Massive Email Outage in the Works?

NTP, a patent holding company based in Arlington, Va., is suing Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA for infringing several of its patents, all of which are related to the delivery of e-mail to mobile devices. You might remember that NTP wrung $612.5 million out of Research in Motion for doing so.

In its new round of suits, NTP claims mobile carriers mobile email services also violate those patents.

NTP wants an injunction to stop the infringing actions. Injunction. As in "you will stop delivering email now and then we will go to court to figure out whether you really are infringing or not. Injunction. As in massive North American email outage.

Five of the eight patents NTP claims are being infringed were the subject of NTP's 2001 patent suit against Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry. In November 2002, a jury found that RIM infringed upon NTP's patents.

In 2006 RIM agreed to pay NTP to settle the case.

Lots of Detail for a Phone That Doesn't Exist...

...and which some doubt makes sense. Still, there's growing evidence that mobile software developers are working on services and tools they hope will be packaged with a wireless operating system under wraps at Googleplex and they've been sworn to secrecy, says Business Week reporter Olga Kharif.

Among them: Plusmo, a Santa Clara (Calif.) company that pulls together blogs and news items and sends them to cell phones. Nuance Communications, a Burlington (Mass.) maker of speech-recognition software used in mobile directory assistance services.

Another startup said to be working with Google is 3Jam, a software maker in Menlo Park, Calif., that lets users send text messages to groups of friends.

Google's platform is said to consist of an operating system, mobile versions of Google's existing software, and built-in developer tools. Google is expected to offer an open application programming interface as well.

Since talk of the gPhone emerged, developers whisper that other companies, including Apple, may open their mobile-software platforms to programmers.

Part of that excitement stems from the possibility for developers to tap a new revenue source: mobile advertising, instead of user subscription fees.

Skype Worm Attacking Windows PCs

A computer virus called “w32/Ramex.A” is affecting users of Skype for Windows. Users whose computers are infected with this virus will send a chat message to other Skype users asking them to click on a web link that can infect the computer of the person who receives the message.

“The chat message, of which there are several versions, is cleverly written and may appear to be a legitimate chat message, which may fool some users into clicking on the link," Skype says.

“Skype has been in contact with the leading antivirus software companies about this worm, and we know that they are updating their software to effectively stop this worm and as well as its side effects. Currently, F-Secure, Kaspersky Lab and Symantec have already updated their antivirus products to detect and remove the worm.

The rest of you, watch out!!!

Will Verizon Get Handsets Right?

So the rumor is that Verizon doesn't want to support the Google Phone. It also didn't want to support the iPhone. It isn't going to get future N series Nokia devices. So maybe Samsung or BlackBerry are working on a Verizon exclusive. That at least would explain Verizon's reluctance. Granted, Verizon would be loathe to share revenue in the way the new handset partners prefer. But there is a danger here.

It isn't so clear customers are, or can be made, loyal to a network. No network is an expression of a user's identity or personality. Handsets are. Users just want networks to work. Beyond there, why is there any reason for loyalty?

Some networks work better than others, for all sorts of reasons. I happen to be using at&t, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile for various applications and devices. All have some shadow areas. In-building coverage is a problem for all of them. Customer service is radically better from all of them, compared to a few years ago.

T-Mobile's biggest negative is the lack of a 3G network. But Verizon's 3G network rarely delivers the throughput it claims. And everybody has coverage issues. In fact, one of the absolute Verizon dead spots is around our Virginia home.

The point is that loyalty to a network isn't likely going to happen, for me or most anybody else. Handsets are another matter, and that's where Verizon could be making dubious decisions at the moment. Unless there is some killer device waiting in the wings, "the network" isn't going to help them.

Is Voice the Killer App for IMS?

You have seen this story before: a new service rolls out and providers look for the "killer app." Then it turns out the killer app is something people already do, but the innovation allows them to do it in a new way, or maybe a better way.

To some extent, voice is a bit of that sort of thing for broadband Internet access, as email was something approaching a killer app for dial-up Internet access. Though the initial "killer app" for broadband was fast Internet access, voice becomes a very important incremental value.

"We are seeing a pattern in Europe of VoIP being delivered by companies that control the broadband infrastructure," notes Stephan Beckert, TeleGeography analyst. "It's an add-on feature to broadband."

So what is the killer app for fixed-mobile services? It's voice again, allowing legacy providers to hang on to more of their fixed-line business than otherwise; allowing mobile providers to displace landline traffic with mobile; or new providers to displace business phone systems.

So what is the killer app for IP Multimedia Subsystems? Wouldn't it be surprising if it turned out to be voice?

So what's the logic? Assume wireline carriers might lose as much as $13 billion in annual revenues by 2011, in part because 34 percent of U.S. households might elect to go "mobile only." So enter IMS, allowing mobile users to take advantage of cheaper Wi-Fi-based calling over their broadband lines.

Assume the landline carriers then lose just $8 billion in revenue to cord cutters. That's a $5 billion annual revenue stream. So put that in perspective. All U.S. multichannel video providers put together earn about $4 billion a year from pay-per-view and video-on-demand services.

So if wireline carriers just prevent landline erosion, they make more money than the whole U.s. VOD and PPV providers put together.

Voice Mashups Disruptive or Not?

Iotum recently shifted gears and decided to take advantage of Facebook APIs to create a conference call app inside Facebook. Many of you know what Skype has been doing in the area of encouraging third party development around its client. And of course Microsoft has made clear its intention to place communications within the context of every expression of its desktop productivity suite.

Some people would argue this move to voice as an attribute of every application spells the death of traditional "communications as a service." So far, of course, there is no evidence of this, though there is plenty of movement within the service industry. Neither is there any evidence that people communicate less when they have the new tools; the reverse typically being the case.

So far, at any rate, one would have to say that the advent of voice as an application, as an inherent attribute of other experiences and activities, simply is creating incremental revenue opportunities and end user utility. To the extent that it negatively affects the "service" business, providers of services already are transitioning away from reliance on "voice" revenues in any case.

Enterprise phone system providers hope to do the same, and speak only of "unified communications" these days. It isn't the calling, they seem to say; it's the integration. Not an unwise choice given the fact that Microsoft Office Communication Server provides a complete alternative.

But maybe this time around we shouldn't worry so much about disruption. Choice will do nicely. Human beings are starting to have lots more choices, and that's a good thing. Companies will do well providing those choices. It will be enough.

Voice and communications increasingly are available to users as discrete services and integrated applications. This trend isn't going away. But the explosion of choices and richness do not inevitably spell doom, or automatic success, for any contestant. Calling entities "dinosaurs" doesn't hobble them. Nor does "disruption" always succeed. Quite the opposite seems to be true at this point.

iPhone Sales Hit One Million

So there's no question Apple will hit its target of one million sold by the end of September. Apple sold its millionth iPhone last Sunday, just 74 days after the combination cell phone-iPod went on sale and less than a week after its price was cut by a third. Some observers speculate that iPhone sales have sagged of late. We shall see.