Morning readers, Whatley here, just got this over MSN from a friend of mine at Nokia;

“Hey Whatley, we are buying Symbian and will donate it + S60 to an open source foundation!”

To which my response was a resounding - “Eh?”

You can read the official Nokia press releases here and here

Now, I’m not a developer. I’m ready to admit my knowledge in this area isn’t great. Ewan’s in the Maldives, the rest of the SMSTN Team are (still) sleeping so it’s down to me to make something of this.

Looking around online there is little opinion up yet - however, unsurprisingly, All About Symbian has the news too and Steve Litchfield says that “This is officially HUGE“.

I dropped the news into Twitter just over an hour ago (at the time of publishing) and got few responses back.

One of my followers and all round smart chap, Jof Arnold, emailed over his thoughts, which he’s kindly given me permission to publish here - I for one am interested to find out what this actually means for the industry as a whole and, more importantly, what’s your opinion on this latest Nokia acquistion?

_________________

Over to Jof:

“In practice… well, that all depends on Nokia and I couldn’t possibly comment on their track history of OSS projects - cos I have no idea.

In theory? Potentially an awful lot. Compare to the iPhone and you’ll see why. Remember all those people trying to jail-break the iPhone? Those projects were successful because fundamentally the operating system pissed off many people; cut and paste; closed apps; no file explorer. Now, had apple open-sourced it fully you’d have a situation where the masses would be contributing huge amounts of their time into making the iPhone just how they wanted it… all under apple’s approval of course.

But, apple won’t do that… and developers are annoyed. Which is why any system that allows developed to tinker with the core operating system is going to be attractive to them. All of a sudden, developers haved a connundrum;

• develop for a locked-down system that is only on 10m handsets yet has a cool app-distribution and revenue-sharing system…. (apple)
• develop for an open system that has 200m handsets (nokia)
• develop for some google vapour-ware (android)

Impossible to say what will happen, but developers have always had a soft-spot for Symbian. This is potentially game-changing, but Nokia/Symbian’s got their work cut out; despite all this, Apple is a marketing monster and is hard to resist.”

Jof Arnold
http://www.brainbakery.com
http://twitter.com/jofarnold

_________________

Thanks for those thoughts Jof. There’s a live webcast scheduled in for 11am today.

We’ll have more news, as it breaks.

Thoughts?

Since my article last week with rumours that Monstermob had gone bust, I’ve had quite a few emails from interested parties asking if I know anything else. As it’s been a long holiday weekend in the UK, I haven’t had a chance to do any further research - however it appears I won’t be needing to. Here’s a statement I’ve got from Miguel Lopez-Quesada, General Manager, Corporate Communications at LaNetro Zed - owner of Monstermob:

“As disclosed in a letter to all shareholders from the Chairman, dated August 16th and published on the Monstermob Group plc website (www.monstermobgrouplc.co.uk), as part of the ongoing process of corporate rationalisation and reorganisation within the Monstermob Group the Board has decided to begin an administration process for three UK subsidiaries, these being Monstermob Ltd and two other companies with limited activity (Phunky Ltd. and Mobiprom Ltd.). This decision has been taken to preserve the rights of the creditors of these subsidiaries. The financial and patrimonial strength of Monstermob Group PLC will not be affected in any material way by these measures.

Monstermob Group plc remains as headquarter of the group, based in Lancaster and operating in absolute normality. The administration process is a normal business practice and is being conducted according to the law and with all the guarantees to the parties”.

(Thanks to Marc at Mantra PR for the information)

Just heard a rumour on the Bango forums (via the Mobile Monday London mailing list) that Monstermob have gone bust. If you’ve got any inside information (anonymous sources will be respected and kept so), drop me an email to alex (at) sms text news (dot) com

Monstermob goes bust. Only months after acquisition of Monstermob by LaNetro Zed, the UK arm of the company has gone into administration.
Rumours abound that LaNetro has asset stripped the UK company and left it with many debts, potentially to content providers and consumers who either supplied or pre-paid for content and that such creditors will claim that LaNetro fraudulently manipulated Monstermob - as shadow directors (from Spain) to enable them to put Monstermob’s woes in one place and cut loose.

Gazettes Online Link

Publication Date: Thursday, 16 August 2007
Notice Code: 2410 Appointment of Administrators

In the High Court of Justice (Chancery Division)
Birmingham District Registry No 4947 of 2007
MONSTERMOB LIMITED
(Company Number 03916609)
Nature of Business: Provision of Mobile Phone Entertainment Services.
In the High Court of Justice (Chancery Division)
Birmingham District Registry No 4948 of 2007
Joint Administrators’ Names and Address: Mark Elijah Thomas Bowen and Nigel Price (IP Nos 8711 and 8778), both of Moore Stephens LLP, Beaufort House, 94-96 Newhall Street, Birmingham B3 1PB.

(326401)

Link: Noodle for cheap calls

Had a tip in from an SMS Text News reader earlier about a service called Noodle. The concept is quite simple - you get a new number which you use instead of your existing mobile number, and everytime you make or receive a call you earn 2p a minute cash. Is it too good to be true? My source has done a bit of digging..

- - - -

First of all - lets look at the ‘UK’ number range. According to
 
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/numbers/numbers_administered/s7.xls
 
the 07000 range is allocated to Wire9 telecom, based on the Isle of Man.    Wire9 (or Cloud9) offers a portioned soft switch service which allows third parties to basically operate as MVNOs using Wire9’s number range.  As Noodle themselves happy admit (http://www.noodle-oodles.com/question.php), the Noodle service (driven by Wire9) falls under the FM06 interconnect range - lets just say that Three weren’t the only operator managing to extract +15ppm rates from other networks.
 
Now, I’m not quite sure how Ofcom’s latest ruling on interconnect rates affects Wire9, but I believe that they will likely still be extracting 15p+ per minute during peak even though Three has be regulated to 5.9p.
 
So, this explains how Noodle can both provide free international calls AND a rebate on your outgoing and incoming MoU - they receive such high interconnect payments that they can afford to give a little back.
 
What does this mean to you as a mobile punter?
 
You have to check if 077000 numbers are included in your bundle.  I can categorically say that as of last month T-mobile do not consider these numbers as part of a bundle, and you are charged quite a bit for making these calls.  Two example calls:  A 56 second call costing 39.7p and a 105 second call costing 74.5p
 
Now I have heard that other operators are including these calls in their bundles - I fail, however, to see how this can be sustained if the interconnect rates exhibit such asymmetry.
 
So, if you plan on going with noodle
a)  check that your network treats 07000 calls inclusive of your bundle
and
b) Tell your friends to check or else you may very well end up costing them a tonne of money!

- - - -

Interesting. Anyone else use Noodle, or have experience of using their service?

Update: Just signed up for a Noodle account and tried calling it using my office VOIP provider. It couldn’t route the call. Then tried using Skype - the charge came up at 14.4p per minute. Curious..

Link: Pay Point - PAYPOINT ANNOUNCES EXCLUSIVE PARTNERSHIP WITH SHOP SCAN SAVE®

Got an anonymous tip in about this earlier. Must have missed the press release back in April, or they need a new PR agency, as it didn’t appear on our news story radar. Anyway, better late than never..

Shop Scan Save® is an innovative retail solution that binds together mobile phone technology and EPoS payment systems, so consumers can receive and request money saving deals by text message, as an alternative to tearing out paper coupons.

Shoppers sign up to Shop Scan Save® by texting “JOIN” to a standard rate SMS shortcode.  Following the simple registration process, a unique barcode ID is sent to their mobile phone.  Subsequently, Shop Scan Save® members receive regular, personalised SMS offers entitling them to discounts on popular items.  When redeeming coupons, customers simply present their barcode ID, which is then scanned at the till along with the qualifying items to automatically receive the discounts they are entitled to.

It’s due to launch nationwide across the UK this summer - and check this for a response rate:

PayPoint’s involvement with the scheme and planned national rollout follows a successful trial at Sainsbury’s at Jackson’s in Hull.  The trial delivered an average 20% coupon redemption rate: sometimes up to 90% because members were able to request specific offers tailored to their shopping list. Therefore, retailers can expect to see instant benefits in-store.

20% is quite good, but up to 90%? Wow, that’s impressive! Now here’s the interesting thing. A quick browse around the PayPoint site later, and I found my local PayPoint retailers. It’s all relatively small corner shop mini-market ventures - no sign of Sainsbury’s, Asda, Tesco or Morrisons in the list. Wonder how long it’ll take for the big retailers to jump on the mobile voucher bandwagon?

A little bird reckons that a mobile related voicemail messaging service close to my heart is up for sale. Interesting.

Just had this in via the anonymous tips form. Perhaps some of those more intimately aware of what’s happening at Vodafone could confirm, deny or rebuke as appropriate?

Word on the street is Vodafone are going to start charging for using their home portal. That’s right.

No more free Vodafone LIVE.

Which is quite frankly ridiculous.

BUT - this is supposed to happen in March which will coincide with their re-release/review of all their data bundles (FINALLY). A T-Mobile-esque bundle is anticipated.

FYI and all that.

Well if Vodafone FINALLY get off their arse with a ‘T-Mobile-esque’ data bundle, that’ll be super news….

who wants to be a millionaire
Originally uploaded by ew4n.

[Update: Njar (see comment) has set us straight: The 07 number simply receives the traffic. The user is sent back a message from a shortcode before being billed the £1 -- as is right and proper.]

I had this sent in this anonymous analysis of the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire premium text competition which invites users to text their answers to a ‘long number’ — a standard looking mobile number. They’re then whacked for a £1 billing message by return.

Not good. Not good at all. When anyone sees a long number, they automatically think it’s ‘free’ or ’standard network rate’.

Have a read of this viewpoint:

I had to endure who wants to be a millionaire the other night, and at an advert break they said if you know the answer to this question, send a text to 07797 808900, in very small print it said ‘texts cost a pound, and you could win a grand.’

This woke me up as I’m sure revenue share on the 07 number range was outlawed by Oftel a few years ago, thus how do you charge a pound on the 07 number range? My first thought was that it was on a fixed fee number - not so! It is a fixed fee per call number run by Jersey Telecom, but 30P a call daytime. More info here — just enter the number.

Doing a Google shows that it is a apparently a reverse premium rate SMS scam, send your message and you will then get a reply from a short code that costs you a quid - very naughty.

Check out the Millionaire competition page and their rules and conditions at the bottom of the page.

Looks like the service is/was provided by Yoomedia who apparently, according to seemingly well informed ‘davidt’ on this discussion board forum will make ‘£10m post tax’ from the Walkway game alone.

Thoughts?

[Update: See Njar's comment response here - all is cleared up.]

I’ve getting loads of anonymous tips that I just can’t publish regarding Neomedia (check out the Investors’ Hub topics flying left right and centre). I’ve no idea of the veracity of some of the claims being made.

Can anyone explain to me in a non-actionable manner, what exactly is happening with Neomedia?

I had an anonymous tip in this afternoon pointing my attention to this post on the Electronic Fronteir Foundation’s site.

Link: EFF: DeepLinks

A company called NeoMedia has a patent on reading an “index” (e.g, a bar code) off a product, matching it with information in a database, and then connecting to a remote computer (e.g., a website). In other words, NeoMedia claims to have invented the basic concept of any technology that could, say, scan a product on a supermarket shelf and then connect you to a price-comparison website. To bust this overly broad patent, we need to find prior art that describes a product made before 1995 that might be something like a UPC scanner, but which also connects the user to a remote computer or database. Take a look at the description and please forward it to anyone you know who might have special knowledge in this area. You can submit your tips here.

What do you think? Would you ever take a ‘picture’ of a barcode with your phone to try and compare it’s price? I think that whole process is just far too much of an arse myself.

I had an anonymous tip called in this afternoon about Vodafone. The caller, who works in the UK mobile industry, close to major aggregators, claims that for the last 6 weeks, Vodafone UK have been charging users not just for the MO (the originating message) to a shortcode, but also for the MT (the return message) AND the premium billing message.

So, for example, if you sent a text to a £1.50 shortcode, that would cost you 12p. Then you’d also be billed £1.50 by Vodafone. All is good. However my contact alleges that Vodafone’s billing system has also been whacking the customer for an extra 12p. The total cost to the customer, in this example, being £1.62. Not good. My contact is not sure if it’s isolated to PAYG or a whole platform issue. If the contact’s tip is accurate, that could be quite a lot of additional millions of pounds charged by Vodafone.

Are you a Vodafone customer? Used any shortcode services recently? Can you check your bill for me and put this one to rest? Likewise if you’re an aggregator — what’s the story?

I had a reliable source tell me that MBlox, the world’s largest mobile transaction network, is up for sale.

My source’s choice of words:

“Up for sale”

As apposed to:

“About to be acquired”

… is interesting and rather telling. Either someone’s made a brilliant offer, or someone there wants an exit. I couldn’t remember if they were a public company. They’re one of those companies that I keep thinking is on AIM — but isn’t. I had a quick look at the investor section on their site. BA Ventures, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, Novus Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital — they’re all going to want to knock back some spiffy returns to their main funds I’m sure.

MBlox got $25m in Feburary this year. Interesting that they didn’t raise $50m. Or $100m. That gives an indication as to the size and valuations. Roughly. So back-of-fag-packet calculations indicate that they’re nicely primed for an acquisition. It’s the sort of company you’d see Verisign or someone like that buy. You know, a company that wasn’t really into mobile per se, but wants send a signal to the market that it wants to be a mobile player too — and has loads of stock and a bit of cash to swap. Or perhaps an existing mobile conglomerate.

Have you heard any rumblings about MBlox?

Got this sent in anonymously in response to various stories on the demise of the Blackberry:

—————–

Blackberry’s were originally, like most new gadgets, the property of the wealthy, influential and in summary all those nobs who want to stand outside a trendy bar in Shoreditch shouting “look at me, aren’t I a completely amazing guy because I’ve bought a gadget that means I’ll be too busy checking on share prices in New York at 10pm tonight to chat you up; but you’re so shallow you probably fall for this cool-guy-with-gadget crap anyway”.

And then suddenly, as quickly as the wind blew in from the West, the middle-class settlers arrived and said “me too. I need a life. I can’t get one of my own but Blackberry could be the answer”.

And before you knew what was happening there were a string of stores on the outskirts of town selling Blackberry’s to every lower/middle manager wannabee who was desperate to prove to his equally sad friends that he was important. Dinner parties in Islington were never the same again as everybody stopped talking in-between courses to check how the Chicago office was doing on the HeretodayGonetomorrow campaign.

But late one October day, as quickly as the world had fallen in to this group middle-management trance, the Autumnal frost brought with it something in the air that woke everybody from their deep slumber. The middle classes everywhere shook their heads and muttered “oh god, what is this in my hand, why am I doing work for my shitty employer at 3am. did I really agree to be always connected!? no!!!! I must have been drugged. help!!! how do I get out of this downward spiral”.

Sightings of drunk Z List celebs falling out of C List nightclubs, tripping on the top step and spilling their over-priced Cristal champagne, but still managing to hold tightly on to their trusted Blackberry, only strengthened the beliefs in the waking masses that they had been Played.

But something still didn’t feel right. They now had the strength to throw away the tools that had kept them labouring day and night for many a year in the mines (albeit mines decorated in the latest colours by celebrity TV makeover artists). They felt they could rebel against the rip-off Britain that had waived the watch in front of their eyes all those years ago. But as the masses rubbed their eyes and looked about them, nothing had changed. Strangers in the crowd were chanting…

“buy the ipod
windows mobile
ignore the faults
ipod phone
e61
it’s all the same”

Even putting in a call to their therapists only seemed to delve them deeper into the call centre of life…”press 1 for issues with family, 2 to discuss your failure to buy the latest handset and fit in to society. thank you for your call, your state of mind is important to us”.

The people of Britain had woken from a dream but were still in the nightmare…

anon.

Got an anonymous tip in this evening about T-Mobile’s upcoming focus group research on Web ‘n Walk. You’re disqualified from participating if you happen to be a programmer, web designer or anyone in the telecoms industry — however one nimble SMS Text News reader has got in under the radar…

This morning I received an SMS from a company that’s been asked to put together a little roundtable focus group on behalf of T-Mobile and their Web ‘n Walk stuff.

I replied with my name, and received a phone call this afternoon where they gave me some more information and asked me a couple of filter questions.

So here’s what I know.

They’re approaching a small random selection of existing Web ‘n Walk consumers, and paying them 40 quid to to attend the 6-person plus moderator 90-minute session next week. It’s invite-only, and they’re being run over 3 hours on two days, I’m not sure how many people in total that’ll work out to but I’ll report back when I’ve done it

They’re not allowing anyone who is “a programmer”, “a web designer” or works in the Telecomms Industry (I may have lied about my profession…), and the questions asked will be based around what on a day-to-day basis the person uses Web ‘n Walk for.. oh, and I have to bring my phone with me (not sure why).

They also specifically asked if I used Web ‘n Walk to view any “Adult Related Material” e.g. dating sites, chat sites…. thought I’d been rumbled!

(well.. ya know, the E61 has a reaaaally nice screen)

So, I’ve got quite a lot of questions for this reader. I will be very interested to hear what the other consumers think of the service and how they react to the issues posed. I’m of the opinion that most ‘normal’ people will assume that a Web ‘n Walk style deal is and should be the way mobile data is billed on their handset. Anyone who I speak to that decides to use their phone for more than the odd bit of web access is quickly shocked that their operators are trying to whack’em for £3 a meg.

Our intreprid insider shall be reporting back soon, I hope.

Every day I get quite a few anonymous tips and comments sent in via the Anonymous Tip Form. Most are heresay, nearly all are thoroughly entertaining and almost without exception, unpublishable.

This evening though, I received this comment sent in by someone who is described as a ‘top industry insider’. The comment was prompted by a story published today on Fierce Wireless regarding dotMobi’s auctioning of some domain names.

The comment begins thus:

according to the fiercewireless post, dotMobi are ‘auctioning’ off the top 10 domain names (as they see them)..

[quoting the Fierce Wireless piece] ‘We’ve been tracking the top-level domain name company dotMobi since its launch earlier this year, now the firm is auctioning off ten premium domain names: celebs, cheaptickets, flowers, fun, gossip, hot, laugh, party, stockquotes and wow.’

Is it April Fool’s?

dotMobi is already the single most stupid concept ever thought up, but this, if it’s true, is just plain special.

Why couldn’t the people who so fiercly pushed and set up dotMobi have spent their time looking at standardisation of handset application software - java/brew etc, or heaven forbid - lobby the carriers to sort out the total rip off that is data rates. Two issues that are infinitely more critical to the success of the mobile/web convergence than the bollocky waste of time dotMobi is..

so there.

I left the language in there because I thought it was justified as a rather emotive example of how strongly this person feels. I get the concept of dotMobi, particularly after Vance (dotMobi Director of PR & Communications) took some time to set out his perspective on SMS Text News recently — but at the same time, I think a focus on handset standardisation and silly data rates would be eminently useful.

I’d welcome your perspective on the above viewpoint. I’ve also invited Vance or a colleague to respond.

What can you tell me about UK service provider, W2Wave?

I’ve had two anonymous tips on them this week — the last one in this afternoon, telling me that there are market movements on going there.

Have you worked with them? They’ve got what looks like a good client list, appear to be a private company and were founded in 2001. I’ll email them and see if they’ve got any news.

I had a comment added to one of the blog posts this afternoon which, although highly exciting, I can’t publish it directly. It’s a little too incendiary. I emailed the comment’s author (who used to work for the company in question) and explained.

Here is the cut down legal version:

Which UK mobile service provider recently released news to the marketplace about it’s new range of high performance secure mobile services that are, according to a former employee, nothing of the sort?

They also signed one of the world’s biggest airlines as a client. Unfortunately the system they provided has never worked properly so the airline don’t bother using it.

Bit unfortunate.

Just got this in from Sucker — a transcript of his recent conversation with Orange.

Sucker: Hello, I’d like to upgrade my phone for only the second time in the 7 or 8 years I’ve been an Orange customer.

Orange: Ok, what would you like?

Sucker: A K800 please.

Orange: Sorry, that phone is out of stock sir.

Sucker: But the website says it’s available for new customers.

Orange: The connections team have a different stock level to the existing customers team.

Sucker: So, if I disconnect and then reconnect with a new number I can have a K800?

Orange: Yes

Sucker: Send me my PAC code please.

Orange: Ok, that will be with you in the post in 2-3 days.

Sucker comments:

No attempt to placate Sucker, other than ‘you’ll have to wait until it’s in stock again’. Is this some kind of perversed attempt by Orange to reduce their client base? Maybe they’re too busy to deal with all their customers.

Good choice on the K800 by the way, Sucker. I reckon you might as well churn yourself — you should hopefully get a better service plan deal too.

Had a comment in today from a reader who was a little irked by this article in The Guardian by Ronan Fitzgerald.

The reader comments:

Full story in last weeks Guardian – clearly the journalist doesn’t know the difference between location based advertising and advertising based on your profile…..

If you’re into LBS, the article might be a useful read to get some different perspective. It focuses quite heavily on Tim Hibbard’s GPS enabled google map.

[By the way: You ain't seen nuffin' yet in consumer LBS here in the UK. There's a thing coming soon that I'm really excited about, but Im gagged up to the hilt about it for another few weeks.]

Had an anonymous tip — well, an ‘anonymous experience’ actually — sent in this afternoon from ‘Fred’ about Truphone, the voice over IP mobile service.   [I've edited and re-written parts of this to keep the person's identity anonymous].  Here it is:   

Hi there.  I am one of the only people in the United Kingdom with a decent Nokia E series phone that you need to properly use the Truphone service.  Or so I thought! 

I sent the text to their shortcode yesterday and I’ve had nothing from them yet.  I was a bit peeved with this.  What is the point in offering a text information service on their frontpage if it is not going to be used by them?

I kept going and decided to then go to the site and sign-up there.  I did get a quicker response than by text, but unfortunately then found out that their service only works with TWO handsets currently: The Nokia E60 & E61.  Hardly a great experience so far - they shouldn’t have launched yet.  ‘Teething troubles’ doesn’t come close.

Oh dear.  Well Fred, do remember that they’re still in beta — so I wouldn’t expect all bells and whistles to be operational as yet.

What’s your experience of Truphone?  Have you tried them?  Let me know - either anonymously or via email to ewan@smstextnews.com.

I’m going to check them out when they’ve got N90 compatibility.

What UK mobile phone retailer has an undocumented but now stringent unoffifical-but-official policy of deliberately bullshitting it’s returning customers with an overly inflated handset upgrade price in order to convince them to swap to another operator — to push those fat sign-up bonus cheques?

My spy tells me that the company’s management were initially horrified to discover this widespread ramping practice — but when their finance people computed the potential revenue from making it an official but unofficial policy, nods and winks were forthcoming and the matter was dropped.

Further, my spy reckons the company now accounts for a whopping percentage of UK operator churn.

Got an anonymous tip on a new mobile payments debit card service launching in the UK shortly. It looks rather swish… that’s all I can say for now.

Which mobile related startup failed to secure $$$ funding this month after it’s co-founder turned up drunk to the final investment meeting and tried to pull the two female assistants whilst the investment team looked on.    OOOooh dear.   

Apparently they’ll get lucky (no pun) next month with another fund.

[Ok, so not that sex, drugs and rock and roll, I know, but... keep the tips coming]

What internationally reknowned newspaper recently published an SMS helpline number for readers — that, it was discovered only after going to print, bore a striking resemblance to the shortcode for a hot gay SMS chat line? 

To all those submitting anonymous tips, please, please, someone submit a tip that I can a) give at least a HINT to who’s involved and b) am not liable to get nailed to the wall for publishing? 

So far I’ve chosen two rather enlightening stories to publish but I’ve not been able to specifically say or even hint who or what company it is. 

Has anyone got some slightly tame stuff — you know, not just pornography, drugs and sex tips?