much got a good deal with 20Mhz spectrum to cover just about ALL of the USA population footprint for their yet to be fully loved by S60 phones in the 1700/2100Mhz AWS bands. If Nokia, LG, or Samsung want to slow Android before it takes off, they should progress to make an incredible phone like the N85, 5800 Xpress Music, or INNOV8 with these AWS bands and woo substantial deals with T-Mobile USA to have such phones sold at very enticing subsidized pricing. Even at low bulk cost to the provider. I’m sure this would also get the attention of programmers already coding for S60/PyS60/RubyS60 and those curious about doing so.

Common manufacturers, if you got such an incredibly spec’d and styled phone, make sure everybody has the chance to enjoy it, not all those in your backyard. There is no more a 1st and 2nd class cell phone, Smartphone user. This is 2008, not 1988.

Symbian Foundation - The power the future brings.

2008-10-28T21:41:00.000-04:00

A fellow S60 user and fan posted an interesting and intelligent post on his site ...

Why buy an unlocked device in 2009?

Here is my stance.

Being a leader in the mobile phone manufacturing business can lead to supremacy, but supremacy in features over a long period of time can lead to stagnation in other devices while competitors catch up. Just over 3yrs now Nokia has made S60 phones with WiFi support and more than 3.2MP resolution for camera's. They have not been alone in this field as HTC and a few CDMA based manufacturers (LG/Sharp) have caught up as well - if not lead in the MP race. Prior to this Nokia along with Ericsson where the FIRST manufacturers (Ericsson beat Nokia by 6mths) to make a true smartphone where 3rd party applications could be installed used by the end user. Over the years this has lead to 2 major things for Nokia and other manufacturers. Supremacy in sales, revenue, and a new paradigm market segmentation for smartphones.

Now that the markets (in various targets within country's, and around the world) & their users varying within them have matured along with the growing interest & use of the internet; smartphone users, choice of smartphones, and applications have grown/replicated.

Prior to the smartphone race, and still existent today for "emerging markets", manufacturers made phones with slowly advancing features - as paradigms shifted when technologies allowed for it - for [b]mass[/b]-markets (marketing 101). Target margets where delegated for high-end phones of style and higher cost to the user; usually when the R&D really didn't improve much. Examples included Nokia's first faceplate changing phones 3330(?) vs Ericsson's lower T series phones (T18z/i, etc). Now phones that had slightly more style or allowed 1 major "feature" (I use this term LOOSELY; as you'll soon see why) in the higher priced phones. Nokia had the Matrix slider phone - I'm unsure if this was the worlds first mass-marketed slider/first built for sale. Ericsson offered the T-28W which was a "world" phone and very slim even by today's standards, and offered exceptional battery life in talk time - by today's standards would shame some feature phones. A few years after 1990 phones being featured in blockbuster movies where not enough to make significant revenue for sales - instead product placement was for brand-name recognition (something SE and Sony Pictures uses the recent few Bond movies). Today dumb phones are now called feature phones because they actually do add features (x/html-web browsing, mp3/aac audio playback, decent/quality camera features).

During the last 2-4yrs smartphones have simproved, significantly in the past 2 of those years. High end megapixels. More smartphones supporting push email service & functionality (thx Waterloo!). Better browsing support (html, xhtml, web standards, login script saving, individual setting/history clearing, larger bookmark support), and of course only on S60 - FLASH support, yeah baby! For so long Nokia phones have had the fastest cpu's in use for smartphones until HTC began to compete with WM phones with regards to MP, WiFi (they started I think), 3G races. However the major push is not so much use of internet on smartphones - although this has been climbing on phones in general due to social communities taking rise. The major push has been the move to 2 things. Unified communications and unified platform base for each smartphone OS. Keep this in mind I'll get back to this.

Now, so many S60 faithful are bored, been complaining, and yet blind to see whats been happening to Nokia and S60. Open platforms is going to be a huge & significant change to all our future smartphones, how we use them and what they offer & a major paradigm shift! Andriod and Linux have made this big in the news like an elephant jumping off a 12 foot high diving platform into smartphone pool. Even though LiMo foundation has been at this for a while, nobody ... nobody has had an open OS for as long and as powerful as Symbian. The real "open" OS cat out there is S60 and has been for over 10yrs solid!

One can argue that Java's J2ME has a larger spread over the PC universe and in every single phone (save a few hundred thousand using Brew) sold in any market and bought by any user regardless of cultural differences today; but its limited in its current form, and even with MIDP3.0 will not significantly create a new powerful paradigm. Many ppl scoff at Symbian's statement that Symbian is open - yet don't realize there are more than 5 iterations of Symbian (more than I can name): S60, UIQ, um ... one used in China, another in Japan, and another in other Asian/Indian markets by there respective providers.

Nokia has had a super phone for the world just over 2yrs - and they marketed that N95 very well. If offered to be the jack-of-all-trades and do well at it like no other phone on the market can. I can only recall the 7650 coming close to that in recent memory vs its peers in any time frame. Nokia still makes phones for increasing markets and for new entrants; the N96 is not to replace the N95 but a new flagship to help increase the DVB-H potential user base and increase awareness of this technology so more markets already approved it as a standard can begin delivering it (industrial age marketing "build it and they will come"). The N85 offers just about everything the N95 does with better battery life, better quality screen image, USB charging which so many S60 users have been complaining about (just like a larger screen on N95-2/4 they got it). You loose on the screen though, and for N95-1/3 users this can be an upgrade but isn't targeted as such; while N95-2/4 users neither the N85/96 is for you; those are for new users. Your pie is coming next year, but not before the successor of the N93.

Nokia and Samsung, like so many major manufacturers & wireless providers are so focused on the birth and evolution of the Symbian Foundation; many ppl miss whats going on. Combining the strengths of all those Symbian-based GUI's, API's, and their efficiency's allows for more than a feature packed or robust OS. It allows for a more complete Unified Mobile Communications platform. Forget VoIP for the network. Forget VoIP for WiFi or UMA support. Anyone not realize or notice that nothing higher than 1.3MP video camera has been used in a mass produced or even prototype phone yet?!?!! HMMM! Data plans are getting MUCH much cheaper around the western world and emerging markets. Bandwidth limitations some will say is the bottleneck; to some degree yes. Now how many of you have used or seen a true VoIP+Video Conferencing solution like Polycom?! Imagine true 30fps VGA or XVGA MOBILE video conference solution in a limo, your home, a teamroom setup at a client site conference, etc without lag, without chop and ease of setup across differing hardware and locations! Now imagine an evolved, mature mobile operating system able to deliver this efficiently, effectively and seemlessly over different markets (large) around the world?

Now think further. The Social. Imagine combining social paradigms and merging social cultures together and still allowing them to be unique. Imagine this with combining Facebook, MySpace, Qik, and gaming (NGage in a way that PS3's Home will offer) in the next 3-5yrs!! You would not just phone someone (cellular/Voip/uma) any longer. You'd reach out to them. You'd access their mobile homepage - a server page on their device (or memory storage); a page you can interact with live or offline for the host and the host can add new content and passively/actively interact with you and several ppl with whether being in a meeting, chilling at the beach, and a wild Danny Tenaglia DJ party, or proposing to a new lifelong mate. Heck the girl/guy you're proposing too uploads your proposal to their friends & family. Networking will never be the same. Most of this is already capable on S60 but its still in a very static way, not a live, interactive and fully immersive way. Content is still created. uploaded. accessed. shared+commented on. then either shared again or removed to repeat. I'm emphasizing the stops to show you what is missing from the social paradigm today.

Kids can use their flip phones as field trip science tools: Macro pictures can give insight on cell-wall structures of plants and insects, or identify different species with their varying internet connections available.

Accessibility will also change. Voice to text and text to speach will soon become very natural, pleasant and possibly even language translation may be done over a few minutes locally via OS, fast multi-core cpu's, and software. That dream from Ericsson to have a digital BT pen that other companies tried to take up; will actually be used by artists. No longer to log around a laptop.

Sure, the BB Bold's & Storm's have slightly higher video recording resolutions, feature phones and new competing smartphones from Samsung have smile/frown face detection photo capabilities; but the quality is still there. No major change or advancement in user applications that can fully use them on the RIM devices (Bold & Storm). You still don't want to take a picture of your kids and family [b]not[/b] smiling 95% of the time - save for most of the shots you're going to take this Friday on Hallowe'en.

Corporate patents have held Nokia & S60's prowess and speed of applications for quite some time now. The 369mhz dual-core cpu has been the ledge for S60 devices, while HTC WM & Blackberry Bold/Storm devices are now beginning to just equal processing speed with 550+Mhz dual-core cpu speeds. Over the next few months with the various deals Nokia has chip makers (although the recent Texas Instrument sale of their chipset division has me saddened), this should put Symbian Foundations perceived "slow" speed for complex applications aside.

You gotta ask yourself. Did you buy your smartphone because it was stylish and lacking real functionality (BB 8220 flip). Did you buy your smartphone to brag about technology and features it can offer (INNOV8). Did you buy your smartphone because you use it to entertain yourself in Video/Music/Photo (N95/N85/N93)? Or did you buy your smartphone because it suites your communication needs and:

1. your work needs(E66/E71)
2. Music playback & video recording & social connection needs (5800 XM)
3. Mobile TV broadcasting (N96/N77/N92)
4. Photography aspirations while travelling light & mobile (N93/N73/N95).

See the market strength and segmentation?! Does WM, Andriod, LiMo, Java based (including RIM) have that much wide spread target markets? How well do you think they'll fair without corporate support or if a major corporate paradigm shift from Exchange or Domino occurs and is sustainable over the long rung?!

E71 NAM Review - Testing Nokia's Mettle

2008-09-29T20:57:00.000-04:00

E71 NAM Review - Testing Nokia's Mettle.

Oh yes, another review of the E71. Like others I'll try to make it a little different.

Reasons why I chose an S60 device, choosing one with a full qwerty keypad, and why I chose the E71 specifically. Previously I've used the 6620 for almost 7mths back in 2005 and it was a workhorse and bulky. But it left a feeling of nastalgia in me.

The principles of choosing another S60 device instead of another "feature-phone" were mostly the same this time around. I wanted the familiarity of using the OS with enough of a challenge - more on why later - yet the simplicity of being able to quickly use the core features quickly and intuitively. Furthermore, that old 6620 was ROCK solid & took a beating & still kept on ticking, however I left it because its bulk not only was too obvious but uncomfortable in dress pants.

Most people argue the reason for a smartphone is the choice of applications - and its true, for the most part. However there is much more at the core of a smartphone that surpasses a feature phone. Calendar - the ability to create complex (more than a title, start/end time, alarm) Meetings (not simple appointments), Anniversary, To Do, or Memo's, all with alarms. Phone Book is pretty much equal but its prowess favors the smartphones when it comes to using it in a corporate server synchronization situation. Email - feature phones can pretend all they want but in day to day use they pale by comparison: especially with attachment handing. Finally there is the ease of using these core features and speed in accessing them trumps feature phones.

Many will say why not choose a solution based on java which corporations & consumers in North America choose in abundance and is the current leader. I work to support such a model, but for my needs as a consumer I didn't wish to be held back on a closed ended smartphone that didn't give me much of a selection of software focused for consumers. Furthermore, the only reasons for such a dominance is that they quickly established a name for themselves for push email early in the game. Put on top of that the familiarity & likeness that consumers buy what they use at work or to purchase what their peers advise, still holds true (ie Windows vs Mac).

I chose the E71 for the following reasons. S60 - a smartphone platform with great choice of both consumer & corporate focused software. Stability of a proven OS in the majority of all the companies product line, but also licensed to others - showing no fear of competition. Early reviews said this device was beautiful (that it STILL is), the smallest, and still maintained WiFi, dual band 3G/HSDPA radio, and GPS with quadband EDGE radio. Lastly was the overwhelming early accounts of stability, speed of the OS compared to its counterparts and build-quality! This is what I want to focus on.

For the past 40days that I've owned my E71 I've LOVED it and it was my primary device day in & out. Actually I requested a tester model from Nokia WOM world just days prior to buying it and couldn't wait to setting the shipping/customs' delays more than a week and just purchased my own. Should the customs issues get fixed the WOM model will be my wife's for 2wks and she'll be a true review coming from a newb to any smartphone.

Quality. Something many company's are known for that lately have lacked in their products. RIM on the BlackBerry (Pearl, Curve & now Bold: suffer from Trackball dirt) and SonyEricsson (K850i - huge firmware bugs beyond repair, Touch-capacitance keys) both no longer making robust products because service for new parts also helps their revenue stream if in the hundred thousands sent in every quarter. Choice of cheap and shiny plastics is becoming a horrible trend. This E71 uses metal in most of its shell and its sheik.

Build-quality is something you really cannot ascertain if you baby your phone or only have a tester for 2wks. 5 days a week this thing was in my pants pocket resisting dust under the screen, jacket zipper slapping across the metal as I walked with it in my hand. But the real test was the 2 days straight that I accidentally dropped it. First day it dropped was getting out of a cab on my way to work. The drop was from knee height as it slipted while I was getting out; and although the weight is nice on the E71 its surprisingly balanced. The metal case is from stainless steel so when it dropped I hardly heard it at all. I looked back behind me after taking two steps away from the cab - just by habit - and there it was screen up smiling for some bloke already running to grab it. Sorry sucker I'm more alert than that and quicker than him to retrieve it. Suffice to say it had two small scratches/scuff marks on the top & bottom edges of the device. Whew I thought.The real test to the E71's mettle (pun intended) was the next night - a Friday. You know what that means ... heavy partying and carelessness. Either I was jinxed by a friend warning that I'll drop it because I kept checking for emails, or it was me being too tipsy and unbalanced when I was walking I don't know. But when it dropped from chest height (I'm 5'11") I paused in mid stride. I picked up the injured E71 and it was completely fine, pressed the buttom and screen came on. I laughed out loud and said its ok! 2hrs later after sobering up on the walk home I noticed the fear of all cellphone owners ... the cracked screen! GASP!

Now what you are about to see next may not be suitable for new cellphone owners. It may cause increased blood pressure, affixed stairs, and unsettling shaking in the more experience cellphone owners amongst you. Be prepared for I'm about to show you the E71 cracked screen & sidwalk damaged!

Well as you can see the screen is cracked almost all the way through, but there is no LCD bleeding (like calculators are famed for). The screen shots show no internal screen resolution damage. Whats even more surprising is that my E71 is STILL exquisite! There are no issues in operation of this device and its lasted all weekend, no battery issues, no moving or loose parts within it when shaken vigorously.

After 3wks of excruitiating waiting for another shell, I've replaced the screen of my precious E71; however I suggest against doing it yourself like I did, as you may chip off another piece of the phone in the process without professional tools. Pay the cost to have it done right by Nokia as you E71 will look brand spanking new. This will be my next step. And yes I LOVE my E71 & S60!

Nokia & Unified Communications - WBF 2008 p2.

2008-09-25T00:33:00.000-04:00

Unified Communications

David Petts, Snr. V.P. Business Mobility, Markets for Nokia

How does Nokia define UC ?

On the voice side, it’s about fixed/mobile convergence and unifying PBX connectivity with mobile conversations, so you can have a single device that can seamlessly go back and forth across a cellular network and a wireless LAN/IP network. The wireless device becomes an extension or end point on your PBX, so it supports all the traditional PBX features.The other element is more data-centric, using email as a starting point, but adding other communication methods such as instant messaging, SMS/MMS text messaging, video messaging, and videoconferencing.

Why is Nokia well-positioned to deliver on the promise of UC ?

First, we have the largest installed base, with roughly 40 percent market share globally and nearly 1 billion people carrying a Nokia device, many of them 24 x 7. Increasingly those are smart devices capable of much more than just making cellular calls. Beyond that we have Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite, which is a modular middleware platform that provides email, device management, and security elements that include device locking, authentication, encryption, and secure VPN connections. This is the foundation upon which the UC capability will be added. In addition to the middleware approach we also deliver direct connection from the device. For example we already provide Mail for Exchange, using the Microsoft Active-Sync protocol as a way of getting your email, personal information,calendar and contacts pushed and synchronized back and forth with your mobile device in near real time without the need of a middleware service. We are also evolving this approach to go beyond email to a broad UC capability.

Finally we recognize that unified communications is not unique to business people during their professional life. It’s also something individuals want to use more broadly. In two devices we recently launched – the E71 and E66 – we have the ability to switch between business and personal modes. For each mode, you can bring six different application icons to the home screen.

This is how you organize the future of a mobile business device & enterprise solution. You don't overdue the techno-babble, but you highlight your direction, your prized products, and how you direction can come to fruition with current implementations. MFE and MS Active-Sync - recently licensed - gives many users across the N-Series, and E-Series devices a unified way (1 solution) in getting their work email or their multiple email accounts pushed to their devices (Gmail, YMail/Yahoo Mail, AOL Email, etc) from hosted MS Exchange Services.

The Nokia E71 is a perfect devices with incredible quality design best suited for mobile unified collaboration. I'm among the few that have a unique insight to mobile push messaging - having certification & experience in troubleshooting that solution, remote device management, handheld troubleshooting and firmware reinstalls, and even on 1 occassion in 2.5yrs seeing how a simple licensing issue can bring down use of a server; crippling 500+ users in the process. Many of you have read just how crippling it is to corporate users and consumers of the BlackBerry platform when the NOC is down for expected or non-expected periods of time, sometimes for an entire coverage area. You begin to realize the fallacy of such a setup. Thankfully Nokia IntelliSync Suite and the S60, MS Windows Mobile (Professional & Smartphone Editions), and Palm platforms is able to offer corporate security, device management, corporate intranet, and corporate application access directly & solely administered from your company itself, not relying on a backend network solution out of your IT staff's control. Currently, the Nokia E71 & E66 due to their improvements and S60 specific customizations for enhancements on these 2 models IntelliSync needs to be upgraded to fully offer all solutions that it currently can to other current E-Series devices (ie E90, 9300, 9500).

So what does Unified Communications mean to you & mean in or outside of the corporate office.

How does Nokia extend presence capabilities to the wireless world?

At Nokia, we envision a world where my wireless device knows my calendar and automatically changes the presence of my device so I don’t get an embarrassing phone call in the middle of a presentation. When I’m between meetings, it should say, “Ah, you’re in Italy. I can see from your calendar which Italian customers you’re visiting. I’ll quiz your sales force automation system and find the largest customers you’re not visiting, and suggest you call one while you’re in the car.” That’s about knowing location as well as availability, and the interconnection of the different applications and capabilities.“It’s about providing access to many collaboration and communication elements with a unified look and feel, on a single mobile device.

Thats all I can research, source, and comment on for now regarding the WBF 2008 Forum. But be sure there is more going on at Nokia E-Series & Business Mobility than just a cosmetic refresh. I truely believe Nokia is in it to win this over the long haul and their determination is renewed because of competition and their hunger for solid business solutions end to end runs deep into their entire business model. I hope to bring you more in the near future.

World Business Forum 2008 - Influence.

2008-09-22T22:33:00.001-04:00

For those that didn't find this important or lacking when posted.... read on ...

World Business Forum 2008 highlights:

Tony Blair "Challenge of Change"
Collin Powell
Madeleine Albright "Dialogue: US & The World"
Jim Collins "Good To Great"
Jack Welch "Leading Successful Business"
David Rubenstien "Private Equity & Value Creation"
Bill George "Leadership"
Micheal Porter "Strategy"
Marcus Buckingham "High Performance"
Muhammad Yunus "Global Development"
John Chambers "CEO of Cisco"
note: notice today's news that Cisco just announced an agreement to purchase Jabber http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080919.wgtcisco0919/BNStory/Technology/ - This could be a BIG move against Lotus' SameTime Server core business on Mobile - Yes thats right ... Lotus SameTime is available for Nokia E-Series! I didn't even KNOW this!

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sametime/v8r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.help.sametime.mobile.doc/stm_getting_started.html

&

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sametime/v8r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.help.sametime.standard.doc/st_adm_port_cfg_stmobile_nokia_r.html

ok there is MORE ....

Sir Terry Leahy "CEO of Tesco"

Emerging Multinationals[/b] [i]"& Business Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, and China"

Footnotes:
Muhammad Yunus - Yunus is also the founder of Grameen Bank. In 2006, Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below."

Micheal Porter - Michael Eugene Porter (born 1947) is a University Professor at Harvard Business School, with academic interests in management and economics. He is one of the founders of The Monitor Group. Porter's main academic objectives focus on how a firm or a region can build a competitive advantage and develop competitive strategy. He is also a Fellow Member of the Strategic Management Society.

David Rubenstein - In the 2007 Forbes 400 ranking of the wealthiest Americans, Rubenstein was ranked 165th with a net worth of $2.5 billion. On December 18, 2007, David Rubinstein purchased the last privately owned copy of the Magna Carta at Sotheby's auction house in New York for 21.3 million dollars. He announced that it would be housed at the National Archives in Washington D.C. Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter, literally "Great Paper"), also called Magna Carta Libertatum (Great Charter of Freedoms), is an English legal charter, originallly issued in the year 1215. It was written in Latin. The Magna Carta required the King to proclaim certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and accept that his will could be bound by the law. It explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects, whether free or fettered — most notably the writ of habeas corpus, allowing appeal against unlawful imprisonment. Magna Carta was the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today (some no longer intact).

[b]Bill George[/b]. George received his Master's in Business Administration from Harvard University in 1966, where he was a Baker Scholar (highest honors). He joined Medtronic, a medical technology company, in 1989 as President and Chief Operating Officer; he was elected Chief Executive Officer in 1991 and Chairman of the Board in 1996. Under his leadership, Medtronic's market capitalization grew from $1.1 billion to $60 billion!!

Now you all have an Idea just how important this 2 day conference really is and how much influence Nokia will have just by hosting this event - Nokia E-Business.

Nokia at the World Business Forum

2008-09-21T15:38:00.000-04:00

Nokia at the World Business Forum coming September 23rd!

Next week, Nokia will be sponsoring the 2008 World Business Forum (WBF). The WBF is a big-time symposium for top-level executives with a speakers list packed with world business leaders.

Over at Nokia Conversations, a small interview with Sandra Carvalho "Director of Global Marketing for Business Mobility at Nokia" and info about her background before joining Nokia may shed some light on Nokia's E-Series platform and the direction Nokia plans to go with their IntelliSync, Nokia Email and hopefully more marketing of these business models to the mainstream.

Prior experience working with IBM with their eBusiness campaign some time ago and marketing division at Bearing Point may give Nokia Business Mobility an upper hand.

She (Sandra Carvalho) joined Nokia before the last reorganization, which saw her division (the previously independent Nokia Enterprise Solutions) become part of a larger group closer to the core of what Nokia is. This unification of device and marketing to consumers, prosumer, and enterprise users reflects the reality that these types of users are no longer separate, but collide in the same customer and hence should be mixed in the same devices. Being part of the Greater Nokia allows the enterprise-focused device and services teams to draw more on Nokia's user experience, interoperability, and consumer-focused product strengths.

The challenge
She points out that Nokia has all the components there for success in the enterprise, it's just that people don't know much about it.

And then there's the USA
One other reason to sponsor this big event is to let business leaders in the US know what Nokia is up to. While the market is competitive in the US, and Nokia is not really known in the US for enterprise solutions, there is plenty of room to grow. Sandra is excited with the Nokia E71 coming out in the US in January. And there will be many on show at the WBF. But, she's also careful to keep the message balanced and show what's real and coming. The US is a key market and she wants to make sure she shows the value of our solutions and that there are alternatives to what's dominating the market today.

FINALLY! Nokia is starting to take notice that there is not just customers, or sales, but a chance at great marketshare for corporate, medium business, and even SOHO business' in the USA, but lets not forget the rest of North America; especially Canada since NOkia is making great strides with Rogers Wireless (N95 on subsidy, Nokia Maps, and NGage to the masses).

Nokia for Business activity at WBF

In addition to our sponsorship, Nokia will be active at the conference

* Nokia Senior Vice-President, Business Mobility Sales David Petts will introduce Cisco CEO John Chambers, who will deliver the keynote address on "Innovation, Vision, & Growth."
* Nokia will host an exclusive networking lunch and interactive dialog with John Chambers, for a select group of their customers, and channel partners. These VIPs will also attend a cocktail reception at Nokia's flagship store in New York City.
* All WBF conference attendees can participate in a highly interactive, engaging and creative "experience" at Nokia's "Endangered Spaces" booth, where they can interact with and demo Nokia devices and applications to gain a tangible understanding of Nokia business mobility solutions.
* Nokia will be blogging from WBF – providing recaps and insights on the conference proceedings. Blog posts will begin on September 23 and can be accessed at Nokia's blog site Nokia Conversations.
* As the exclusive mobility sponsor, Nokia is hosting the conference mobile website http://wbf.nokia.mobi to keep all conference attendees up-to-date on the latest event information and to facilitate live opinion polling onsite with speakers.

Let us all hope that Nokia is serious about getting more awareness, presence, and push for competitive business in North America and worldwide & give their E-Series devices just as much marketing as the N-Series have in Europe. Furthermore, this push for awareness and business must be continuous not just an event timed initiative.

Joiku Spot Light

2008-09-16T20:28:00.000-04:00

Analysts say that by the year 2010 key components (Searching, various ways to access, and applications that need acees) to the internet will be part of acedemic literacy. As bandwidth increases and applications or websites depend upon a cloud service the need to get and stay connected to the internet increases, significantly. Although 56K modems are the basic type of connection its almost obsolute within the western world, save for a few holdouts not ready to rely on internet for information, entertainment, or sharing. Google has made the vast internet all but easy and is beginning to transend search to various devices that need internet connection. Finally, many applications are now dependant on an internet connection; moreso as we become more and more mobile.

Many of you are aware of tethering or using aircards. The pitfall of tethering is either slow speeds over InfraRed (IrDA) or Bluetooth, or remaining wired with a USB data cable to your laptop. Aircards, present another caveat emptor: pay extra for a seperate data line to use the aircard and not be able to make calls. Enter Joiku Spot Light & Premium as a final solution.

Joiku Spot Light allows you to use your S60 smartphone to be an access point, using its own WiFi chipset as a wireless medium to connect to the internet. No more slow 2Mbps data connection over Bluetooth or having to carry & use that USB data cable. This software is MUCHO stable and I was VERY impressed with the data connection speeds over my Nokia E71's WiFi connection for my laptop. Business users would LOVE to have this solution because this still allows for a phone call without interrupting the data connection. Some S60 phones with WiFi may not be able to support a maintained connection due to battery power limitations, however with my E71 I was able to keep connected with solid db access data upload/download & video/audio streaming for over 3hrs on a 3/4 battery charge. Most impressive. Joiku Spot Light is free and upon each launch, your initial connection will take you to a localhost page stored on the phone via the application. Once loaded you're free to browse the full internet on your PC/Mac/Linux box.

Video via Ovi

Video via Youtube

So if you have an S60 phone with WiFi, and a laptop you'll definately want to check this combo out!

JoikuSpot Light Features

* HTTP(S) protocol support
* WLAN access to internet with laptops, iPods and internet tablets
* Secured access and user control
* Multiple parallel connections
* User definable access point and settings
* Supports 8 languages
* Supports S60 3rd Ed mobile phones
* Free download at www.joiku.com

JoikuSpot Premium Features

* All the JoikuSpot Light functionality +
* Secured access to corporate intrawebs (VPN)
* Email support
* Full support for all network access protocols such as Outlook, Skype, Gmail, YouTube, Messengers...
* No forced default landing page
* 100% customizable for operator and corporate whitelabeling and licencing
* Supports S60 3rd Ed mobile phones
* Purchase at www.joikushop.com

Nokia launches groundbreaking N-Gage and Nokia Maps services on Rogers Wireless' High-Speed Network

2008-09-11T19:24:00.000-04:00

It's been a long while since I've been back & I'm sorry for that.

The GOOD thing though is that neither Rogers Wireless nor Nokia Canada have been slacking or had their hands busy with other things to forget us Canadians.

Today during work I went over to my favorite Forums & S60 Freak/Fan site and found this WONDERFUL piece of news!

Nokia launches groundbreaking N-Gage and Nokia Maps services on Rogers Wireless' High-Speed Network

Rogers (source: http://your.rogers.com/investorrelations/news_wireless.asp )

TORONTO and SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 9 /CNW/ - Rogers Wireless and Nokia
today announced the Canadian availability of exciting new wireless services
that allow Rogers consumers to experience the latest in mobile gaming and
navigation on Nokia devices. This services agreement between Nokia and Rogers
is the first such agreement with a wireless carrier in North America, further
establishing Rogers Wireless' leadership in delivering Canadian consumers
leading-edge wireless data experiences.

"The Canadian telecom market is going through tremendous change and
consumers are increasingly demanding advanced multimedia devices and
services," said Richard White, general manager and head of country operations
for Nokia Canada. "Through this agreement with Rogers we are excited to
deliver on that need, offering consumers compelling experiences on Nokia's
devices delivered over Rogers' wireless high-speed network."
"This agreement with Nokia gives Rogers customers a rich mobile gaming
experience that is unique in the marketplace and an unparalleled mobile
mapping application," said John Boynton, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer,
Rogers Wireless. "It makes tremendous business sense for Rogers because these
are two of the most in-demand applications for mobile devices."

About Nokia

Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and
growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. We make a
wide range of mobile devices with services and software that enable people to
experience music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games, business
mobility and more. Developing and growing our offering of consumer Internet
services, as well as our enterprise solutions and software, is a key area of
focus. We also provide equipment, solutions and services for communications
networks through Nokia Siemens Networks. www.nokia.ca

About Rogers Wireless

Rogers Wireless provides wireless voice and data communications services
across Canada to more than 7.5 million customers under both the Rogers
Wireless and Fido brands. Proven to operate Canada's most reliable wireless
voice and data communications network, Rogers Wireless is Canada's largest
wireless provider and the only national carrier operating on the global
standard GSM and highly advanced HSPA technology platforms. In addition to
providing seamless roaming in more than 200 countries with its GSM based
services, Rogers Wireless also provides wireless broadband services across
Canada utilizing its 2.5GHz fixed wireless spectrum. Rogers Wireless is a
subsidiary of Rogers Communications Inc. (TSX: RCI; NYSE: RCI), a diversified
Canadian communications and media company. For further information, please
visit: www.rogers.com

Now that you have the excerpts from both the press releases above there are some KEY POINTS that providers in North America are slow to realize how THIS will help them (namely AT&T and T-Mobile - needs cost sharing though via chipsets)

* Rogers Wireless is the largest Canadian wireless communications service provider, serving 7.3 million retail voice and data subscribers at December 31, 2007, representing approximately 37% of Canadian wireless subscribers.

* Rogers Wireless is Canada’s only national carrier operating on the world standard GSM technology platform. The GSM network provides coverage to approximately 94% of Canada’s population. Rogers Wireless has also deployed a next generation wireless data technology called UMTS/HSPA (“Universal Mobile Telephone System/High-Speed Packet Access”) across most of the major markets in Canada and have UMTS/HSPA roaming in 50 countries as well as access to these services across the U.S. through roaming agreements with various wireless operators.
- NAMELY AT&T as North American largest roaming partner for Rogers.

* Country size land: 9,976,140 sq. km./3,850,790 sq. mi.
Population: 32 million
Cellular penetration: 45% (13.5 million subscribers)
Technologies available: CDMA800, CDMA1900, GSM1900, GSM 850, TDMA800, TDMA1900, AMPS, IDEN, GPRS, 1XRTT.

Spectrum Watch 1

Spectrum Watch 2

NOW this is the KEY point! 15+ other providers (new outside entrants that recently acquired spectrum from the CRTC; FCC Canadian equivalent)have participated and received licensing for new spectrum. Telus, Rogers & Bell are the LARGEST spending entrants and ALL have AWS licenses; but Telus & Rogers have the LARGEST amount of the prime-rib 20Mhz of that spectrum!

Looks like it's going to be a NICE time for Canadians. More details tomorrow everyone; and also Nokia should take the initiative to improve the E71-2 and E66-2 for retail sale & contract sale for Rogers Wireless & Fido users NOW since they HAVE a WORKING SOLUTION (N-Gage for N95/96, Maps for E71 & possibly push IntelliSync for Rogers Wireless Mail solution & added security never before on Rogers) to compete against Rogers' RIM stronghold; which incidently Rogers has been trying to break!

Application - Nokia Conversations

2008-08-20T19:57:00.000-04:00

Nokia Conversations

Simply an app for threaded SMS. For me this is not an app I look forward to nor need.

Check out Download location, supported devices,and installation instructions in the following link.

Nokia & Music Mogel's - Showing Love!

2008-08-20T19:02:00.000-04:00

Something very interesting has occurred during that last 30 or less days. Nokia seems to be making inroads with Hip Hop artists! This is an amazing thing considering Nokia has yet to really crack the North American market - save for only 2 S60 wireless provider partnerships (Rogers Wireless & AT&T: N95-4 & N75 the most recent respectively).

An article in which I not only read but participated in on Symbian-Freak.com posted by user Christexaport highlighted that 50Cent is an N95 user and an Ovi Share User . An interview with Associate Producer Kelsey Blodget at Beet.tv and Nokia's Head of Global Industry and Marketing, Kamar Shah, they both let out the secret during Always on Media conference July 31st.

Many of you know 50 Cent is amongst "THE" top-tier Hip Hop Artists & producers; as well as T.I. also being a top-tier Hip Hop artist. This is HUGE news for Nokia's presence in North America as well as Share On Ovi. Just think about it for a moment. 50 Cent, T.I. and future musicians releasing their albums - available in the standard stores & online stores - but exclusive content (Music Tracks, Videos, a secret link for obtaining preset concert info, bar code, photos for behind stage passes and group interviews, and discounted Ovi pricing to Ovi & Nokia users)!!! This can be a HUGE collaboration between the artists, fans (becoming ever more loyal - word of mouth like Nokia's Ambassador program works BEST), and Nokia themselves - increasing potential for provider sales partnerships for current & future models. A collaboration like this can go one step further with artists' Video recordings from their phones (N95, N78, 6220 Classic, etc) in back stage concert setups, freestyles, Limo rides, etc.

Recently a photo was leaked of Hip Hop artist T.I. using the Nokia N95-4. The photo does look pretty candid, but T.I. is no stranger to using Nokia phones, and almost ALL his videos he's flashing the lastest & greatest Nokia model on the market.

Here's to hoping other artists come on board like (Canadian award winners like) Kaos, Choclair, and a personal favorite Kardinal Offishal. Note that this shouldn't just be limited to HipHop, and the North American market but also different genre's (basically unlocking culture barriers as well) Herb Alpert, Lil' Louis Vega & Masters At Work, US artists in different genre's). Considering Nokia's recent announcement for Service & Software Arm reorganizing " Continued growth in investments in key Internet services areas " has something in the works towards this idea.

Nokia IntelliSync cont'd (Mobility Suite)

2008-07-29T21:56:00.000-04:00

After some heavy research, and some kind & uplifting words and a pointer to Nokia Conversations site; I decided to dig in a little further to find out just how well Nokia's IntelliSync is doing, and any unique features it offers over the competition (single handedly or as an complete solution with E-Series devices).

First off, I'd like to present you with a bit of heirarchy just in case your curious who's overseeing IntelliSync. As of December 2007, it is non other than Scott Cooper, Senior Vice President, Mobility Solutions Unit, Enterprise Solutions, Nokia. Forgive me Nokia & all party's involved if I'm mistaken in any way.

Now I'm going to highlight a few litany of success' of IntelliSync as a chosen solution - as a whole or its subcomponents.

City of Maastricht builds mobility from the ground up with Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite

December 11, 2007
Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced that the City of Maastricht, Netherlands has selected Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite as their standard platform for mobile applications. The solution enables the administrative officers of the City of Maastricht to integrate 900 Nokia Eseries devices into the Cisco corporate IP telephony system and synchronize contact and calendar details. Furthermore, the city will offer wireless email to some of the employees. To ensure an easy roll out and management of all services, the City of Maastricht is using Nokia Intellisync Device Management. The deployment of the service has started and is estimated to be completed in the beginning of next year.

The IntelliSync solution for the City of Masstricht is already completed by now. Onward.

Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite is mobilizing companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

December 13, 2007
Espoo, Finland - Nokia is recording a surge of new customers for its Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, putting the company at the forefront of accelerated mobile email adoption in the region. Many companies such as Bayerischer Rundfunk, Austrian Federal Football League, Computerlinks and Sparkassen Informatik offer their employees mobile access to email via the Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email solution.

"The examples of Sparkassen Informatik or Bayerischer Rundfunk clearly show how important it is to consider mobility as part of the company's overall IT strategy. We recommend companies to take a holistic view on mobility solutions rather than focus on single mobility deployments," says Mikko Stout, sales head for Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, Enterprise Solutions, Nokia. "In this respect, it is paramount that the chosen mobility solution does not only support mobile email, but can scale and grow together with a company's mobility requirements beyond email, as well as integrate into the existing IT infrastructure according to the highest security requirements.

Above you can see the success mounting. However it doesn't show you WHY these business' are choosing IntelliSync over RIM. I can tell you its because the application base for S60 is just so much greater than the BlackBerry (both corporate and consumer based), but its simply much more than that. Although competitors offer their solutions they have limitations, one more than the other. Yyou wouldn't choose Microsofts' - more than just Exchange Push/ActiveSync, Mobile System Data Center, its ONLY for one platform and is only on ONE groupware solution leaving out MANY company's choice to stick with what they have. Likewise you would not choose RIM's BES because most of its functionality is with their OWN devices. Sure its easier to code for J2ME than C++ , or is it really, its just too argumentative to side 100% either way. But RIM's devices are pretty much stagnant (solid in the OS just as much as S60 is), not much can be TRULY modified to suite needs or tweaked for a company for their specific needs.

Nokia said it best like this ...

Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite provides access to powerful collaboration tools such as email, contacts, calendar, device management and synchronization of file and data and business applications. Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email as part of Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite works in any groupware environment - ISP, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes or Groupwise - and can run on any kind of device platform - Symbian, Windows, Palm or Pocket PC. The highly scalable email solution supports more than 100 different devices in addition to Nokia Eseries portfolio. Nokia Intellisync Call Connect client ties employees' mobile phones into a company's telephony system. Workers then have all system functions available to them even when out of the office.

This makes the IntelliSync unique & yet poweful.

Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite p2

2008-07-29T03:25:00.000-04:00

Some NEW findings everyone....

The Manila Times Monday, April 21, 2008

Nokia announced that it will deliver its Intellisync Wireless Email service to Globe, bringing the benefits of mobility to corporations in the Philippines. Globe will offer wireless push email to its corporate clients through Globe Business.

Offering unmatched multi-device support, the Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite is a leading “white label” or private label wireless e-mail and Personal Information Management solution, with more than 40 new operator wins in the past 20 months. Nokia has sold more than three million Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite user licenses to date.

A REAL shocker here ....

Mirapoint

RESEARCH IN MOTION DEPLOYS MIRAPOINT MESSAGE SERVER APPLIANCES
SUNNYVALE, CA. September 20, 2005 – Mirapoint, the secure messaging expert, today announced that Research In Motion (RIM) has deployed the Mirapoint Message Server as a backend infrastructure component of its popular BlackBerry Internet Service™. Mirapoint Message Server enables RIM to offer carrier-branded e-mail services as a feature of its BlackBerry Internet Service.
“BlackBerry Internet Service is a hosted service that allows smaller organizations and individuals to choose the industry-leading BlackBerry wireless solution without installing server software. Mirapoint’s high-performance Message Server appliance has contributed significant advantages in product implementation and total cost of ownership to RIM’s BlackBerry Internet Service,” said Mark Guibert, Vice President, Corporate Marketing at Research In Motion.

“As wireless technology continues to improve, mobile communication is quickly becoming an essential requirement for frequent business travelers and mobile workers,” said Barry Ariko, Chief Executive Officer at Mirapoint. “Mirapoint understands the need for more and more people to have reliable access to e-mail and other mission-critical applications on their mobile devices. By working with RIM to enhance its BlackBerry Internet Service with our integrated email appliance, we are helping fulfill this need and expanding the reach of Mirapoint’s technology in the market.”

Mirapoint’s Message Server enables Research In Motion to host email inboxes for BlackBerry Internet Service subscribers. BlackBerry Internet Service allows mobile users to access up to ten corporate and/or personal email accounts from a single device. BlackBerry® supports wireless email, phone, SMS, organizer, intranet and Internet-based applications and is now available on wireless networks around the world.

Mirapoint is the only vendor in the industry with proven secure messaging appliances that offer the industry’s lowest TCO for any size organization. Mirapoint’s Message Server is the industry’s only dedicated appliance that integrates email routing, storage, access management and security. Mirapoint’s multi-layered security protection at the network edge blocks hackers, spam, and virus threats, as well as provides advanced management of message traffic through policy enforcement tools, content filters, and detailed reporting.

Nokia launches Intellisync Mobile Suite for Mirapoint

Secure messaging specialist Mirapoint and Nokia have joined forces to extend e-mail and calendar features to the mobile workforce with the launch of the Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite for Mirapoint. This combines Nokia Intellisync mobility infrastructure with Mirapoint’s secure messaging appliances to provide businesses with mobile communications tools. Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite for Mirapoint can deliver e-mail and calendar data to compatible mobile devices from a Mirapoint messaging solution. Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite with Mirapoint’s messaging appliances is scalable to tens of thousands of users and provides business-grade wireless security. It will be available in Q3 2007.

This latest deal I find very informative and yet amusing. Mirapoint gets selected in 2005 to house, manage, and deploy BIS accounts for RIM. I'm still trying to verify if its still current and if this is STILL in practice by RIM. And now Mirapoint collaborates with Nokia to offer a much more powerful in terms of scalability to other users! Nice work Nokia! Excellent!

Alan Noble ....

2008-07-29T03:13:00.000-04:00

I just found out an interesting tidbit ..... Alan Noble, Engineering Director of Google Australia ... used to work for IntelliSync Corporation up until 2002 prior to Nokia purchasing this company.

More details:

VP of Engineering

Intellisync Corporation

(Public Company; 201-500 employees; SYNC; Computer Software industry)

February 2000 — February 2002 (2 years 1 month)

As head of engineering, managed 170 engineering staff across 5 facilities. Merged NetMind’s and Intellisync’s engineering organizations and standardized the company’s software processes and tools. Developed a common software platform for all products.

(Company was named Puma Technology at the time and renamed Intellisync Corporation in 2004, then subsquently acquired by Nokia in February 2006)

Source

Nokia IntelliSync

2008-07-27T23:50:00.000-04:00

I took a look at a fellow - and more experienced - bloggists' post over at E71 Fanatics. He's got some VERY informative posts on all things E71 (a future purchase), yet I found this particular post on "Is Nokia Cutting Ties With RIM's Blackberry Connect?" interesting.

For those that do not know yet, RIM's BlackBerry Connect (and BlackBerry Suite for MS Windows Mobile Professional devices) is a software that runs an many different platforms allowing them to be integrated & rely on the RIM infrastructure in the corporate world. It allows for security of the device (password encrypted access with timed lock out), Remote Wipe, Corporate email synchronization, PIM synchronization, and GAL functions on the corporate server BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server). Many corporations use BES on 3 of the major platforms: Microsoft's Exchange Server, IBM's Lotus Domino Server, and finally Novell's GroupWise Server. There are many reasons why corporations choose their brand of corporate Email/PIM solution; and this is where RIM's BES is so compelling - its not just mobile Corporate Email that everyone keeps thinking & posting about. Its about mobile access to the GAL, Free/Busy Calendar Lookup, Corporate Intranet Access, Corporate Ticketing & CRM management (be it CRM, Remedy, etc), and finally Corporate Server access & administration (along with BES Administration)! This is the power that the BES belt holds up for RIM. Security is at a prime on the BES and everything with it behind the corporate firewall, yet the bonus is the BlackBerry Handheld's that allow for seamless integration.

Ok so now you know about RIM's strengths. Now you need to look at its weakness'. BES is only needed to the corporate world, along with the majority if not ALL their handsets & applications. Only the Bold will have stereo speakers, and Divx video codec support, along with the ability for GPS, WiFi together with 3G radio. This is something N-Series or E-Series devices have offered (most of them) for many years. Now there are a number of consumer applications for the BlackBerry platform (J2ME based & RIMlets) but their still aimed at the corporate user off duty or out of the office in mind. You cannot install/run applications off the MicroSD card, yet alone save maps that the built-in GPS can use (allowing for faster map route loading). Add to that video editing, blogging apps (FaceBook excluded), file sharing (1 exists but it pales in functionality vs S60), or other apps that consumers want.

It is well known that Exchange Server commands more than 50% of the corporate Email/PIM/Remote access market, so using Nokia's Mail For Exchange for push email or corporate sync will be sufficient for those simple basic needs. If you want more functionality closure to BES then Look towards RoadSync app for your E-Series/N-Series for Push Email & Synch PIM on Exchange Server. Another of RIM's BES competitors is well known GoodLink Technologies owned now by Motorola.

However, Nokia has something many do NOT know about - and to Nokia's fault really. Its a complete & powerful solution, along with the E-Series can provide End to End solution against the RIM BES joggernaut. It's called IntelliSync

First, lets have a few quotes on Nokia's reluctance to use BlackBerry Connect further. Mobile Today sited an interview on the subject with Nokia UK MD Simon Ainslie.

RIM are a competitor and have done a reasonable job in a space that is traditionally ours, so it’s no great surprise that we see this as an opportunity to give consumers a proper choice on what email solution they want.

Our approach is to make email a mass-market proposition for everybody, not just for the corporate boardroom group of individuals where BlackBerry has established itself

I cannot help but feel Nokia is not pushing the corporate solution side of things too much. More on this with Intellisync momentarily.

With Motorola's mobile division in shambles & termoil it doesn't bode well for GoodLink to really push on to compete strongly against RIM's BES solution, unless its pulled out of Motorola's Mobile Division. Revenue there is depleting along with marketshare & fast!

Microsoft has a similar solution called System Mobile Device Center but its ONLY on Exchange over Windows Server & only for Windows Mobile Devices as its integrated into Active Directory, SQL, Exchange & Windows Server.

This gives Nokia's IntelliSync Wireless Email, Nokia PC Suite Enterprise Edition, and ... great poise to go head to head with RIM's BES solution!

Nokia PC Suite Enterprise Edition is targeted specifically for business use. The IT administrators will download the software, customize it to fit to the corporate needs and deliver within the organization

. This is very similar to the Blackberry Desktop Manager installation as Redirector. Similar, yet not quite.

Nokia's IntelliSync Mobile Suite has many components offering such a wide range of solutions that are even knew to me. Nokia IntelliSync Device Management:

Broad Operating System Compatibility includes Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, BlackBerry and Windows for laptops and desktops. Supported platforms: BlackBerry OS 3.7.1, 4.0.0, Palm OS 3.5 up, Symbian OS v7.0, v7.0s, v7.0sy, v8.0a, v8.1, v9.1, v9.2, Windows Mobile 2003, 5.0, 6.0, Windows 2000 and XP

- WOAH!

There is also Nokia Intellisync Application Sync offers

Nokia Intellisync Application Sync provides secure, mobile access to database-driven applications such as customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, and supply chain management.

Strangely though, there is NO current support for anything S60-based?!! Nokia this is really powerful VERY comparable if not MORE powerful than RIM's MDS component of BES.

Nokia Intellisync File Sync

Automatically delivers the most up-to-date business information to PCs and devices, and pulls content from remote devices to store it centrally.

The key powerful competencies here are Any LDAP Compatible source (Active Directory), Domino Authentication Internal/proprietary, NT domain, and also the security aspect Multiple encryption options (3DES, AES, SSL) - on point with BES thus far.

Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email (1)

enables employees to manage their schedules and activities and stay in touch with email from almost any mobile phone. They can download attachments, respond to meeting requests, and manage subfolders. Virtually all email and attachments are fully synchronized with the email server so nothing is lost, keeping communications safe.

And finally there is Nokia Intellisync Device Management; suffice it to say its on par with how the BES & IT Policy's lock down a BlackBerry.

So if its so powerful a solution, why on EARTH doesn't more people, nay business use this solution? Is it the pricing model, or that these are offered as separate solutions? If so then Nokia's brass better take a serious look at a combined offering (separate from their IT hardware solutions of course) and really push for competition of IntelliSync against the current accepted solutions.

I'm curious if the IntelliSync Wireless Email is used internally with business executives alike and if its offered to consumers on trial via Nokia Email Beta?!!

Personally I'd like to have an in depth Q&A interview with anyone at Nokia privy to how this solution works - heck even a trial run on the E90 or the E71 in comparison to how other solutions work - not just to quantify & qualify features, yet also in hopes to help improve upon them and to excite Nokia into more E-Series solutions and taking IntelliSync to supremacy & success.

Footnotes:
(1) The Nokia IntelliSync Mobile Suite Server will synchronize with the following versions of groupware servers: MS Exchange 2003, 2007, Lotus Domino R8, R6.5, R7, Novell Groupwise 7.0 SP1. Of note Domino R8 is VERY powerful and offers so much collaboration suite of applications I'm curious what is transferable - RIM has made some serious deals with IBM lately in regards to R8 support down the road.

Communication

2008-07-27T20:19:00.000-04:00

Ponder This ....

Communication. At the top of the food chain, we as humans rely so much on communication its the very fabric of our lives, endeavors and existence.

Thousands of years ago, lower evolution within the human chain struggled to master sounds. Screams for help when in danger, grunting to show want,

It is the foundation or our evolution to the superior beings on this world. From simple gestures, grunts, screams, and chest pounding showing needs for hunting patterns & hierarchy. To expressing language & emotions through words, touch, and body movements, describing seasons for crops, migration needs, then to trade. We've evolved from letters carried by birds, a message in a bottle, letters by horse, landlines from continental to international. To more modern forms of communication - scientists form a universal language for species & elements, engineers converse in measurements, bankers & investors form financial statements, programmers form various code languages for universal application development & database administration, and finally to email.

Using a phone, or smartphone for that matter is an extension, no a transcendence of communication! We still make phone calls (vocal) but now have the ability for video calls - enhancing basic language with the ability to show facial & bodily expressions. Same can be said for SMS (text), advanced by MMS/EMS with pictures, sounds, a short voice/video recording. We can reach the world with our mobile phones, not just through voice but also via emails. But now we've come further, with smartphones it is literally possible to edit video, remotely administer our home PC's online, access & administer servers, even make a server out of your S60 smartphone for file sharing, and now, social communication, sharing, and involvement. Of all the cellphone manufacturers in the world, Nokia said it best with "The Next Episode".

Nokia has been concentrating on & evolving their smartphone (S60) portfolio to a great degree the past few years, and for good reason! From 2004-2005 Smartphone unit sales have almost tripled, and increased almost 50% in the first half of 2006 over 2005; reports In-Stat. However, back then Bill Hughes stated an obvious fact for that time, “Many smartphone users continue to carry the very devices that smartphones are meant to replace. Also, users have been slow to add new applications to their devices. Most users have only downloaded a few applications.” This began to change during 2006 & 2007 with Many smartphones being sold serve as a combination of phone & PDA. 2007, In-Stat wrote an article stating that there are going to be Big Trends in future phone purchases. Increasing corporate-liable subscriptions will influence & reshape consumers' views of mobile devices, mobile computing, and mobile connectivity.

Multimedia smartphones, or mobile computers on the S60 platform are by far the worlds best at capturing, cataloging, and sharing our daily lives while being mobile. From capturing an old couple still in love hand in hand, head on shoulder with a smile that still shows youth, to a child's face on a roller coaster expressing big fear & elation simultaneously on TV-Out video, to multiplayer gaming anywhere, our smartphones have evolved. Our understanding and ways we communicate have also evolved, but so has our needs to be organized.

Mobile communications on a smartphone is more than just needed for personal organization, growth & socializing, its at the core NEED of a company's success! Be it sales, corporate email, presence for real-time collaboration, or remote administration & delegation, no major corporation can be & maintain successful over time without their workers becoming more mobile. Its just too efficient!

We've come a long, long way from basic communication. Now, so many people around the world cannot go a day (work or play) without a mobile phone. For what I do daily I cannot imagine my life without one either.

Welcome to Serious Mobile

2008-06-28T16:46:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Serious Mobile.

Here I will compile new posts to inform us, interact with you, and provoke thought on how we all traditionally use, currently use, and future uses of our mobile phones as part of our daily lives. These future posts will lean towards smartphones of a variety of Operating Systems, but also on feature phones - especially in late 2008 when Java J2ME MIDP3 becomes available in phones - a paradigm that COULD change our current definition of smartphones.

Stay tuned and welcome to bringing your mobile into the Professional, Social, and Mobile, and much more.