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Fresh out of the Nokia BetaLabs comes Nokia Easy Meet, a web browser based mobile collaboration prototype. Great, I use online collaboration with conference calls and slide sharing a lot in my daily work but my solution (Centra) is purely PC based and does not allow sharing content with mobile devices. So I checked out Nokia's prototype application for the purpose.

The first good thing: No software installation is required on the PC or the mobile phone, everything works via a PC or mobile browser that supports JavaScript such as the S60 web browser on my N95. The list of collaboration utilities running directly in the browser looks quite impressive:

• File Sharing, supporting Power Point, JPEG and PNG
• Chat
• Meeting Minutes
• Whiteboard
• Gesturing
• File Downloads
• Participant Awareness
• Remote Content Access (OVI Files).
• One click to join a conference, including voice conference

In practice, it works as follows: As a collaboration conference initiator you need to register with the service, either from the PC or the mobile phone. In fact, everything can be done on both the mobile and PC, although it's a bit more comfortable to use the PC for getting started.

Once registered, setting up a meeting is simple. Enter time, date, participant e-mail address or phone numbers and upload pictures or power point presentations. Once done, participants get an e-mail or SMS with a link to join the meeting. Invited guests do not have to register and just have to type in their name so they can be seen in the status window of the conference. Once they have joined the conference, they can immediately see the shared content such as pictures, presentations and so on.

On the PC, the presentation section can be seen alongside the other windows for instant messaging between participants, a presence window to see who's currently online, a window showing the different pages / images available for sharing, etc.

When changing from one page / image to the next, it appears quite quickly on the screens of other participants, even on the mobile. Very nice push technology. Same for IM messages, distribution is quite quick. The whiteboard function allows to draw lines in the main presentation window, e.g. to highlight a part of the presentation and changes are also distributed within a few seconds.

As it is still a research protoype, the graphical design of the solution, especially on the PC, is still a bit rough, but that's just that, the technology itself works very nicely and use is straight forward and quite simple to master.

From a conceptual point of view, the biggest issue in my eyes is to make both PC users and mobile users happy with what they see in the main presentation window. For my test, I used a screenshot image with tiny fonts, which are not shown very well on both the PC and the mobile. While much bigger on the PC, the text could still not be read. So for collaboration it's probably best to use power point presentations with big text or pictures without too much tiny content. For the mobile device, a zoom function for the main screen might be something that could help, but I think that would push the processing power of current S60 phones a bit too hard. But as processors become faster, screen resolution increases and screen sizes become bigger, there's a good chance that we are moving closer to a sweet spot where the presentation can be shown in a good resolution in a PC browser and an acceptable quality on the mobile device supported by an intelligent zoom function.

The main function missing in the prototype is a voice conference bridge. However, I can very well envison that this functionality can be added in the future, too. In summary, I am very impressed with what can be done with JavaScript in a (mobile) browser today. A great prototype and we will hopefully see it become a cool product in the future!

Recently, Tomi Ahonen wrote a post over at Forum Oxford about an idea he had how to make use of mobile phones and SMS for engaging customers while the store is closed. I liked the idea very much so I thought I'd share it with you here and give you my thoughts on top. Here's the short version, for the details click on the link above:

Instead of just passively advertising through a shopping window, actively engage your customers with an interactive contest via the mobile phone. Tomi uses a jewelry and watch shop as an example. Here's how the contest would work: Advertise a specific watch, e.g. via an animation (several pictures, some text, etc.) on a computer screen. Tomi likes 007, so in his example it's the villain's watch of the latest Bond movie from Swatch, worth around 100 euros. Engage customers with a contest for the watch by asking them to guess the serial number on the back of the watch. The feedback channel is, of course,  SMS. Simple, convenient, and everybody these days has a phone in their pocket. The PC that runs the advertisement has a mobile phone connected to it so the SMS is received in near real time and feedback can be shown directly to the person who's decided to take part in the contest. Close to the finish date, you can engage customers who have responded by informing them via SMS that the contest is about to be closed and that they can check who's won on the (mobile) web page of the store, generating further interaction with the customer.

Personally, I think it's a great idea! Not only do you engage your customers, but at the same time you can find out how effective your window advertising is. In the thread to the original post, it's been pointed out that you probably can't make money with it with short code SMSes, the setup is just too expensive. But I think the point of the exercise is not to generate cash with the campaign directly but to engage with the customer and thus increase sales.

So I think the biggest obstacle is how to convince shop owners to invest in such an advertising scheme. After all, the (embedded) PC, the mobile and the software to track responses and do some data mining won't come for free and shop owners are usually not in the IT business. But I think that young and tech-savvy shop owners could very well grasp the idea and see an opportunity beyond advertisements in newspapers, etc. Some might even have enthusiastic geek friends that could put the pieces of the puzzle together for them.

Great idea, Tomi, let's see if somebody takes it up and works on a product!

This week, the Carnvial of the Mobilists has stopped over at Chetan Sharma's Always On Real-Time Access Blog. Chetan, a book author and analyst himself noticed that a lot of people contributing to the Carnival are also book authors and he put together the pictures of the people and their books at the top of the post. Interesting self-reaction when you see your own picture and book on a web page without prior announcement 🙂 Lots of great stuff on mobile there, so head over and enjoy!

In a previous post I've discussed my thoughts on how the announcement of Nokia to deeply integrate Skype into the N97 goes beyond the current 3rd party integration of VoIP, IM and presence. Mobile Network Operators of course would like to offer similar functionality and are thus not so happy about the competition. In addition, they are having a difficult time with it for the moment, as their competitive offer with the Rich Communication Suite (RCS), which is based on IMS, is still nowhere announced to actually make it into upcoming phone models.

When we look a bit into the future, however, I think network operators can make a compelling offer by combining a couple of elements which can't be matched easily by Internet based companies:

Embedding VoIP, IM and Presence in the Connected Home Network

In essence, the connected home network approach ties computers, TV, media storage, audio, etc. via Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable together and makes any content available on any other device. The crown is to also tie in the mobile phone / smartphone, which can then be used in cellular networks and via Wi-Fi or a Femtocell in the home network to offload traffic and to interact with the home network devices. Stack on that remote access to your data via cellular and you've got a truly connected home, a truly connected user and less dependency on data store in the cloud.

In this context, RCS makes a lot of sense and adds a lot of value. While roaming outside, RCS uses the cellular network for IM, presence, picture sharing, etc.. While at home, the Wi-Fi network takes over. The big benefit: Just one way (i.e. one phone number) under which you can be reached. The open point here is that I am not yet quite sure if the the mobile device can also to the IMS network via the users Wi-Fi home network or if a Femto is required for that. But at least with the Femto, that's something Internet based companies struggle with, there's always a 'media break' between the VoIP implementation and the default telephony stack in the mobile.

A big issue for RCS is how to create a critical mass so IM and presence. Here, I think it is necessary to have a gateway to other IM services such as Yahoo's or Microsoft's. An interesting approach, as it is not the Internet companies that go to operators but where operators go to Internet companies for the cooperation. It's been done before.

A lot of work ahead for operators. But I guess the embedded Skype client won't be that last word on the subject in its first incarnation, either.

This year at the Mobile World Congress, Nokia and Skype announced a cooperation that would bring Skype functionality to the Nokia N97. At the time I took notice of it but thought, well, I've already got instant messaging clients on my Nokia phone including presence and the partnership between Skype and network operator 3 has also brought Skype voice communication, or at least a special flavour of it, to mobile phones. So why the fuzz?

Well, I think it could be the deep integration of it all. According to the press release, Skype will not only be a third party program on the side but it will be integrated with other applications on the phone, especially the phonebook. According to the press release, Skype functionality such as presence and instant messaging will be embedded into the phonebook. Further I assume that since the press release mentions that Skype voice calls will be enabled over 3G and Wi-Fi, 'real' Skype Voice over IP calls (rather than the circuit switched approach used with '3') can be made directly from the phonebook as well.

It may sound trivial but I think such an integration would be very compelling to users. I and some other people I know have been using the built in SIP stack of (most) Nseries devices for some time now and very much value the deep integration into the overall functionality. SIP VoIP calls can be made from the phonebook or directly by typing in the phone number and selecting "Internet Call" instead of just pressing the green button. The phones can even be configured to always use SIP and only fall back to cellular when the selected network for SIP is not available. Very powerful as the SIP stack automatically activates itself once the phone detects the network(s) that have been configured for VoIP use (e.g. the Wi-Fi network at home). Hopefully, we will find the same deep integration of Skype with all its features. That would really distinguish it from current third party solutions which are always a bit on the side and require "specialized handling" that only few normobs (normal mobile users) would put up with. If all this happens, well, we'll see.

Also very important: Skype already has a critical mass, i.e. millions of users out there that already use it on a PC. An invaluable asset that is absolutely necessary to start such a service. Another things that speaks for Skype vs. other solutions (such as SIP) is the easy configuration: Only the username and password is required, plus maybe a selection of the networks over which you would like to use it. That's it. Compared to that, manually configuring the SIP stack is a black art.

Some Mobile operators have let it known that they are not very happy to see this happening. They argue that it will bite into their current business model and future opportunities. So, the first response was often that they would block it. But I think that would merely delay the process, if at all. I would be surprised if Apple, Google and others aren't already working on similar things. Also, I think some operators will make no attempt of blocking it, so people who would like to use the functionality would go there. But why block it? If people want to use it over the cellular network, they need a data subscription, which earns the operator money as well. So I am not convinced they wouldn't benefit from this as well.

Another approach for mobile operators could of course be to offer similar functionality. Not so simple, but not impossible, especially in combination with "connected home networking". More on that in a follow up post.

This week's Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted over at "mjelly mobile 2.0". As always, a great assortment of posts on mobility from all around the world. I agree with the host, Vero's post over at the Taptu blog on Gravity, the new S60 Twitter Client, is especially noteworthy. So without further ado, I recommend to head over and enjoy!

During the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, I heard from Adrian Scrase for the first time that 3GPP has specified how to put information on the SIM card for "In Case of Emergency" (ICE) events, i.e. to help first responders to identify someone and to contact their next of kin.

A great idea and now that it is specified it will hopefully become a worldwide accepted feature. It's not in current phones and SIM cards yet so it will take a couple of years for the feature to be added. Let's keep our fingers crossed a critical mass is reached so people actually enter information and first responders actually use the feature.

As somebody asked me over at Forum Oxford at how it will work in practice, I've had a look at the standards:

• The user enters ICE information like names of persons, relation to these persons and phone numbers. For details see 3GPP TS 22.101, A28

• During an emergency, the information can be retrieved by pressing '* * *'. That's specified in 3GPP TS 22.030, 6.8

• The information is stored in a new file on the SIM card referred to as EF(ICE_DN) and the format is described in 3GPP TS 31.102

It's time for another Carnival of the Mobilists and this week's edition is hosted by Andrew Grill over at London Calling. As always, a great read and I fully agree with Andrew on the post of the week by Dennis Bournique where he explains that despite recent misinterpretations, the iPhone does not account for more than 50% of the US mobile data traffic.

So for the latest and greatest from the mobile blogosphere, head over and enjoy!

You might have noticed my earlier post on my upcoming Oxford University course on LTE Services I'll be doing together with Ajit Jaokar after Easter. In addition to that I am happy to announce that I've also been invited to speak at this year's Forum Oxford Future Technologies Conference on Friday, April 24, 2009.

My topic: Evolution of Mobile Networks. Impact and Possibilities for Future Services.

As I attended last year as a visitor myself, I fully agree with Tomi Ahonen that this is the "can't miss event" of the year and it's at a very moderate price as well. Most of last year's presentations were filmed and the event's web site has links to the individual presentations.

Here's the provisional agenda:

09:00 start (speakers shown in order of presentations)

* Professor William Webb, Head of Research and Development, Ofcom
Presentation: Wireless Communications: The Future Revisited
(I reviewed his book on the same topic here)

* Nick Allott, Chief Technical Officer, OMTP

* Graham Trickey, Senior Director, GSM Association (tbc)

* Phil Northam, Global Manager, Samsung Mobile Innovator
Presentation: 'War is Peace'.

* Martin Sauter, Wireless Consultant and Author, WirelessMoves
Presentation: Evolution of Mobile Networks. Impact and Possibilities for Future Services.

* Mark Curtis, CEO, Flirtomatic
Presentation: Dislocation of Expectation: the Challenges of a Mobile Start-up.

* Simon Cavill, Chief Technology Officer / Director of Strategy, Mi-Pay
Presentation: “Show me the Money!” – Why mobile money is this year's Next Big Thing.

* Professor Ed Candy, Chief Technology Officer, 3 Group

* Tony Fish, CEO, AMF Ventures
Presentation: My Digital Footprint.

* Helen Keegan, Specialist in Mobile Marketing, Advertising and Media, Beep Marketing
Presentation: Media and Marketing in a Mobile 2.0 world

* Agustin Calvo, CEO, Movidream, Spain
Presentation: A Mobile Marketing Evolution to Contextual Interactivity and VRM.

* Christine Maxwell, Chief Information Architect, MobileWorks 3D Inc.
Presentation: Use of the Arts in Designing the Mobile World

* Ramu Sunkara, CEO, Qik (tbc)
Presentation: The Revolution Will Be Live Streamed: Live Mobile Video for the Masses.

A great lineup I would say and I am also looking forward very much to the lively discussions between all attendees during the coffee and lunch breaks and to the always stimulating and controversial Q&A sessions after the presentations.

And some more links for those of you who'd like to find out more:

• My impressions from last year's conference
• Tomi Ahonen's thoughts as organizer of this year's conference.

Hope to see you there!

Pico- and Femtocells have been a hotly debated topic at the Mobile World Congress this year and to my great pleasure I've been offered the opportunity to have a look at a real Picocell installation in a live network after returning home.

So one day, I was invited to visit an installation at a shopping mall, where a number of GSM picocells from IP.Access were deployed, as the surrounding macro network did not cover the interior of the mall very well. In essence, this means that the picocell was deployed as a coverage filler rather than to add capacity to the macro network.

It looks like the network operator using the picocells was not the only one having coverage problems, as I saw a number of repeater antennas throughout the building from other operators. Repeaters are another solution to get in-house coverage but I was told that while it sounds easy enough, they are rather tricky to deploy as permission is needed for the external antenna on the roof. Also, the coax cables running through the shopping center to the antennas inside are quite expensive and again a permission is required to lay the cables and install the antennas in the hallways.

Picocells on the other hand require no permission whatsoever and the installation is rather trivial: A phone line for DSL that serves as a backhaul link, a DSL modem and the picocell itself, that's all it takes. In the specific installation I was shown, an Ethernet switch was connected in addition as the DSL link was also used to connect the computers of the shop back to the mother ship. Quite a nice setup as the backhaul cost for the picocell is effectively zero that way.

I ran a couple of calls over the picocell and couldn't tell the difference in voice quality in the picocell compared from that in the macro network. Moving from the picocell to the macro network worked quite well as soon as I left the coverage area which was around 20 meters. I'd say there were only using a very low power output. In the opposite direction, however, the mobile lost coverage and had to perform a network search before the picocell was found. My test mobile revealed that the macro cell did not broadcast the parameters for reselecting into the picocell. Looks like it hasn't been configured correctly at the time I tried.

All in all, I was very impressed with the simplicity of the setup and not only the customers coming to the mall but also those that work there are probably quite happy to have the network there and are probably even unaware that their call is not handled by the macro network but is actually backhauled via a DSL IP connection.

Thanks for the visit, it was very insightful!