Mobile Industry

On the Hot Seat with Bluepulse's Christopher Nguyen

Mike Dolan — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:49:29 -0400

It's not often that a senior executive at Google steps down from his post to head a new startup but that's exactly what Christopher Nguyen, former engineering director of Google, did when he joined social messaging firm Bluepulse as its CTO and vice president of engineering. FierceWireless editor-in-chief Sue Marek recently talked with Nguyen about this 2008 Fierce 15 award winning venture and why it's different from all the other mobile messaging companies.

FierceWireless: Why did you leave Google to join Bluepulse? What was the appeal?

Nguyen: From my personal perspective if you look at my profile, my background has been about building things. I started my career by building a university [Nguyen was a professor at Hong Kong University of Science & Technology] and I've built and sold three companies so far. That has a certain rush of adrenaline every time you do it and I look forward to doing it over and over again. The only thing I haven't done is build a company that is worth more than $1 billion from scratch. I see Bluepulse as having that potential.

If you look at the mobile industry and its convergence with the Web, I think the potential is enormous.

FierceWireless: What specifically about this company was so appealing?

Nguyen: Mobile as an industry is about to explode. There is a shift of users from the Web to the mobile device. Mobile is a logical place, the device is always with you. The only thing limiting you is the capabilities. I grew up in the Bay area but after I finished my Ph.D., I went to Asia and lived there for 10 years. The people there live and breathe mobile technology. It weaves into people's lives. For five years, we didn't have a landline phone. We always had mobiles. Everyone in the company communicated with each other using SMS. I think over the next six to 12 months it will take off. The only question is whether it will be Bluepulse or another player.

FierceWireless: What is the value proposition for Bluepulse? There are other similar companies, what makes Bluepulse special?

Nguyen: The passion of CEO Ben Keighran matches mine. When they were pursuing me for this job, I asked them what is your end-game? If you are planning to sell this company for $50 to $60 million, I'm not interested. If you want to build a global platform, something worth $1 billion, sign me up.

Also Bluepulse is very focused in one area. Mobile is a very loose way to group this. There are a lot of different players in mobile, especially in the transition from Web to mobile. But no one is focused on mobile messaging as a hill to be conquered. There are instant messaging technologies, voicemail technologies, SMS and VOIP calls. Each player has its own area it's trying to build out. We are the only ones that I see focused on mobile messaging as the killer app. If you ask 100 people what is one activity that you would want to do--if I gave you an application that would allow you to update your status and let friends know what you are doing, about 10 people may want to do that. But if you ask 100 people if they want to communicate and send messages to families and friends, I think the answer will be 98 saying yes. We are very focused on an unexciting but mass market vertical application with Bluepulse.

FierceWireless: So you are focusing on unified communications? Is that the right term for this?

Nguyen: I have a philosophy that when you change something, you only change one variable at a time. You don't force the user to change too many variables at one time. In the desktop platform, everybody emails. As you change the technology platform to mobile they will want to do some type of messaging. Bluepulse is focused on that. Other people are doing excellent things on the mobile platform that are different from what we are doing.

FierceWireless: You say you deliver more than 150 million messages per month to users in more than 190 countries around the globe. How did you get that reach so quickly?

Nguyen: Bluepulse started as a client application but the key differentiating factor was that it worked on all phones in the world. It delivered a lot of widgets, which could do anything from IM chat to horoscope. Ben [Keighran, CEO of Bluepulse] noticed that what attracted the traffic and what retained users was the communication application more than other applications. In June of last year, the team decided to focus on delivering that. They changed from a client-based application to a Web-based application so it is more accessible to people.

FierceWireless: How do you make money?

Nguyen: Today, we don't. We are strategically focused on getting reach. I have a lot of theories on building companies. You always have to make difficult choices about where to invest your limited resources. No matter how large you are, your resources are limited. Bluepulse is facing the decision today about whether you focus on growing the user base or do you try to monetize this? You have to choose one. The observation I have made is that if you grow the user base, it is much more defensible in a competitive position. If you launch a revenue model, within seven days everyone can copy it. So as long as we believe there are ways to make money with a mobile platform, the right thing to do at the moment is grow the user base.

This isn't a theory. I've done this before.

FierceWireless: Will there be a role for the wireless carrier in your business?

Nguyen: This sounds like a politically correct answer but I believe it. There is a huge value in terms of the data connectivity that carriers can provide. AT&T is realizing this with the iPhone. I think the carriers have a huge role to play in that. But as the industry matures, the platform becomes open and you have more innovation. It will draw more data usage for the infrastructure and infrastructure players should be very happy.

Carphone Warehouse signals mobile slowdown

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:59:54 -0400

A report in the U.K.'s Evening Standard cites Charles Dunstone, CEO of Carphone Warehouse, as predicting that the economic downturn will affect the mobile industry. Carphone Warehouse expects its fixed line offerings to overtake its wireless offerings as the lead revenue generator: That's a first for the company. Carphone noticed that during the past three months mobile connections climbed just 12 percent, down from 19 percent this time last year, but the coming year looks bleaker, according to the company, which expected just 8 percent to 10 percent growth.

For more on Carphone Warehouse's forecast:
- read this article from the Evening Standard

Politicos tout mobile campaigning at CTIA

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 07:59:54 -0400

Former presidential candidates John Edwards and Fred Thompson headlined Thursday's keynote presentation at CTIA Wireless 2008, largely sidestepping pressing issues directly impacting the mobile industry audience members in attendance. Opening remarks from CTIA president and CEO Steve Largent suggested the discussion would spotlight the regulatory issues looming over the wireless landscape: A short video segment assembled in conjunction with consumer advocacy group mywireless.org argued against government intervention via statistical snapshots indicating that 69 percent of U.S. wireless subscribers believe they are already paying too much for wireless taxes, 74 percent believe additional regulation would make their bills even higher, and 84 percent believe that a free market economy is sufficient to regulate pricing.

However, the event never again returned to lawmakers' impact on wireless, with both Edwards and Thompson instead outlining their respective views on the state of American politics, culture and society as the 2008 election draws closer. Decrying the media's "focus on the superficial," Edwards proclaimed that citizens deserve a daily dialog that illuminates how each candidate would tackle hot-button issues like the economy, the environment and healthcare if he or she wins the presidential race. "Wireless is important to provide this information," Edwards said, citing the enormous impact of mobile and the web on how campaigns are operated and political messages disseminated.

By contrast, Thompson's keynote largely eschewed discussion of mobile: "John said what needed to be said--you can't get away with nothin' anymore," he cracked, agreeing the platform is a hugely positive element of the modern campaign process. Thompson instead split his podium time between a series of corny jokes satirizing his failed presidential bid and more serious subject matter like terrorism, the tax burdens facing an aging population, the cynicism of American people and what he called "the phenomenon of John McCain."

A question-and-answer session following the two candidates also squandered the opportunity to debate wireless regulation--while audience members were invited to submit questions via SMS, Largent chose to query the former senators on subjects including their personal heroes, the bipartisan schism in American politics and the impact of 24-hour news coverage.-- Jason

Edwards, Thompson headline Day Three at CTIA

Mike Dolan — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:42:37 -0400

Former presidential candidates John Edwards and Fred Thompson headlined the Day Three keynote presentation at CTIA Wireless 2008, which largely sidestepped issues relevant to the mobile industry audience members in attendance. Opening remarks from CTIA president and CEO Steve Largent suggested the discussion would spotlight the regulatory issues looming over the wireless landscape: A short video segment assembled in conjunction with consumer advocacy group mywireless.org argued against government intervention via statistical snapshots indicating that 69 percent of U.S. wireless subscribers believe they are already paying too much for wireless taxes, 74 percent believe additional regulation would make their bills even higher, and 84 percent believe that a free market economy is sufficient to regulate pricing.

However, the event never again returned to lawmakers' impact on wireless, with both Edwards and Thompson instead outlining their respective views on the state of American politics, culture and society as the 2008 election draws closer. Decrying the media's "focus on the superficial," Edwards proclaimed that citizens deserve a daily dialogue that illuminates how each candidate would tackle hot-button issues like the economy, the environment and healthcare if he or she wins the presidential race. "Wireless is important to provide this information," Edwards said, citing the enormous impact of mobile and the web on how campaigns are operated and political messages disseminated.

"[Wireless] has changed the basic dynamic of how we fund campaigns," Edwards continued. "We invited voters to text the word 'Hope' to join our campaign, and had literally tens of thousands who signed up. What happens is [these technologies] democratize the process--instead of a few who control funding and access, it's now being dispersed...Wireless takes us to a new dimension."
By contrast, Thompson's keynote largely eschewed discussion of mobile: "John said what needed to be said--you can't get away with nothin' anymore," he cracked, agreeing the platform is a hugely positive element of the modern campaign process. Thompson instead split his podium time between a series of corny jokes satirizing his failed presidential bid and more serious subject matter like terrorism, the tax burdens facing an aging population, the cynicism of American people and what he called "the phenomenon of John McCain."

Vendors talk 4G

Lynnette Luna — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:49:43 -0400

The heads of the worldÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s three largest mobile infrastructure vendors, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Nortel, tackled the topic de jour for the mobile industry during todayÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s keynote address: 4G.

In a panel moderated by CTIA Chairman and Verizon President and CEO Lowell McAdam, the vendor executives noted that unlike previous iterations of technology, 4G is actually being driven by carriers themselves as the demand for wireless broadband services grow.

Ã¢â‚¬Å“Operators are pushing us to go faster with 4G,Ã¢â‚¬Â said Mike Zafirovsky, CEO of Nortel. Ã¢â‚¬Å“ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s definitely a different environment.Ã¢â‚¬Â
That sentiment was echoed by Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin earlier in the morning when he said the global operator is making mobile broadband a priority. Members of the panel also reacted to SarinÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s suggestion that LTE should be the 4G standard and WiMAX should become a component of that.

Ã¢â‚¬Å“Alcatel-Lucent does have an aspiration to have a global standard because there are some real positives,Ã¢â‚¬Â noted Patricia Russo, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent. Ã¢â‚¬Å“In WiMAX there are specific applications with uses based on spectrum and business models. The underlying technologies are similar in terms of radio access and all IP, but I think we are going to see a co-existence of some of these choices for some time.Ã¢â‚¬Â

Ericsson, which has stayed out of the mobile WiMAX market to date, prefers one standard. Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO of Ericsson, said Ã¢â‚¬Å“in a perfect world it would be better for our resources to have one standard, but also different standards have pushed each other. But now we have a world where 85 percent of the world is on the GSM/WCDMA path and is poised to dominate the world going forward.Ã¢â‚¬Â--Lynnette Luna

Vendors: There will be two 4Gs

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:59:58 -0400

The heads of the world's three largest mobile infrastructure vendors, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Nortel, tackled the topic de jour for the mobile industry during yesterday's keynote address: 4G.

"Operators are pushing us to go faster with 4G," said Mike Zafirovsky, CEO of Nortel. "It's definitely a different environment."

That sentiment was echoed by Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin earlier in the morning when he said the global operator is making mobile broadband a priority. Members of the panel also reacted to Sarin's suggestion that LTE should be the 4G standard and WiMAX should become a component of that.

"Alcatel-Lucent does have an aspiration to have a global standard because there are some real positives," noted Patricia Russo, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent. "In WiMAX there are specific applications with uses based on spectrum and business models. The underlying technologies are similar in terms of radio access and all IP, but I think we are going to see a co-existence of some of these choices for some time."

Ericsson, which has stayed out of the mobile WiMAX market to date, prefers one standard. Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO of Ericsson, said "in a perfect world it would be better for our resources to have one standard, but also different standards have pushed each other. But now we have a world where 85 percent of the world is on the GSM/WCDMA path and is poised to dominate the world going forward."-Lynnette

AT&T eyes Indian market

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:59:56 -0400

AT&T told analysts in a recent briefing that it plans on being "aggressive" in its plans to enter the mobile industry in India. The carrier's Asian regional managing director Bernard Yee said that while the company is "very serious about the market" it's not ready to disclose whether it will start its own wireless service in India or make an acquisition. AT&T left the Indian market in 2004 when it sold its stake in Idea Cellular. Now the company wants to tap into the emerging market because AT&T's U.S. market fixed line business is slowing down. AT&T is currently waiting for India to approve its mobile license, which it filed in October. Some reports speculate that AT&T is eyeing a stake in Videocon's wireless subsidiary Datacom.

For more on AT&T's plans:
- read this article in Business Standard

Dumb pipe nostalgia at Mobile World Congress

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 06:59:59 -0500

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Dumb pipe nostalgia at Mobile World Congress

"What begins in fear ends in folly," the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge once wrote. That should be a key takeaway for carriers departing the Mobile World Congress today. The conference grounds are ripe with the three words all network operators fear most: The Dumb Pipe. Most carrier executives made use of that magical phrase this past week in Barcelona. But why?

"Twenty-five years ago Microsoft was a puppy," explained Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son.Ã‚Â "And everyone said 'ah, you are cute!' But then they became huge in the PC space, and the guys that made the computers, and built the infrastructure didn't make much money. If the mobile industry is not careful the same thing will happen, and carriers will become dumb pipes,"Ã‚Â he said.

"In the endÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ technology is not what matters: it's services, it's applications, it's experiences," Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin said during his keynote Tuesday. Carriers must offer subscribers a variety of ways to communicate--like SMS, email or social networking sites--the carrier must "be in all these places." He added: "We must not allow ourselves to become bit pipes and let somebody else do the services work."

Just as the carriers' fear of becoming a dumb pipe is one elephant the industry can't seem to push out of the room, it's worth noting that mentions of the Apple iPhone declined significantly at this year's show. Panelists talked about the rise in popularity of touch screens, the importance of user interfaces and the big push to bring the desktop Internet experience to the mobile platform. However, they rarely mentioned the handset that has done so much to evangelize these three trends. After an entire year barraged by iPhone news, the attendees didn't need to hear it.

One high profile carrier speaker never gave aÃ‚Â "dumb pipe" warning. Instead, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega detailed the myriad options that AT&T subscribers have for mobile content services after quickly rushing through a few slides with iPhone usage statistics.

De la Vega didn't give a dumb pipe warning during his keynote address because iPhone users have already turned AT&T's EDGE network into one. The iPhone's applications are managed by Apple and other Internet service providers. AT&T just needs to keep the network up and running.Ã‚Â

So maybe Coleridge's quote doesn't apply here. Maybe the fearsome "dumb pipe" metaphor really is as tired as it sounds. Maybe the carriers' folly is already evident here at Mobile World Congress: No one addressed the power thatÃ‚Â Apple has wrestled from carriers the world over. The carriers'Ã‚Â folly was in trying to resurrect the specter of one elephant in the room, while ignoring the presence of another. -Brian

On the Hot Seat with Mike Short

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:08:15 -0500

FierceWireless editor Brian Dolan recently spoke with Mike Short, vice president of research and development for O2 Groups about the upcoming GSMA Innovation Awards, trends in the European mobile industry and how the industry has changed over the past decade. Short is responsible for trials of new technology. In addition, he keeps an eye out for innovative products for O2's carriers in Western Europe. Short is also the creator of the GSM Awards, which he started 11 years ago when he was chairman of the GSMA.

FierceWireless: As a judge in the upcoming GSMA Innovation Awards, what trends do you think will dictate which nominees will take home the awards?

Short: I try to look at these awards from a global perspective. I've been in mobile for 20 years so I always look for something new that will have a global impact. In the devices category, I mainly look for things that are going to change the shape of the market. In the applications category, I look for examples that are really going to develop the mobile business, like mobile marketing, ticketing, and barcode solutions. The show itself in Barcelona always attracts a lot of innovative companies, but when new companies take the trouble to enter the awards, they are beginning to answer the question: "How do I make a difference?" The award scheme helps.

FierceWireless: What specific trends are you seeing for devices?

Short: I see two trends for devices. One is a trend towards wearable devices. The other trend has to do with connectivity. One example on the wearable category is eyewear that helps you to sort through emails through special glasses or helps you to play games when you are perhaps relaxing on the beach. You know, wear 3-D glasses and have a bit of fun.

The other area, though, is this connectivity to and from the cell phones where we see the power of Bluetooth really come through. I remember ten years ago when Bluetooth first came into the headsets. People would walk down the street and get stared at with the headsets, but people don't really stare at headset users anymore. What they are going to do now is take Bluetooth to another level-like health telematics. You'll be able to measure blood pressure and sync that up to your phone via Bluetooth and then send the information onto the hospital.

FierceWireless: Some of these solutions don't seem like they would see market uptake any time soon. What timeframe do you have in mind when judging these awards?

Short: I tend to look at products and services up for these awards as having a timeframe of 18 months to two years before launching in the market, but I would expect them to have prototypes or trial services in the market this year in order to be eligible.

FierceWireless: Any other trends worth mentioning?

Short: Well, reducing the cost of transmission is certainly an important, if not exciting trend. The cost of all these base stations sending information back to switches is getting higher. We have a lot of data transmissions and that's a huge cost for backhaul. So there are a lot of innovative solutions in the transmission backhaul area which helps operators save money and in return reduce prices for end users. [Backhaul is] less exciting, perhaps, than applications, but a genuine infrastructure need.

FierceWireless: How have the awards changed over the years?

Short: Over the years the awards have really changed. In the past there was less emphasis on innovation and more emphasis on growth. We used to give awards for the fastest growing operator, for example, or the one with the highest penetration and things like that. In recent years the awards have widened to include things like best marketing campaign, best innovation in the base station category, best innovation in the IT and OSS categories.

In recent years we have discovered that innovation is coming from so many players-no long just the top six handset vendors or top six infrastructure vendors. In the last three or four years, we have had innovation categories that have helped to open up ideas in the content arena, the enterprise market arena or government or public sector area. So the innovation is often closer to the customer but can fly from many more companies. There are also close to 1,300 exhibitors at this year's Mobile World Congress and that just shows the global reach of the mobile industry.

FierceWireless: Do you see femtocells being a big trend?

Short: In the U.K., we have had competition for voice coverage for 23 years, so we have gotten pretty good at voice coverage. But 3G, being a relatively new network and intensive network, does have some difficulty when indoors. So the femtocells do have some use in that area, but they also play well into the combination of ADSL and the femtocell. So that's where the experimentation really is-with backhaul and indoor coverage. O2 has done some trials already and will do more in 2008. We see a real need for that.

Some enterprise customers will say "Alright, we'll buy a thousand cell phones from you, if you improve the coverage in our building." So along with selling the handsets and providing the connectivity, you have to improve the coverage as part of that.

FierceWireless: What else is in the innovation pipeline at O2?

Short: We have a major trial around near field communications (NFC) around the city of London. If you have been through London recently, you would have noticed we have something called the Oyster Card, which is a pay-as-you-go card for underground subway cars and buses. What we have done is put that Oyster Card inside a cell phone and said you have three wallets inside this cell phone: Cell phone account, Oyster Card travel account and your Visa or MasterCard account.

That trial is running through May. We will get the results for the trials from those customers after that timeframe. We want to understand the balance between simplicity or ease-of-use and security. As soon as you put more monetary value-more wallets-inside a phone, there are some security questions that need to be faced, including the balance of security and ease-of-use.

FierceWireless: What other m-commerce solutions does O2 offer?

Short: We are one of five major operators who support a $1 billion mobile content business in the U.K. If you look at mobile content paid for at a premium, it's about $1 billion a year market for transactional mobile content payments. We've certainly had banking alerts for mobiles for a number of year and expect that to grow. We have also run trials with bar codes that users download to phones and then use them in real life. We have had some interesting mobile advertising trials already, but the key barriers to mobile advertising have less to do with technology and more to do with process and metrics.

FierceWireless: Finally, how are enterprise applications changing?

Short: We see more interest in the enterprise space as that market gets mobilized more fully. Traditionally mobile enterprise has focused on fleet management and mobile email, but it's moving more toward business process re-engineering and more into accessing workflow, work records and information sources. We see that also extending into the public sector with healthcare and health telematics and transport telematics as well.

To sum up, there is a lot of innovation already going on, but it's good to see when new companies enter these awards so we can see what's coming out next.

SPOTLIGHT: LiPS finalizes Linux spec

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 06:59:52 -0500

The Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum has finalized its specification, which it hopes will "enable mobile industry players to achieve basic interoperability for applications and services deployed on Linux-based phones." Critics say the timing was a direct response to Google's formation of the OHA. Report

Chutes & Ladders: Motorola's CTO resigns, too

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:59:56 -0500

Following the resignation of CEO Ed Zander, Motorola's chief technology officer, Padmasree Warrior has left the company, too. Reports claim that Motorola had been preparing for Warrior's departure since October. It's not entirely clear if she left for a new opportunity or if she was pushed out, or perhaps both. Still, Zander and Warrior appear to be getting most of the blame for Motorola's inability to produce a great follow-up to the RAZR--as the chief technologist and leader of thousands of other engineers at Motorola, Warrior deserves some blame.

However, no one else in the mobile industry came up with a better idea than the RAZR either, until this year's debut of the iPhone, a device that belongs in a whole different class and kicks off a whole new device era. What's being overlooked is Warrior's work with WiMAX and other wireless technologies and applications. If innovation is only about achieving higher sales than your last good idea, then there must be an awful lot of good ideas that don't get to see the light of day. -Dan

For more:
- check out this article in The Chicago Tribune