MySpace Opens Platform; What About IMS?

MySpace plans to open up its platform to external developers in the next few months, company CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe says. So here's the question for you: as global service providers creep towards IP Multimedia Subsystem as their next generation platform, who is going to develop for those IMS platforms if all the developers already are working for Facebook, MySpace and Google?

In fact, here's a prediction: by the time most global carriers have fully functioning IMS networks in place, the compelling applications IMS will enable already will exist someplace else. So the issue will be: what value to the application owners and distributors will accrue as the result of a business relationship with a carrier? Or can carriers create their own versions of these already-popular applications in a walled garden setting?

How Long Can Cable Keep Prices Up?

For years, cable companies boasted the fastest residential broadband speeds, allowing them to resist lowering their prices. But that pricing stability may be changing, according to a new analysis by market research house Pike & Fischer.

For an expanding number of homes, at&t and Qwest can match or exceed cable offerings with downstream speeds up to 7 megabits per second. And with the launch of its fiber-based FiOS service, Verizon now can exceed cable modem speeds at competitive prices in a growing number of markets.

For customers signing a contract, FiOS delivers speeds of 5 to 10 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream for $40, and 15 to 20 Mbps downstream and 2 to 5 Mbps upstream for $50, note analysts at Pike & Fischer. Verizon has also begun offering FiOS "triple-play" service bundles priced below $100. This is forcing cable operators in FiOS markets to respond.

Significant downward price pressure will be the result. Cablers soon will find out that in capacity and access markets, unlike some content businesses, the typical and expected trend is lower prices over time.

Covad and McAfee Partner

Make a note of this: Covad Communications and McAfee are partnering to deliver bundled services for small-business customers. The companies say Covad will bundle McAfee Total Protection for Small Business services with its broadband products in a new offering called Business Essentials.

Here's why you need to take note: retailers in the telecom space are used to selling services on a monthly recurring fee model. So the next big shift in business model is to start selling other services in the application realm that are delivered as a service, not a product, not a "box" or "device." Up to this point, most retail points of contact have had difficulty whenver they have been asked to behave in ways different from past behavior.

Data equipment resellers often have stumbled when asked to sell recurring fee telecom services. Telecom resellers have flopped at selling hosted PBX services. Interconnect dealers have not been able to sell Cisco router-based services.

Increasingly, hosted applications, sold just like telecom services, are going to be the way some legacy retailers make a jump "up the value stack" into applications, in a way that is culturally comfortable. This is a big deal and Covad is on the leading edge. Sure, you might argue, security services are a natural, and are sold by cable companies and telcos to consumer buyers.

That's true. What's more interesting here is the move to create a new services model extending beyond connectivity services and up into the applications layer, in a way that makes sense for the retail sales partners. The next step is further in the direction of services for the desktop and back office.

This is going to be a big deal.

Sprint to Sell Touch

Sprint Nextel will sell the Touch by HTC, a smart phone using touch screen technology, starting Nov. 4 in the U.S. market. Sprint will sell the device for $250 with a two-year contract. Sprint joins Verizon and at&t in providing high-end touch-screen devices.

The iPhone, which launched this summer, is exclusive to at&t. Verizon Wireless is introducing the LG Voyager in time for Thanksgiving.

The HTC Touch lacks a keyboard, but it still has a stylus. The Touch runs Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile 6 software.

So why do we care about new phones? Simply because most of the innovation in the communications space is coming in the mobile and Web domains. So it makes sense that the most innovation could come in the mobile Web space.

Business Apps for iPhone

From the start, some critics have panned iPhone because it isn't an open platform. Because it isn't "open," it also isn't a business device. People should have paid more attention when Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, hinted that other things would be forthcoming.

Now, Apple is introducing a software development kit [SDK] for the iPhone this February. And note the deployment pattern: Apple launches a "consumer" device. Consumers take the devices to work and then other business users decided they like it also. That in turn creates demand for using iPhones as enterprise clients. So now developers will be able to write those applications.

Google Docs on iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile

If you have an iPhone, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile device, you can now point your phone's browser to http://docs.google.com/m to view (no editing yet) mobile-optimized versions of your docs, spreadsheets. Owners of iPhones additionally can view their presentations. Support currently is available only for English-language users at the moment.

Okay, the images are going to be pretty small. But it is one more small step towards a Web-enabled portable desktop.

TalkPlus on iPhone

TalkPlus, which provides of virtual phone number services, now works on iPhone. TalkPlus creates additional phone numbers on mobile phones, allowing users to manage personal and business calls from a single device without the need for multiple devices.

TalkPlus phone numbers can be selected from major U.S. metropolitan areas and international cities in 28 countries. Each number comes with its own voice mailbox and customizable greeting. With TalkPlus, customers can also make calls that display the caller ID of any pre-authorized phone number, such as a subscriber’s office phone, providing true mobility to the receiving party.