U.S. Smart Phone Market: iPhone and BlackBerry

ChangeWave says its polls show a rapidly evolving two-horse race between the Apple iPhone and Research in Motion BlackBerry, with second tier players like Palm (PALM) and a host of others being shoved to the sidelines.

BlackBerry owners like most the BlackBerry's exceptional access to email. What they don't like is its Internet browsing experience.

As you might guess, iPhone users value different features. By far the most lauded feature of the iPhone among owners is its seamless integration of a Phone, iPod and Internet browser.

The second most popular feature is the iPhone's touch screen interface, followed by its ease of use.

There is no doubt about what iPhone owners hate most: the speed of the AT&T EDGE network. Nor do they like being restricted to using just one carrier.

Users also expressed unhappiness with the iPhone's lack of copy-and-paste functionality.

Each device has "a super-loyal cadre of users that fervently support their phone brand, and each has extraordinary room to grow," Compete says.

BlackBerry continues to show "enormous strength" among ChangeWave business users.

"But the bottom line in this horse race is Apple and Research In Motion are both giant winners," says ChangeWave. "The rest of the smart phone manufacturers lose."

VCs Think TV is Ripe for Disruption

Venture capitalists seem to agree that television is a business ripe for disruption. Silicon Alley bloger Michael Learmonth says 68 startups landed $460.5 million in funding in 2007, up from $266.9 million in 2006. Venture capitalists also invested another $217.3 million in the first quarter of 2008, he says.

$6 Billion Enterprise VoIP Market by 2012

Business-class VoIP service revenues could reach $6 Billion by year end 2012n say researchers at Pike & Fischer.

The firm predicts business-class VoIP services in the United States will grow at a 31 percent compound annual growth rate over the next four years. In a new study, we've concluded that revenue for

One Bucket for Voice and Broadband

One of the reasons unified communications, unified messaging, unified services, fixed mobile convergence, mashups and other similar concepts are so confusing is partly because there are lots of different ways they can be implemented, and because they highlight different ways software usage and communications are changing.

In some future incarnation, users who pay money for services will be able to invoke various identities and roles when using those services and features, with some sort of analogy to "multiple service, single log in" rather than "single service, single sign-on."

In other words, where today users might have to log in serially to multiple services they want to use, in the future they might be able to log in once, but use different features, devices and network services depending on their "roles" and "identities," while the network itself figures out all the details of authentication and security.

In the nearer term, it might be more common to find that customers buy a service, such as "voice and messaging" or "broadband access," and then be able to use any number of access networks or devices as part of the one service. Think of a single bucket of usage that can be used for "calling," "messaging" or Web surfing, for example.

Instead of buying separate 3G wireless service, digital subscriber line and then Wi-Fi hotspot service, a user might be able to buy "broadband" and use all the various modalities. The same sort of concept might hold for "calling," where mobile, fixed or PC-mediated, TV-mediated, game console or some other format is used.

AT&T is pushing that way, for example. Having a large internal customer base, or "community" if you like, it can leverage assets and relationships in a fairly broad way. All AT&T voice customers, for example, are one huge calling community.

In the meantime, lots of changes on lots of fronts will keep happening, pushing almost inexorably toward a future where features are made available not on a location or device or number level, but at a authenticated user level. Beyond that lies the ability to invoke features based on an identity or role.

Java: 100 Percent Open Source

Sun Microsystems says Java will be made 100 percent open source. Sun began moving that direction in 2006 and now will hope the change prompts much more development on the Linux platform.

The move does not finally the answer the question of how some companies can make money "selling" things other people offer "for free." Still, the move will provide more examples of how "for fee" businesses and services are built on "free" or "open" platforms.

One of the obvious developments so far is that "open" is one business model, "free" another. Platforms can be "open" to innovation without using a "free to end user" business model. On the other hand, "free" platforms can sometimes create huge ecosystems of "for fee" devices, services and software that leverage a widely-used "free" platform.

Mobiles: Slowdown Possible

Mobile shipments are shaping up to be softer in the second quarter, says ABI Research Vice President Jake Saunders. "Year on year, the first quarter of 2008 was up 13.7 percent, but the second quarter of 2008 is likely to be softer than in previous years."

Shipment volumes in the developed markets have softened slightly due to the credit crisis, but emerging markets such as Asia-Pacific, South America, and the Middle East/Africa are delivering growth rate percentages in the mid-20sn he says.

Nokia increased its share to 39.9 percent while Samsung and LG were also net winners with 16 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively, he adds.

Motorola continued to lose market share (falling 2.6 percent) to 9.5 percent, while Sony Ericsson lost market share (down to 7.7 percent).

But a new class of mobile device: MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices). MIDs made their debut last year, and some might consider them contenders of a new sort.

ABI Research expects 2008 to top out at 1.28 billion devices shipped – a 12 percent increase year over year. But the firm also warns there could be exposure to the downside.

Spam Not an Issue?

Ferris Research wonders why there isn't more interest in spam problems on the part of the media. One reason might be that ISPs, application providers and security suites are doing a pretty good job these days.

One observation: mission creep is an issue lots of organizations face. Attention gets paid on new problems that sooner or later get solved. Then organizations or companies have to find some new problem to solve or they are out of business.

Maybe spam is that sort of problem.