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The Global Village has arrived.
Watch your TV, PC or mobile for proof. |
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In the 1960s, when Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian literature professor and communications guru coined the term “global village,” it’s doubtful that he had in mind the advances that characterize 21st century television. On the other hand, if he were still alive, McLuhan probably wouldn’t be too surprised.
Why not? Because the global village concept could easily describe a market where content providers and service operators all want to
- deliver their content and services
- to as many people as possible
- over a wide variety of devices
- over different types of networks
- anywhere in the world
Today, almost 30 years after McLuhan’s death, his theories are as germane as ever. As Wired magazine said a decade ago, “In the tumult of the digital revolution, McLuhan is relevant anew.”
Evolution to latest advances
Of course the global village didn’t happen overnight. It has evolved over the course of many years and is based on numerous technological advances in a variety of different fields. In the digital pay-TV arena, NDS is helping advance the global village by providing infrastructure for content mobility.
What does that mean? You can view your content anywhere you want. Anywhere in the world. How? “Using a combination of NDS end-to-end solutions, operators can offer content that their subscribers can access on devices including mobile phones, PCs and, of course, televisions,” says Elad Manishviz, NDS Mobile TV Product Marketing Manager.
It doesn’t really matter where the subscribers are located. Whether at home or on vacation, subscribers can access the same content they would at home. And they can also transfer it to a wide variety of interconnected devices.
“No matter what device subscribers use to access their content package, they have the same entitlements and content access rights,” Manishviz says. “This makes the NDS infrastructure attractive to operators and their subscribers -- especially when you factor in that subscribers can also access the same channel package on virtually any device anywhere in the world.” Definitely the global version of a win-win proposition.
"What NDS offers is mobile continuity,” Manishviz explains. This is crucial for operators because it gives them an edge in a very competitive market. For subscribers, it is a good reason to choose one service over another.
Manishviz explains mobile continuity with the example of subscribers who start watching a movie on an STB at home, download it to a portable media player (PMP) and continue watching it – either on their PMP or on a mobile phone. “They may be accessing network services on different devices, but they are using the same services.”
New revenue streams
Pay-TV services today generate revenues in ways that might have surprised McLuhan. “Operators have a profile of their subscribers. This helps generate new revenue streams with features like pushed content to any device based on the subscribers’ preferences and targeted advertising.” When subscribers opt into a service they can get it on any device, Manishviz explains. Meanwhile, targeted advertising is based on their profile with NDS Audience Measurement System technology tracking their viewing habits.
As a result, not only is location no longer relevant, but the device is no longer a limiting factor.
What’s important to subscribers is that their experience is seamless. They want to see the same content no matter where they are or what device they are using. What’s essential for operators is the ability to offer secure content consumption and sharing between different devices in different locations.
Convergence
Service operators or content providers have their own unique perspectives and requirements – and these requirements are obviously different from those of their subscribers. What NDS solutions do is facilitate the convergence between them. “We offer a wide range of essential services all using one subscriber management system,” Manishviz says. “This means that a single infrastructure handles broadcast for multiple devices.”
The unified headend features transcoding, transcription, manages personal profiles such as entitlements, content rights, business rule enforcement, metadata, interactive applications and push VOD – all based on the personal profile and the target device.
Transcoding content into the appropriate format enables each client or device to know how to play back content. “Subscribers may not be particularly interested that their service knows how to present content in either MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 format – unless, of course, they can’t see what they want.”
Transcription is another essential feature. “We use one system for all conditional access business rules,” Manishviz says. “Whether the subscriber is watching content on an STB or a mobile phone, the operator has the same CA system that interfaces with the subscriber management system.” In the event that subscribers want to add a channel to their package, “NDS doesn’t just update the STB,” he explains. “We also update all of the subscribers’ other devices so that they can access content on any device they want.” This is accomplished with the same system aggregate and distribution metadata, Manishviz says. “It also features the same push content to the subscriber’s DVR, mobile phone and PC.”
Security is also fundamental to all NDS solutions, he says. “NDS applies the same high standards it developed for traditional digital pay-TV broadcasting to the new converged systems. We have gone to great lengths to make sure that our system isn’t hacked. Now we’re applying these same standards to mobile content.”
Subscribers
Pay-TV subscribers in the present and future global village are no longer satisfied with what used to be referred to as sitting down in front of the TV. “It is clear that subscribers want to have access to their pay-TV service independent of their location,” Manishviz says.
“Subscribers also want seamless access to the same features they have become used to at home – no matter what device they are using and where they are located.”
NDS helps deliver their shared content, which “enables subscribers to download content from their STB or PC to their PMP or mobile device. In short, we offer content mobility and interoperability.”
The end result? Both operators and subscribers get what they want. Operators call it seamless delivery and secure content interoperability. Subscribers call it seeing their favorite shows on any device, anytime, anywhere.
No matter what you call it, McLuhan would be proud. The global village has arrived at your TV, PC, PMP and mobile phone.
For more information:
NDS mobile solutions
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| ITE Delivers Characters Who Know Your Name |
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ITE, Interactive TV Entertainment, which was acquired by NDS in October 2006, created its first interactive TV character in 1988: a polar bear named Oswald. Based in Copenhagen, ITE developed Oswald for Denmark’s Channel 2. “Viewers could steer him from one ice floe to the next by pressing numbers on their phone,” says Alf Doej, ITE Broadcast Technology Director. At the time ITE provided both the game and the technology. “Basically we’re still providing new games and new technologies -- for more sophisticated platforms,” he says.
But ITE’s major success was still to come. Hugo the Troll was created in 1990, two years after Oswald. Such has been the popularity of Hugo, he has now been broadcast in more than 40 countries around the world reaching some 300-400 million households.”
Animation Mask System
What helped make Hugo so popular was the Animation Mask System (AMS) ITE created for him. “It was an ice hockey helmet with sensors that monitored face movements,” Doej says. “This changed the way shows were run. Besides playing the games Hugo could also act as a co-host.”
“We pushed interactive TV one step further. Hugo has become known for his one-liners directed at the participant,” Doej says.The AMS was designed to animate Hugo real-time. By adding the actor wearing the AMS, Hugo could follow his facial movements. This is what made Hugo so popular.
“It’s not just that he talks to and grimaces at the person playing the game, but he occasionally jumps out of the game, tells players the mistakes they’re making, and then jumps back into the screen.” Needless to say this is wildly popular with kids.
Broadcast system
The AMS system was used for 12 years before it was replaced by the Virtual Interactive Animation System (VIAS) in 2002.
Hugo was created for the first ITE broadcast system. Newer characters and shows are now created for the new ITE5000 broadcast system.
“Our new broadcast system connects the high-end capabilities of consumer hardware with some of the most popular games platforms – like Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo’s GameBoy – and enables these games to cross over to broadcast media.
“What we do is tweak the hardware to output the exact requirements needed in broadcasting,” Doej says. “With ITE-designed hardware, broadcasters can now take advantage of the high processing power normally used only in PC games and broadcast them with no loss in graphics quality.”
Supporting other brands
Doej explains that previously when a child called in to begin playing a game there were two-layer graphics: a video stream and overlay graphics. What the ITE5000 offers is 100 percent real-time graphics.
Games and virtual studio shows can now be much more intuitive and offer more variation. The player never knows what the character will say or do.
The new platform is designed to be applied to any animated character. A character can be modeled and animated in programs like 3D Studio Max and then exported into the ITE’s LEXI software suite. “From this point movements are linked to control functions. An actor is able to animate the character fully with joysticks and speech that is lip-synched.”
“When playing a game meant for broadcast it is important that it is more entertaining to watch than to play,” Doej says. Real-time ability movements are never the same because the player at home is controlling the character either by using the keys on their phone or over the Internet.
The possibilities that ITE’s interaction offers are virtually endless. “Imagine playing a game of solitaire when an argument breaks out between the king and the queen. Interaction and real-time rendered graphics make certain that no two games are the same.”
Bottom line
Doej explains that after characters are put into ITE’s LEXI Suite, “the animation that waves the right hand is controlled by pressing a particular button on a joystick. Morphing of the mouth is connected to phonemes, the units that make up language.”
All of the technology ITE has developed encourages interaction with characters. The fact is Hugo has been talking to viewers since 1990.
“What we have learned is that viewers love to get instant feedback from characters. Instead of just playing a game, the actor sitting in the studio can sense what the viewer wants and deliver.”
With the new broadcast system ITE combines real-time graphics and generic speech to deliver individually-narrated content. Just imagine a child’s excitement when a TV character says, “Hi Katie, what game do you want to play today?” And once the child makes a selection, the character is all over the place – making funny comments, jumping out of the screen, delivering one-liners.
Thanks to ITE, interaction with the TV is more fun than you may have thought possible. You never know what to expect – including a TV character doing and saying the unexpected. “It’s enough to bring out the child in all of us,” Doej says.
For more information:
ITE
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Jungo, Acquired by NDS, Provides Gateway
to Future |
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by Ofer Vilenski
CEO Jungo Ltd.
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| Jungo, an Israeli-US company that develops software for residential home gateways, was recently acquired by NDS. In this article, Ofer Vilenski, Jungo’s CEO, explains why combining the strengths of NDS with a residential gateway company makes good business sense – for both companies and for their customers.
Residential gateway market trends
Back in 2001, homes were connected to the broadband network through a modem. Now multiple services are being deployed by broadband operators through the customer premises equipment (CPE). The CPE has evolved from a plain modem into a feature-rich residential gateway (RG). With the number of lines of software in the RG doubling every two years, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the costs and complexities of building the software for these devices. This is what Jungo does.
The introduction of broadband IPTV services into the pay-TV market has resulted in major changes in the last five years. Broadband based operators with their two-way broadcast streams are giving cable and satellite broadcasters a run for their money. How? By developing, integrating, deploying and supporting complex video services in addition to their voice, data and mobile businesses. This includes IPTV streaming, video on demand, downloaded and peer-to-peer shared entertainment.
The stage is set for the battle of the subscriber bases. Under the new rules of engagement, a lot has changed. Within a short time, broadband operators are able to compete with broadcasters. In addition to being competitive on price, they also offer new TV and on-demand content services that only a two-way network can provide. No one questions the fact that IPTV is the next “killer app.”
Opportunity for broadcasters, broadband operators
NDS has developed its worldwide reputation by supplying secure digital technology and services to digital pay-television platform operators and content providers. Jungo develops residential and business gateway software and applications.
Most of NDS’ traditional customer base are satellite and cable operators providing television through one-way broadcast networks. Broadband presents a new challenge that is based on two-way broadcasting. The possibility of interactivity, IPTV, on-demand content, downloaded and shared content makes service offerings more appealing.
Video on Demand for example. This is based on access to offline content from the broadband network. The offer of VOD represents a challenge to traditional broadcasters by the “new kids on the block” – the broadband operators. Cable and satellite operators have to take notice and offer something similar in order to remain competitive.
The result is new business opportunities for everyone: broadband operators, telcos, cable and satellite operators – and NDS.
The fact is, there are now many more operators in the TV space and many of them are providing IPTV. These new operators require IP STBs or hybrid broadcast/IP STBs. Synamedia Metro from NDS delivers the required IPTV solution.
Meanwhile, satellite service providers are beginning to offer broadband in order to compete with the broadband-and-cable operators. This hybrid combines broadcast with broadband Internet. What’s happening is that the traditional definition of ‘triple play’ (TV, voice, Internet) is being challenged.
What is helping foster this redefinition is the trend for all operators – whether they are cable, satellite or broadband – to have a broadband network through which they deliver entertainment.
This is the basis for NDS’ acquisition of Jungo Ltd.
What Jungo does
An important box in every broadband deployment is the residential or home gateway - it is the heart of the home network. One side is connected to the operator’s broadband network; the other side distributes content and data within the home network.
For example, the roles of the residential gateway in IPTV deployment are:
- Distribute TV content to different TVs in the home
- Aggregate media content from the broadband network on the gateway for consumption for all devices that are entitled
- Control the quality of service of TV delivery over other services and data streams in the home.
In addition, because the residential gateway is the only device that has visibility in the home, it is the hub for the broadband operator’s support of the entire home network. Residential gateway software is a key component of the new networked digital home.
The range of software that is available in residential gateways is increasing as quickly as the number of ways in which people are utilizing their broadband connection. Today Jungo is the leading software vendor in this market. We provide software for residential gateways in a similar manner that MediaHighway provides middleware for set top boxes. The Jungo software solution for residential gateways is called Open RG.
Jungo began developing its software in mid-2000 when broadband was still in its infancy. At the time, the company had a vision that operators would no longer deploy modems to homes, but would begin deploying smart residential gateways through which they would deliver multiple services to the home. These services include telephony (VoIP), TV (IPTV) and other services (e.g. security, remote backup, web filtering, firewall, UPnP) – as well as lesser-known applications such as home surveillance.
Jungo’s original business was developing software for the residential gateways that would be used by original equipment manufacturers to build the RGs of the future. Two years ago telcos began deploying large volumes of home gateways and they too realized that Jungo’s uniform software platform simplified customer management and problem resolution. Because of this market development, Jungo has been growing at the enviable rate of 100 percent annually.
Why did NDS acquire Jungo?
NDS recognized both the trend of entertainment services being delivered over broadband and the importance of residential gateways in IPTV deployment. By acquiring Jungo, NDS can now offer a wider range of broadband solutions.
NDS and Jungo can offer new types of entertainment services that combine STB software and residential gateway software. This is clearly a win-win situation. Both Jungo’s and NDS’ customers gain from the increased exposure provided by these new end-to-end solutions. Broadband customers will have access to software from NDS which will give them a critical edge in their market. Jungo’s customers also benefit from this acquisition by effectively receiving their mission critical software from a large publicly listed software company, with tremendous resources behind it.
While NDS develops software for STBs, Jungo helps OEMs and service providers deliver services to homes. Together, NDS with Jungo can develop more services for providers to offer in the framework of the home gateway. This means that together we are paving the way to the digital home of the future.
For more information:
Jungo
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| Serbia Broadband’s CEO Discusses New Services, Choice of VideoGuard Express™ |
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In mid-2006, Serbia Broadband (SBB), Serbia’s largest cable operator, became the first customer for NDS VideoGuard Express™. According to SBB CEO Dragan Solak, his company was ready to offer satellite broadcasts to potential customers who were unable to receive cable. Designed for smaller operators as they launch digital services, VideoGuard Express was a good fit for SBB. They were on air with their new service at the end of the year.
Solak recently took time to speak to World Vision about why SBB chose VideoGuard Express and what it offers his company and his subscribers.
World Vision: Please give me some background about Serbia Broadband. To start with, when did you actually begin broadcasting?
Dragan Solak: Serbia Broadband was founded in early 2000 and made its first investment in a small cable TV system in central Serbia. After the change in power and the end of the Milosevic regime, it was clear that Serbia had to become part of the international community. Upgrading television service was a natural component in this process.
In 2002, the Southeast Europe Equity Fund invested in Serbia Broadband and we began consolidating the Serbian cable market and introducing new pay-TV services. 2002 was also our first full year of operation.
Please describe your system and your platform.
Solak: We offer both cable and satellite pay television. Our cable system is a hybrid fiber coaxial system that provides television and broadband services. About 95 percent of our subscribers are broadband-enabled. Our digital satellite system uses three transponders on a Eutelsat satellite.
So far our cable platform features a double play: television and Internet. We are the only national cable operator in Serbia. Depending on the area of the country we offer 55-65 digital cable channels in 26 different markets. We also offer five-14 pay-TV channels. In 18 of our 26 markets we also offer Internet over cable at up to 2 Mb/second for retail subscribers and up to 1 Gb/second for business subscribers.
Our satellite platform offers 50 channels in five different packages. About half of these channels are Serbian language channels. The other half are international channels with Serbian subtitles.
I understand that you have grown from 2,500 subscribers in 2002 to 250,000 subscribers today. How did you accomplish this?
Solak: Actually we have already well exceeded the 250,000 mark. Our success is based on providing services to a responsive market. The fact is people in Serbia were ready for cable TV. We offered a well balanced and well structured offer that met their needs. The rest was logistics: How to keep up with market demand. Fortunately we were well capitalized.
How large is your viewing area?
Solak: Between cable and satellite we cover the whole country. Our cable network passes approximately 600,000 homes which is about one-quarter of all homes in Serbia. We operate in 26 municipalities in Serbia including all of the largest cities such as Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac and Nis. Our satellite broadcasting capability enables us to provide service to the entire country. It is safe to say that Serbia Broadband is the country’s largest cable TV system.
Would you describe some of challenges you have faced along the way?
Solak: Most of our challenges are related to the market and a country that has been in transition both politically and economically -- from a socialist system to a free market economy. Great progress has been made, but further work needs to be done.
"The biggest challenge for SBB has been to manage the extraordinary growth of the business over relatively few years."
But we have implemented a comprehensive enterprise management system from SAP and have put in place a solid organizational structure with the best technical and management professionals in Serbia.
Was it difficult to attract investors?
Solak: I’d say it was moderately difficult. In 2002 few investors wanted to invest in telecommunications in Serbia. But we managed to develop a good business plan with our owners based on very balanced investment. Our plan was successful because within eight months we were earning a profit which made our investors very happy.
In 2004 the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development recognized our success and granted a loan of €15 million. They also invested in our shares.
How much do your subscribers pay? How much ARPU do you generate?
Solak: We’re still behind the region. Part of the reason for this lag is that when we started, our market was highly pirated. Four years later, the situation is very different. We now have one of the best content offerings in the region. This includes four movie channels and four sports channels – all with subtitles. Our international channels include National Geographic, Discovery, Viasat History, Viasat Explorer and BBC Prime. Today our ARPU is about €5 per subscriber per month for cable, about €7.5 for satellite subscribers, and about €11 for Internet. There is obviously a lot of room for growth in this area.
What was involved in your decision to migrate from cable to satellite?
Solak: The main reason we wanted to introduce satellite is that we believed our offering was good enough to attract subscribers in the entire country. With cable we reach about one-quarter of the homes in the country. Satellite enables us to reach everyone else. We’ve found that there is positive synergy between our cable and our satellite offerings: They each foster growth in the other.
How did you decide on NDS VideoGuard Express for your satellite platform?
"We were always impressed with VideoGuard because it is a secure, high quality product with great middleware. Unfortunately it was out of our price range. But VideoGuard Express is affordable. The decision to become the first customer to deploy VideoGuard Express was not difficult."
Which VideoGuard Express features attracted you?
Solak: I was always impressed by the security features that VideoGuard offered. This is essential in a market that was hacked so successfully until just a few years ago. In addition, I think our offering is now extremely professional. Especially when you factor in the EPG, we are on par with some of the largest European operators.
Would you say you are ahead of your competition?
Solak: Absolutely. We believe the content we have created – in cooperation with our international partners – is distinctive. It puts Serbia Broadband on a higher level in the local pay-TV market. Our content, EPG, and look and feel are all unparalleled in the region. Before Serbia Broadband began offering local programming and international programming with subtitles, there was nothing in Serbian. We have also created Serbian language sports, movies and documentary channels. This really sets us apart from the competition.
How different is the Serbian market from other markets?
Solak: Despite what you might think, the difference really isn’t that dramatic. It’s true we were behind in telecommunications development, but with our recent cable and satellite development, we have definitely caught up. Other telecommunications services still have a way to go but we’re doing what we can to encourage further development.
Where do you see Serbia Broadband five or 10 years from now?
Solak: When I think about the next five years, I have to look back at what we’ve accomplished in the last four. We believe there is huge potential in the local pay-TV market – for both cable and satellite -- and in terms of content and technology. We are looking forward to further deregulation of the local telecommunications market so that we can add other services to our television and broadband offerings.
Are you planning to expand your digital cable offering or perhaps to go after new markets in the region?
Solak: Yes. We’re currently looking for development opportunities all over the region – including Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Romania.
What about future trends in the Serbian pay-TV market?
Solak: We’re looking forward to digitalization of our cable offering and then combining cable and satellite so that we can offer features like pay-per-view (PPV) and video on demand (VOD). We hope to make these available – and affordable – for our subscribers very soon.
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| [Commentary:] Hunting the Mobile Killer Apps |
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| by Paul Davies
Consultant editor, New Media Markets
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They come in search of killer apps and will leave still looking for them -- with a one-word mantra ringing in their ears: “Convergence, convergence, convergence…”
That’s the likely scenario for attendees at this year’s jamboree for the mobile-telephone industry, the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, February 12-15.
Gavin Whitechurch, conference researcher for event organizer Informa, offers two key words to describe this year’s show: the inevitable “convergence,” but also “realism.”
“I’m not sure there’s going to be anything really new,” says Whitechurch. “Mobile TV will continue to be hot, but the edge might be off it. WIMAX is going to be an interesting part of discussions – GSM has not worked out what it is thinking or doing about it. Overall it’s going to be more practical – less technology for technology’s sake and more realism about how to target things to people.”
An Informa survey of mobile operators shows that 41 percent think that mobile TV will be the most interesting service on offer in 2007.
Early performance does not entirely justify the hype. Mobile TV is most advanced in South Korea where rival satellite and terrestrial services now have more than two million subscribers. But this is some way below the operators’ forecasts and serious doubts are being raised about their business models.
In the UK, Virgin Mobile TV, the first broadcast mobile television service to launch commercially, clocked up fewer than 10,000 users in its first three months, as revealed by industry newsletter New Media Markets.
In Europe, broadcast mobile television has hardly gotten out of the blocks and lack of frequencies will stymie development in many markets in the short term.
But the alternative of 3G mobile is advancing. Sky Mobile TV, more than a year old, has reported 180,000 subscribers and Spain’s Digital Plus has just launched a similar service with Vodafone.
Live broadcasting suitability
For broadcasters, the 3G route is second best because its one-to-one architecture is not suited for live broadcasting, unlike the broadcast-based rival standards of DVB-H, DMB, DAB-IP and MediaFLO. The 2006 World Cup, for instance, failed to set the market alight partly because it was not possible to send 3G users real-time clips of goals.
BT says its research shows that consumers want real-time simulcasts of broadcast television channels rather than the looped content of 3G mobile television services.
The most converged device at the moment is probably the X Series launched last November by Hutchison Whampoa’s 3 in the UK. This product, which uses Nokia’s N73 and Sony Ericsson’s W950 handsets, offers Internet access, Google or Yahoo search, instant messaging, Orb (access your PC), Slingbox (transport your TV), Skype VoIP and eBay. You can also use it to make mobile telephone calls.
It sounds achingly cool and moved The Guardian to write: “To have so much entertainment, information and communication constantly available is amazing.”
The serious industry reaction has been less gushing and there seems to be no rush to produce “me too” products. The X Series is complex and may confuse consumers, and the flat-fee business model with free calls via Skype has been questioned.
Anticipated changes
But Hutchison’s 3 may simply be anticipating changes that the industry as a whole will soon be forced to embrace.
Informa’s chief research officer Mark Newman: “In the future, a mobile business model could look much more like broadband and Internet economics, with the operator charging for access to the Internet and deriving advertising and click-based revenues.”
Several panel discussions at 3GSM will look at “Mobile 2.0” – social networking, mobile blogging and user-generated communities.
Alan Barnea, a general manager of video network provider Radvision, wrote recently in Mobile Communications Europe: “It’s easy to spot the tremendous potential of ‘see you, see me’ capability for sectors such as the adult-entertainment industry, especially when combined with interactivity.”
He also pointed to Orange Israel’s service that allows 3G users to upload live videos to the operator’s national WebBlog service as a good example of how 3G mobility can combine with the Internet’s ubiquity.
Technology journalist Mike Butcher, editor of the Vecosys web and mobile technology blog, says: “Mobile Web 2.0 is a driver to digital convergence: people can start to use the mobile like a sort of ‘remote control’ to their digital lives.”
Loss of control?
But he warns that “the mobile industry also faces loss of control in that online, usernames rule, not phone numbers. That means users could become a lot less tied into the networks than they are today.”
The danger of mobile operators being bypassed is also shown by the potential of dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi handsets to enable users to surf the Internet through Wi-Fi (and in the future WIMAX) and then use a VoIP service like Skype to make calls.
WIMAX may be as much a threat as an opportunity for the mobile players, who are looking at other technologies – such as HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Protocol Access) and the IP-based IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) as their potential saviors.
The 3 X Series is an example of IP-based convergence and a key debate in Barcelona will be the conference session “All IP: Myth or Reality?” It is within the vision of an all-IP world of seamlessly connecting communications and entertainment devices that Apple is seeking to make its entry into the mobile world.
The over-hyped iPhone will get a tougher reception in Barcelona than at the Apple corporate love-in in San Francisco at the beginning of the year. Apple may have bitten off more than it can chew and the likes of Nokia and Motorola, the main handset makers, see no need to panic. Apple lacks the scale of these big beasts: iPod players may be deemed a success, but shipments totalled a cumulative 67.6 million units by September 2006 – that’s less than Nokia’s average quarterly shipments of mobile phones.
Nonetheless, the iPhone is a specter haunting the 3G feast and it may be that what many delegates will soon be looking for is not the killer app, but the Apple killer.
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