To give you an idea of the focus of this years' event, setting the stage once again was the pre-show event staged by iHollywood focused on Mobile Entertainment. We are reminded that mobile entertainment revenues still only account for a small amount of the overall take, however, given that The Mobile Entertainment Summit turned away more than 100 would-be attendees its obvious how lucrative this market promises to be. Good news for the smart phone developer community and those developing apps, services, and solutions targeted at the Entertainment and Enterprise user. These segments in my mind are THE target user of the future and the solutions aimed at these segments are likely to be the big winners in the years to come.
I was somewhat amused at the hype that's still surrounding the issue of virus' affecting Symbian smart phones and was pleasantly surprised to see the headline on page 1 of the Wireless Week Official Show Daily that read " Symbian Battles Hackers, Malware". Albeit negative and somewhat disconcerting, it was great to see the Symbian OS getting front page acknowledgement. Obviously security was another sector that was popular at this year's event, with several sessions focused on the topic and numerous exhibitors touting enhanced security and features designed to prevent hackers and malware from infiltrating your mobile device.

Setting the tone for the event, however, was the day 1 keynote. The theme was obviously that music, pictures, and sports (entertainment) are entwined in the wireless business and are driving ARPU. Something that really stuck in my mind though was the mention that although camera phones and picture services are plentiful (to say the least) the trend has been that consumer usage tends to drop off significantly, with users snapping photos happily for the first month or so of use, but then dropping off and getting bored with the "novelty" soon afterwards. Professionals cite lack of storage on the devices, poor interoperability, poor integration and communication between mobile devices and the PC, and difficulty of use as key issues that are stumbling blocks and inhibiting use. Industry insiders even speculate that if usage doesn't pick up then carriers will have no option but to cut off the heavy subsidies that are in place on camera phones.

So... enter the developer. There are currently some 4200+ commercial Symbian applications on the market today. With smart phone sales (which are dominated by Symbian OS devices) expected to continually increase in mobile device market share at least through 2008 - where they will number in the order of some 130 million smart phones in use - that leaves plenty of room for innovation from the developer community. There are currently 41 Symbian OS devices on the market today and there are some 40 new devices expected to be announced this year. So you can do the math... lots of new smart phones + millions of potential users = Opportunity. In my mind, some of the best opportunities for successful applications and innovations are those that address some of the following issues:

Ease of Use / Better user experience - simple-to-use apps and tools that enable users to access and use applications on their device.

Integration & Synch with the PC - Synchronization with PC-based applications and the ability to easily move data to and from PCs and the mobile device

Storage - more memory to store images, videos, and games

Some of the cool apps I saw this week at CTIA address these issues. Several are described below.

Mobile Phone Tools from BVRP - A better user experience results in more customer usage. Today's smart phone user is more savvy than a couple of years ago and he expects application diversity and customization. Once fine tool that will no doubt stimulate more usage is BVRP's Mobile Phone Tools. This application enables users to share and manage files from a mobile device from a PC. The product currently ships with several Kyocera phones and word from BVRP's David Wright is that a version supporting the Symbian OS should come later this year. Mobile Phone Tools provides users with the following capabilities:

• data synchronization
• file management
• contact management
• backup and restoration of data
• ringtone creation
• mobile image and video editing
• phone/modem provisioning
• integrated store

The MMS Studio

The multimedia studios that come with the product are in my mind cheap, simple, and fun! Using the image or MMS studio transferring images/video to and from the mobile device and PC is a breeze. The graphic editing environment provides for simple drag and drop functionality to facilitate the creation of custom wallpaper, ring tones, images, video segments, MMS messages, or what have you... simply use your imagination! The embedded format conversion tools are very click, making it pretty much foolproof for the user. Once installed and optimized for your device of choice, Mobile Phone Tools studio creates data files and multi media that is optimized for your device and screen size. Other tools like the ringtone conversion utility will enable you to easily convert tones from one format to another. For example, download a ringtone in Siemens format then save it as a Nokia format tone... no problem. Users wanting to keep data in synch with their home or office PC and also have the ability to easily create custom media and multi-media apps this one is a winner. Of interest to carriers, the product comes with an integrated store that enables the linking of Mobile Phone Tools directly to your online store content. Look for version 4 later in Q3. See http://www.bvrp.com

Melodeo Mobile Music Solution - Downloadable music for mobile phones and PC from Melodeo. Announced this week from Seattle-based melodeo, this service puts a music store directly on the user's wireless phone. Customers can then shop, preview, play, and store music tracks over the air. Even better, the service enables users to save purchased songs to both the mobile device and the PC - the industry's first "dual delivery feature" according to the company. Having music restricted for use by a single handset is believed to hinder transactions somewhat so this flexible solution should stimulate more customer usage. The solution is supported by Series 60, UIQ, Windows Mobile, BREW, and Java handsets. A peer-to-peer sharing provision enables users to also send music from one device to another via Bluetooth. See http://www.melodeo.com

Qix from Zi Corp - Another new and useful application discovered this week at CTIA is from Calgary-based Zi Corporation (Canada). Qix(TM) enables users to access pretty much any piece of information or application on their mobile device with fewer keystrokes. The solution uses a proprietary indexing engine and negates the need for users to fumble through lengthy menu options and drill-down menus. For a user searching for information that relates to a specific word or name, the user need only key in a couple of letters (for example, searching for information about "Glenn"... simply key in the letter "gl" or simply enter "37" if you know a phone number includes this 2 number sequence) . The proprietary technology will begin to retrieve information and provide relevant links to content with in applications, contact lists, help documents... pretty much any application that resides on the device. Taking this one step further... if a resulting contact is presented as a hit on the search, Qix then provides a list of the related services, such as SMS messaging, e-mail and photo sharing that are available to be performed on that contact... essentially, sending an MMS message to a person or locating an application on the mobile device is just a couple of keystrokes away. The premise behind the solution is simple... to drive customer usage and generate more ARPU for the carriers. Developers and users will be pleased to know that the first version of Qix is based on the Symbian OS. When you take into account that the company has also just recently announced the acquisition of the Decuma handwriting recognition product you can see where the development of the company's products are heading. Look for some sort of integration of handwriting recognition with Qix technology down the road. Sometimes the best apps are simple in concept... Qix definitely is simple to use but is very powerful and useful - another winner! See http://www.zicorp.com

Qix - simple access to information (Image Credit - Zi Corp)

More Memory! One solution to help drive the growth of mobile services and mobile entertainment is MegaSIM from M-Systems. MegaSIM has been designed to significantly extend USIM card capabilities with: high-capacity flash storage (from 16MB to1GB), crypto functionality, processing power and high-speed data protocols. This configurable high-capacity storage solution is likely to be a big hit with device makers, particularly as mobile video services become an increasingly popular request by handset users. http://www.m-systems.com

These are but several of the thousands of solutions that were being shown and discussed at CTIA 2005. Hundreds of developers and solution providers were on hand although it was tough to catch up with all of them! Luckily, Nokia hosted the Forum Nokia Pro developer showcase at CTIA Wireless. A select few (actually several dozen) developers were invited to show off their apps in this relaxing and informal event. Stay tuned as we provide a few details from the showcase in our next feature from CTIA. Stay tuned!

See our 2005 CTIA news archive for more PR announced at the show