Craig Richards

Craig Richards, previously Director Asia Pacific, is to take on a new role at SLA Mobile – driving forward the company’s global engineering and operations function.  With the appointment of Jonathan Ng as Director responsible for APAC, Craig will become Director of Operations & Engineering.  He will continue to be based in Kuala Lumpur – the centre of excellence for SLA Mobile’s operations and engineering delivery team.

Commenting on Craig’s new role, Nic Stirk, SLA Mobile’s CEO says, “Craig is a level-headed, business focussed technologist, who has consistently delivered projects to some of the world’s leading mobile operators.  While Craig will continue to work closely with Vodafone, in particular, in APAC and Middle East regions, his new role will focus more on building SLA Mobile’s platforms and products for future growth.”

According to Craig he’s looking forward to the new challenge.  “With our Alacrity enablement platform SLA Mobile is well positioned to support mobile operators building a mobile future where more and more enhanced mobile services are delivered via the cloud.  We have an exciting story to tell in that space and I’m looking forward to building compelling solutions on the back of our highly extensible Alacrity platform.”

Related articles

• Alacrity Enables Network Operators to Build the Mobile Future (slamobileblog.com)
• Jonathan Ng joins SLA Mobile as Director for AP region (slamobileblog.com)
• Top 20 Mobile Operators in World – Bharti 5th in subscribers, but 17th on revenue! (trak.in)

Jonathan Ng

Based in Kuala Lumpur, Jonathan Ng will lead sales, business development and marketing activities for SLA Mobile in Asia Pacific.  He has some fifteen years of senior business development experience in the telecommunications industry, covering all domains from fixed to mobile to enterprise business.

Commenting on Jonathan’s appointment, Nic Stirk, CEO of SLA Mobile commented, “Jonathan is a great addition to the team especially now that we’re really developing our market presence in the APAC region on the back of Alacrity – our key enabler of mobile and social network solutions across the global mobile industry.  Jonathan’s experience across all facets of the mobile industry will help us position Alacrity as the enabler of choice in the region.”

According to Jonathan, the opportunities for SLA Mobile in the region look very positive.  “It’s clear that operators now face a significant challenge in terms of maintaining customer relationships and revenue.  Over the last two years the over-the-top players have challenged every aspect of the operators’ business model and time to market of services – and are diluting the relationship that operators have with their customers.  However, the most progressive operators are sensing that there are opportunities in the market as well – leveraging the emerging social channel, offering new, richer services and offering merchant services that take advantage of the trust that mobile customers have invested in their service providers.  I’m confident that we have a compelling story to tell operators in the region.”

Jonathan started his career in the telecommunications industry working with a mobile operator before moving across to work with several major integrators and software vendors.  His regional responsibilities have focused on VAS infrastructure, service delivery platforms, specialised telecom software/systems and FMC applications.

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Mobile World Congress (MWC) was different in 2010. I know it rained the whole time but there was a real buzz in Barcelona. 2010 was all about the lifestyle impact of Mobile through social media and the industry’s products, services and solutions to drive the use of data.  Everywhere one turned there were demos of applications and smartphones.

MWC is now two communities. The consumer focussed, mobile internet savvy community embracing everyone from media companies and handset manufacturers to innovative operators and software vendors; and the traditional world of voice and base stations and OSS/BSS.

The Mobile Monday ‘Where Mobile meets Media’ event was fascinating with a panel session including the BBC’s Lucie McClean, Helen Keegan, Mobile Marketer & Techno Kitten, and Steve Ives CEO TAPTU.  Over half the audience was female and under 35.  There were lively informed debates on the end of newspapers (yes) and magazines (no) with the arrival of iPad et al; whether App stores will be here in 5 years or if everything will be in the ‘The Cloud’ – oh and what young people really want from a phone (free IM); and the fact that most people don’t yet own an iPhone!  

The big boys made big announcements too. Google’s Eric Schmidt made a keynote speech and announced that Mobile was now at the heart of Google’s future. And his ‘Mobile First’ mantra states that 3 unique areas have now converged on the mobile device – Computing Power, Interconnectivity and the Cloud.  Schmidt said ‘If you don’t use the power of the Cloud – you’ll fail’.   He also said Google’s Android was selling on devices at a rate of 60,000 a day.

Vodafone’s CEO Vittorio Colao reported that ‘one in four of the handsets on Vodafone’s network were now smartphones with 40% annual growth.’ He also talked about the GSMA’s OneAPI initiative which is defining the standards to make it fast and cheap for developers and applications such as Facebook to access services such as location on the operator’s network.  Kevin Smith from Vodafone presented in a series of OneAPI workshops with some real progress reported including a live pilot in Canada across all its operators.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer drew the crowds for the launch of Windows Phone 7 Series and showcased, you guessed it, its social networking and content capabilities. Microsoft had a very busy stand for the whole show.

The Mobile Operator community made a big announcement to launch an international applications platform or Wholesale Applications Community. This initiative is backed by 15 of the world’s largest operators including AT&T, Docomo, China Mobile, and Vodafone with a combined 3 Billion consumers. The business model is likely to be similar to Apple’s App Store and Vodafone’s 360 App Store – with operators taking a 30% revenue share. The initiative should make it attractive to developers with a large potential market. And joining the dots the use of the OneAPI standard could make applications interesting, for example the ability for an App to know the location, at any moment, of your children who don’t have smartphones!

2010 promises to be a transformational year for the whole mobile ecosystem.  There is almost a perfect storm of forces at play:

• very high levels of consumer expectations based upon their internet experiences;
• big brands, such as Google, Apple & Facebook going ‘over the top’ to capture the hearts, minds and wallets of consumers;
• the mobile operator community responding with strategic initiatives such as OneAPI and the Wholesale Applications Community in an attempt to hold on to subscribers and monetise the mobile internet. 

I really believe 2010 will be a mobile year to remember.  The proof of course will be seen in the sunshine of Barcelona in February 2011.

Asia Pacific will see the greatest investment in Mobile Broadband with predicted capital expenditure of up to $34 billion. North America follows with up to $19 billion, with Europe expected to invest up to $14 billion. Mobile Broadband is set to account for 52 per cent of all operator investment in mobile infrastructure globally.  Of all the regions, North America will spend the greatest percentage – 80 per cent – of its total mobile CAPEX investment on Mobile Broadband.

“The forecasted investment in Mobile Broadband technologies reflects the importance the mobile industry places on enabling consumers to access any type of content on the move – whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want,” said Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer at the GSMA. “HSPA and HSPA+ have become the dominant global Mobile Broadband technologies and are set to benefit from a significant proportion of this CAPEX investment, resulting in faster and more reliable Mobile Broadband services being available to more subscribers around the world by the end of this year.”

HSPA connections have seen phenomenal growth in all markets since 2007, and this is set to continue in 2010 with the investment operators will make in Mobile Broadband technology. According to industry research firm Wireless Intelligence, the growth of HSPA is predicted to increase from an average of around nine million connections per month as of the end of 2009, to almost 13 million per month. Of the total estimated 342 million connections at the end of 2010, Europe will lead the way with 120 million connections, becoming the number one region for HSPA connections, with Asia Pacific accounting for 116 million and North America 58 million.

Operators around the world are pledging investment for continued HSPA and HSPA+ network upgrades to optimise available data speeds and maximise network capacity. In March 2009, mobilkom austria launched Europe’s first HSPA+ network to achieve competitive differentiation in a saturated mobile market. Through ongoing investment, mobilkom austria has developed an extremely successful mobile data offering and has seen its number of customers quadruple over the last three years.

“mobilkom austria was the first European mobile operator to deploy HSPA+ technology and we now have one of the fastest Mobile Broadband networks in Europe,” said Hannes Ametsreiter, CEO, Telekom Austria Group. “We’ve been able to cost effectively offer our customers peak download speeds up to 21Mbps, delivering an expansive mobile experience. mobilkom austria is committed to enriching this user experience through the provision of a solid and reliable supporting backhaul infrastructure using fibre technology.”

In Asia, Telstra, and its wholly-owned Hong Kong subsidiary CSL, is at the forefront of HSPA+ deployment. Telstra’s Next G™ HSPA+ network is the world’s largest 3G network, with speeds unsurpassed by any other national Mobile Broadband network, and covering more than 99% of the Australian population. Telstra has had HSPA+ with a peak network downlink speed of 21Mbps in commercial operation for over twelve months, and is currently testing dual carrier HSPA technology supporting peak network downlink speeds of 42Mbps. CSL currently offers the fastest Mobile Broadband network in Hong Kong, having deployed its Next G HSPA+ network last March.

“The strong technical performance of HSPA+ technology is a key differentiator for Telstra and its subsidiary CSL network in Hong Kong,” said David Thodey, CEO, Telstra. “The capabilities of HSPA+ have enabled us to deliver unparalleled network performance to our customers and enable them to enjoy a rich, next generation Mobile Broadband experience today.” 

There are currently 200 million HSPA connections worldwide, with more than 1,800 HSPA enabled devices available from more than 150 suppliers. Across 123 countries, there are currently 294 commercially live networks, of which 183 currently deliver peak data rates of above 3.6 Mbps, and 37 commercially live HSPA+ networks, each capable of delivering data speeds up to 21 Mbps.

SLA Mobile will be attending the GSMA’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week. 

*Deutsche Bank’s forecast on Mobile Broadband CAPEX covers spend on technologies including HSPA/HSPA+, WCDMA and EVDO/CDMA.

Watch the iPhone Video to Mobile demo on your iPhone. 

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Get the Media Release…

SLA Mobile, ranked by Deloitte as one of the top 10 fastest growing technology companies in the United Kingdom, has developed a suite of enterprise proven video and media solutions. Today’s announcement will allow content owners to create unique content libraries for millions of Apple iPhone users worldwide – as well as a very wide range of other smart phones.

The SLA Mobile media delivery suite provides end-to-end content management and delivery – from content owner, to service provider to consumer and provides integration services to operators hoping to develop revenue generating video content libraries. SLA Mobile ensures seamless integration between the video to mobile solution and the service providers’ service delivery platforms and content owners’ programming. The video to mobile suite incorporates streaming platform and media server, a full CMS solution, video encoding and service level monitoring. The new iPhone optimised solution will allow content owners to create their own content libraries specifically targeted at iPhone mobile entertainment consumers.

SLA Mobile and Abdeus have also announced an iPhone demo library featuring several Hollywood blockbuster trailers. To view the demo simply visit http://m.abdeus.com/iphone (using an iPhone).

According to Philip Stanfield, SLA Mobile’s Head of Sales in EMEA:

“Content owners and service providers can build rich multimedia content libraries today using this technology. We recognise that iPhone users are among the biggest consumers of video content and the operator data pricing models mean that video content is being consumed more than ever. Our video to mobile platform allows premium video content to be delivered and charged on a per-use or subscription model. And the solution is proven and scaleable.

“We’ll be attending the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later in the month and would like to meet operators or content owners who want to know more about this fabulous solution.”

The consultation open to all interested market participants marks an important breakthrough in cross-industry cooperation between payment services providers and mobile network operators aimed at empowering over 500 million European consumers to make SEPA payments using their mobile phone. This cooperation is the most ambitious project designed to date to build a common architecture for mobile contactless payments.

Dag-Inge Flatraaker, Chair of the EPC M-Channel Group, comments: “The requirements developed by EPC and GSMA will have a major impact enabling the mobile as a channel for payments in SEPA. This initiative paves the way for more efficient commercial launches of mobile contactless payments and contributes to interoperability and freedom of choice for the different stakeholders.”

“This is a significant move as it is the first time that mobile operators and banks have worked together at the international level on a common vision for contactless payments,” says Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Strategy Officer, GSMA.

In June 2008, the EPC and GSMA joined forces to support the further development of mobile payment services leveraging both the existing SEPA infrastructure and the infrastructure set up by mobile network operators. The EPC and GSMA are focused on defining requirements and specifications regarding the roles of Trusted Service Managers to interface with banks and mobile operators. TSMs will facilitate the distribution, configuration and activation of the bank’s payment application on the Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC, also known as a SIM card) within bank customers’ Near Field Communications* (NFC) handsets (their mobile phone). This technology allows, for example, payment using a mobile phone at a card payment terminal provided by a retailer or when purchasing from a vending machine.

The definition and specification of the requirements and business models for TSM services closes an existing gap in the new NFC ecosystem. The consultation now launched by the EPC and GSMA will eventually lead to shared solutions supporting the establishment of commercial relationships between banks, mobile network operators and Trusted Service Managers thus promoting mobile contactless payments across SEPA. In addition, the agreement on TSM specifications allows interested parties to develop services in the role of a TSM.

For more information on the consultation regarding the paper “TSM Service Management Requirements and Specifications” visit www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu and www.gsmworld.com.

GSMA App Planet Extended...

The GSMA today revealed new developments in its inaugural App Planet event being held at the 2010 Mobile World Congress.

The Association announced that Google and Motorola will each hold application developer conferences (ADC) within App Planet, bringing the total number of individual ADCs at Mobile World Congress to six.  The GSMA also announced that it is partnering with Berkeley Mobile International Collaborative to launch the global “University Mobile Challenge”, a competition designed to spur mobile application development and innovation at the university level.  Additionally, the International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA) announced finalists for the 6th edition of the gaming awards and will name the eight award winners at the IMGA ceremony on Monday, 15 February at App Planet.

“Solely focused on the rapidly growing application developer community, App Planet will bring together the many critical elements of the broad mobile application ecosystem together in one location,” said Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer for the GSMA.  “Application development is one of the most vibrant, innovative areas within mobile today, and we’re thrilled with the early response to App Planet.”

Leading Platform Dev Conferences under One Roof at App Planet

Google will host an Android Developer Lab at App Planet on Wednesday, 17 February.  The full-day session is targeted towards current Android developers as well as those who are interested in learning more about the platform.  Participants will have the opportunity to attend a technical session, talk to the Android developer relations team, and meet other members of the growing Android developer community.  

MOTODEV, Motorola’s developer network, will host a Developer Day on Monday, 15 February.  In this half-day event, MOTODEV will give developers an opportunity to spend the day getting tools, guidance, go-to-market knowledge and community support they need to create a whole new generation of phenomenal user experiences on Motorola’s Android-based devices. Developers will get access to the latest Android devices from Motorola, meet with MOTODEV experts and learn how to capitalise on the worldwide mobile market opportunity.  Motorola is also a sponsor of the IMGA awards at App Planet.

The full schedule of App Planet ADCs is:

Monday, 15 February – Vodafone 360 Developer Conference

Monday, 15 February – Developer Day hosted by MOTODEV

Tuesday, 16 February – BlackBerry Developer Day by RIM

Wednesday, 17 February – Sony Ericsson Creation Day

Wednesday, 17 February – Google Android Developer Lab

Thursday, 18 February – WIPJam Application Developer Conference

GSMA and BMIC Launch App Dev Challenge for University Students

The GSMA has teamed with Berkeley Mobile International Collaborative (BMIC), a non-profit organisation focused on bringing innovative, real-world educational and entrepreneurial opportunities and experiences to college students throughout the world, to create the global University Mobile Challenge. The University Mobile Challenge will bring together teams of students from universities that offer courses in mobile app development and entrepreneurship.

Groups of students form start-up teams to create an original mobile application in a category of their choice (personal utility, game, service, entertainment, location service, etc.), Students must take the application from an abstract idea to a working model along with a business plan. In the final exams for the project, the competing teams will present to a panel of judges as well as their classmates, and will publicly demonstrate their respective mobile apps, including outlining the market value, the business plan and go-to-market strategy. The winning team with the combination of the strongest mobile application concept and business plan from each university will be invited to a regional competition at a country level.  Each national winning university team will be sponsored to go on to compete in the global final competition, the first of which will be held at the 2011 Mobile World Congress. More information on the University Mobile Challenge can be found at http://bmic.org/.

IMGA to Hold 6th Annual Awards at App Planet

An international judging panel of 20 specialists have selected the 25 best new games for mobile phones in the 6th edition of the International Mobile Gaming Awards. The selection was made from more than 150 entries coming from 36 countries including China, France, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States.  According to the IMGA, 60% of all award entries were iPhone applications, versus just 16% last year.  In addition to the iPhone entries, nominations covered all platforms including Java, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, Maemo and Linux.  The IMGA will announce the eight award winners at an invitation-only ceremony being held at App Planet at the Mobile World Congress on 15 February. For more information on the International Mobile Gaming Awards, please visit www.imgawards.com.

About App Planet at the GSMA Mobile World Congress

The inaugural App Planet event will feature application developer conferences; an interactive exhibition; the App Lounge for networking and business development activities; a dedicated, day-long conference programme on industry trends in mobile applications; and the App Garage, which will showcase cutting-edge GSMA initiatives in the mobile applications space.  App Planet will host more than 120 exhibiting companies and the GSMA expects between 3,000 and 5,000 mobile application developers to visit App Planet over four days. 

Full information on App Planet is available at http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/exhibition/app_planet.htm.

In the the last few months we have seen significant merger and acquisition deals in the Mobile Advertising space.

Last November Google announced an agreement to acquire AdMob for $750m. At the start of this month Apple announced the acquisition of Quattro Wireless for $275m and Opera Software acquired AdMarvel in a deal reportedly worth $23m ($8m cash and $15m earn-out). 2007 was also a busy merger year.  AOL acquired Third Screen Media and Microsoft acquired ScreenTonic both in May 2007, and Yahoo acquired Actionality in August the same year.

Both AdMob and Quattro are well established advertising networks with good market share.  A recent IDC report stated that AdMob had 11% and Quattro Wireless 7% respectively of the US market based upon the number of ad impressions served.  So although significantly different in scale, what do these recent deals signify for the Mobile Advertising industry?

Google’s focus has traditionally been around SMS and search related mobile advertising – the addition of AdMob brings web and application display ads.

Their view is that despite the tremendous growth in mobile usage and the substantial investment by many businesses in the space the mobile web is still in its early stages. Pundits have been saying for some time now that the revenue from mobile inventory is going to be larger than that from the fixed web, and although it’s estimated that AdMob is generating approximately €60m of annualized revenue, it probably has the largest inventory of mobile advertising placement space and the largest network of partners.  It could, therefore, be concluded that Google’s excitement around the AdMob deal is based on the fact that it believes that great mobile advertising products can encourage even more growth in the mobile ecosystem.

Quattro Wireless serves a full spectrum of mobile marketing solutions, including display advertising, SMS/MMS/shortcodes, rich media, video and custom programs in more than 100 countries and across thousands of mobile web sites and applications.  One of Apple’s key strategies is to make Quattro the preferred platform for serving ads into iPhone apps.  This should offer developers a simple way of creating and monetising in-app ads and, by brokering that space to publishers and advertisers, be able to take a share of that revenue as well as the revenue from app purchases.

The AdMarvel deal is more of a technology play.  It appears that nearly 50 million people who access the web use Opera on their mobile phones and, together with AdMarvel, Opera might play an important role in the evolution of mobile advertising. AdMarvel’s product suite includes a number of management and analytics tools for mobile ad publishers. The company website states that they ‘strive to make mobile advertising work better’, by better transparency of results, simpler management of ad traffic and higher revenue return.  A key differentiator from AdMob and Quattro is that they are not an ad network – but they partner with ad networks to deliver better results for publishers.

The last few months have resulted in industry consolidation – but there is still competition in the market with Millennial Media and Jumptap still owning significant percentages of advertising revenues. I am not so sure they can now keep up with the giants of Apple and Google, but let’s see how things unfold.

SLA Mobile CEO Nic Stirk Profiled in Business Magazine

Nic Stirk, SLA Mobile’s CEO, has been profile in a Northern Ireland business magazine, Ulster Business…

“After racking up a growth rate of more than 4,000% in the last five years, SLA Mobile’s innovative enterprise has been successful in beating larger competitors to win a raft of lucrative contracts with global mobile giants including Vodafone, Fox Mobile Distribution and Volubill.

“In addition to establishing ‘right fit’ partnerships which enable the firm to explore new sectors, Nic Stirk says strong relationships built on an in-depth understanding of its customers’ culture and DNA lies at the core of the SLA Mobile’s success.”

Read more…