Madonna a model, singer and now a designer. Widow of Guy Ritchie, who previously designed a line of clothing for H&M is rumored to be soon launched a collection of clothing and lingerie for the largest department store Macy's. The names being considered to increase the collection of famous label apparel for men and women including the chanter Material Girl.
Madonna is often called intimate as Madge is going to design clothes and Truth or Dare for the collection of underwear from lingerie. Madonna has become a fashion icon for decades to make a lot of people are not surprised to hear her plans are. For her, did not take long to consider making their own line. The collection is at H&M did not give the expected results as well, so hopefully her'll work with different designers to release their own line.
In response to the ever-increasing demand for greater business efficiency, Orange today announced the launch of a managed service for large enterprises. Total Resource enables organisations to outsource the management of their mobile device fleets - including mobile phones and data cards – directly to Orange. The service builds on the operator’s expertise and understanding of customers’ needs, providing a simple and straightforward solution to free up their internal resources, and give them the control and productivity they want.
Total Resource includes: * Device ordering, provisioning and management * Asset management * Billing and cost centre management * Reporting and analysis * Help and support to reduce internal queries and escalations * Mobile policy development and management * Network performance monitoring
Total Resource has launched following extensive trials with customers, including property services company King Sturge, which was so pleased with the results that it’s opted to keep the service. King Sturge’s internal IT team was managing 1,500 mobile devices, including BlackBerry® and other smartphones and data cards, across more than 1,300 UK-based staff before it trialled the new service.
David Morris, Head of IT for King Sturge said “By freeing up my team and handing the reins over to Orange, we estimate that we will see cost savings of between £60,000 and £100,000 in the first year. My team can now fully concentrate on their core roles. But the main benefit for us is that we can just let the Orange team get on with managing the account and know it’ll be done in the right way. They know what we’re trying to achieve as a business and have the knowledge about the network, our account, our spending, our usage and our device fleet to advise us on how we can best manage our assets.”
With Total Resource, customers can also hand over order fulfillment to the Orange team. This means a quick turnaround of new phones, which arrive fully loaded with the right settings and applications in place so employees have a seamless transfer.
Detailed management reports provide insights such as detailed data usage, plus the number and frequency of calls and text messages made abroad, or to premium rate numbers. In addition, regular reviews can be scheduled to examine costs and identify any issues such as high spenders, joiners and leavers or departmental cross charging so that customers can respond quickly and efficiently as needed.
Robert Ainger, Director of Corporate Marketing at Orange said, “A quarter of the respondents in our recent research* stated that they are likely to consider a managed service in the next 18 months. This isn’t surprising – why do the jobs that aren’t core to your business internally when you can get a specialist to do the hard work for you? Total Resource has been designed to take away the hassle of managing increasingly complex fleets of mobile devices, allowing customers to free up their internal resources and benefit from our expertise.”
Morris and his team now have the reassurance that King Sturge’s mobile account is being taken care of for them. “I have a 100% accurate record of where everything is, who’s using it and how much it’s costing the company. This allows us to make better decisions and save King Sturge time and money”, he added.
To air on MTV at 6.30pm on 22 February 2010 www.orange.co.uk/bafta.
Girls Aloud star Kimberley Walsh will be presenting the first ever Sony Ericsson and Orange BAFTA Show from the red carpet of the UK’s most glamorous awards show, the Orange British Academy Film Awards. See the show on MTV at 6.30pm on Monday 22 February 2010.
The glamorous popstrel will bring viewers gossip and a full fashion lowdown from all of the A list stars, as they tread the most prestigious and exciting red carpet in showbiz. With exclusive access, Kimberley will also offer viewers a very special sneak peek into the luxury style suites.
Last year’s Orange Red Carpet Programme saw Fearne Cotton interviewing the likes of Hollywood hell raiser Mickey Rourke, Slumdog Millionaire stars Frieda Pinto and Dev Patel, Harry Potter heroine Emma Watson and 2008 Orange Rising Star Award winner Shia LaBeouf.
Kimberley says: “I’m really excited to be presenting from the red carpet at this year’s Orange British Academy Film Awards. The girls and I have walked many red carpets but this will be by far the most nerve racking! I’ll be bringing you interviews and gossip from the stars as well as looking behind the scenes at the event.”
The Sony Ericsson and Orange BAFTA Show will be shown on MTV at 6.30pm on Monday 22 February 2010.
You can also go to www.orange.co.uk/redcarpet to see all interviews from the red carpet and for the chance to win a Sony Ericsson Satio Touch phone.
New management techniques needed to support a connected Britain.
Management techniques need to keep pace with new flexible working patterns if the benefits of a digitally connected Britain are to be realised, according to the conclusions of a recent London Transport Museum and Orange debate on the impact of Connected Britain. The panel suggested that the days of the traditional office environment could be numbered, as universal access to fixed and mobile internet becomes prevalent.
The panel, chaired BBC journalist, economist and presenter Evan Davis, writer and broadcaster Janet Street-Porter, futurologist James Bellini, Robert Ainger from Orange and The London Mayor’s Transport Advisor Kulveer Ranger, discussing the future impact of Britain’s connectivity at the London Transport Museum.
Janet Street-Porter held the view that the office remains popular today, as “lots of people still don’t want to work from home because they’re worried that co-workers and bosses will think they’re watching daytime TV rather than working. Especially in a recession, you want to be visible, and sometimes, physical presence is worth more than 10,000 e-mails.”
Robert Ainger proposed that the answer lies with adapting management techniques to new ways of working. “We need to work out a way to measure the value of those working outside of the office. Increasing numbers of us don’t work in the same office, building or even part of the country as our bosses - universal connectivity makes working from anywhere a reality, and management skills need to keep up.”
How companies could make better use of existing office space was also a topic of focus. According to James Bellini, “The concept of working 9-5in an office is built on the old industrial factory model; a model built on mistrust, with strict hierarchies.” Janet Street-Porter added, “We’ll look back in 50 years time and find the concept [of working in an office] weird.”
The panel identified that enhanced connectivity through technology such as mobile and fixed internet, would give rise to ‘clusters’ of like-minded people being drawn together. Rather than the traditional business and office set-up dictating where we work, how we live, and who we socialise with, the future ‘digital age’ will see us drawn to others with similar skills, involved in the same industries, or just interested in the same things.
Robert Ainger said: “Connectivity allows us to increase the number of people in our networks, irrelevant of geography. It’s likely that in the future, we’ll find ourselves working alongside people from outside our businesses, sharing ideas and values and enhancing our own productivity. We’ll also recognise false boundaries, and start to reach out to anyone that has the skills we need to get the job done, regardless of location. What we need to ensure is that technology supports the associated infrastructure needs of these networks.”
The panel agreed that a move away from a focus on our cities and offices as places to conduct business will see connected individuals choose where they want to work. As connectivity hubs that are commonplace in our larger cities, such as local coffee shops and Wi-Fi hot spots, extend across the country, we could even see the regeneration of some of the UK’s towns and villages.
Futurologist James Bellini asked, “Why not Wi-Fi enable the village hall or the local pub and provide places for people to hot-desk? Connectivity doesn’t mean the end of social interaction; it’s a way of enhancing it. By eliminating the dreaded commute – on which 4.6 million hours are spent daily – people could use the time for more productive purposes.”
Street-Porter added, “This is already happening. I recently directed a programme that looked at a Yorkshire mining village who had turned the local village hall into a place to teach people to work electronically.”
The debate took place as part of both Orange’s continuing focus on Connected Britain, and the London Transport Museum’s current Suburbia exhibition programme, which celebrates our suburban lifestyle past, present and future, and the impact of transport on the development of the suburbs.
Visit YouTube to see the debate highlights or check out the Orange Connected Britain website to find your ideal UK location.
About Orange Orange is the key brand of the France Telecom Group, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators. With 123 million customers, the Orange brand now covers Internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the Group operates.
In the UK, Orange provides high quality GSM coverage to 99% of the UK population, and 3G coverage to more than 93%. At the end of September 2009, Orange had more than 17 million customers in the UK – 16.11 million active mobile customers and approximately 900,000 fixed broadband customers.
At the end of 2008, France Telecom had consolidated sales of 53.5 billion euros (12.7 billion euros for the first quarter of 2009) and at 31st March 2009, the Group had a customer base of almost 184 million customers in 32 countries. These include 123 million mobile customers worldwide and 13 million broadband Internet (ADSL) customers in Europe. Orange is the number three mobile operator and the number one provider of broadband Internet services in Europe and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.
Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Personal Communications Services Limited.
For more information please call the Orange Press Office 0870 3731500 or visit www.orange.co.uk/newsroom
London Transport Museum Suburbia, the new exhibition at London Transport Museum, explores how public transport helped to create the myths and identity of suburbia and how it has featured in the cultural fabric of London and Britain over the last 100 years.
The exhibition, which is supported by American Express, looks at how transport has shaped the suburbs and celebrates suburban lifestyle, architecture, design and popular culture through a series of unique displays. The exhibition mixes fun, fact and a little bit of fantasy to rejoice in a place that we collectively continue to love and hate. The Suburbia displays complement the Museum’s permanent gallery which tells the story of the early 20th century Suburban Dream. Website: www.ltmuseum.co.uk
* Orange to retail the HTC Desire free on selected consumer pay monthly and business price plans from April * The HTC Desire will feature Qualcommm’s superfast Snapdragon 1GHz processor and Google’s Android 2.1 Operating System * An Orange Signature device, The HTC Desire is the first of several Android handsets to be unveiled by Orange in 2010
Orange announced it will be launching the much anticipated HTC Desire, the next Android device to be ranged by Orange in the UK. Available this spring across all Orange consumer retail and business channels, the HTC Desire will be free on selected consumer pay monthly and business price plans.
Offering a rich, intuitive browsing touch interface and premium design, the 3G+ enabled Desire is the latest device to feature Google’s 2.1 Android operating system, allowing users unrestricted access to thousands of amazing tools and applications which can be downloaded straight to the handset.
Created for those wanting an optimised mobile customer experience, the Desire comes equipped for users to make the most out of the internet. The device features the superfast Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor and as part of Orange’s Signature range, users will be able to access great Orange services direct from the home screen, including Orange’s own sat-nav product, Orange Maps, as well as Orange TV, Photography, Games and Orange Windows Live.
The Desire also comes with a choice of specially designed unique user interface options courtesy of HTC Sense and an integrated five mega-pixel, auto-focus camera featuring camcorder capability, a gravity sensor, A-GPS, a digital compass and 512 MB of memory with space for a 32Gb MicroSD card. What’s more, the 3.7 inch WVGA capacitive display features anti-fingerprint screen coating for improved smudge resistance and a longer lasting, clearer display.
Orange will be offering the HTC Desire for free to customers on selected pay monthly price plans.
Francois Mahieu, Director of Devices, Orange UK said, “We’re really pleased to be working with HTC to bring the latest Android 2.1 device to market. The Desire is a truly powerful handset which will allow consumers to get to grips with all the things they love about the internet.”
The HTC Desire will be available from Orange shops and www.orange.co.uk/shop in April 2010.
Thanks to its huge sales and high memory usage, Apple Inc.’s iPhone is expected to generate insatiable demand for NAND-type flash in 2010, straining supplies for the year, according to iSuppli Corp.
An average of 35.2Gbytes of NAND will be used in each iPhone sold in 2010, iSuppli estimates. Furthermore, iPhone shipments are set to rise to 33 million in 2010, up 31.5 percent from 25.1 million in 2009. With the iPhone already the largest application for NAND, this huge growth is likely to lead to some periods of undersupply for the year.
iSuppli forecasts that mobile handsets with embedded flash units will grow to 732 million units in 2010, up 13.8 percent from 643 million in 2009.
The success of the iPhone in the smart phone category has spurred the launch of a series of competitive mobile phones. These include the Motorola Droid, HTC Android Iris, Palm Pre Plus and Pixie Plus, and Google Nexus One.
Although these phones may choose a different solution for storage memory, such as a microSD card, they will still aim to match the iPhone spec for spec in terms of memory capacity. And that bodes well for NAND flash vendors.
Beyond the smart phone segment, a number of other promising products are driving the NAND market in 2010, including eBooks, smart phones and tablet PCs.
However, while eBooks such as the Amazon Kindle may follow a similar growth path as Apple’s iPods, they don’t use nearly as much NAND flash memory. eBooks contain a measly 512MBytes to 2GBytes of embedded NAND included in each device. While density will no doubt grow in the coming years as wireless Internet enables more features and functionality, NAND usage in eBooks will remain low in 2010, iSuppli predicts.
Tablet PCs—with an anticipated storage density of 32GBytes to 64GBytes of storage—have NAND suppliers salivating. However, it remains unclear if volumes will reach the projections of hopeful manufacturers. The introduction of Apple’s iPad, however, may boost the market. If that is the case and we see a similar adoption rate of the iPod and iPhone, this could be a serious market-changing segment for NAND vendors.
By going with the flow, the company could succeed in monetizing a location-based mobile-advertising model.
By pursuing a strategy of working with the mobile chain rather than against it, Google Inc. has a strong chance of success in its bid to transform the wireless business from its traditional model of being driven by voice subscriptions to a new approach of being supported by broadband-based mobile advertising revenue, according to iSuppli Corp. If Google can execute this strategy, it stands to rewrite the rules in the $1 trillion wireless industry.
During the past three years, Google has continually targeted the mobile communications industry with a series of initiatives. From offering free Wi-Fi services, to developing a free and powerful open operating system for smart phones—Android—to offering free maps and turn-by-turn navigation services, to introducing a Googlebranded phone—the Nexus One—the Internet search giant is revolutionizing the mobile value chain in an attempt to unlock new value and to expand an industry desperately searching for the next inflection point.
Like the rest of the mobile value chain, Google is actively seeking to uncover new user behavior patterns and to drive social networking services through the promotion of cloud storage and computing, mobile advertising, and a variety of location-based services. All of the free Google offerings are driving toward this goal.
While all the facets of this multipronged strategy will not be successful, it is clear that Google is pushing toward the strategy of monetizing mobile search by leveraging its unquestioned leadership in Internet search with relevant location-based services and mobile advertising.
iSuppli believes that if the company executes this strategy correctly—by working with and not against the rest of the mobile value chain—the wireless industry will be well positioned to unlock the next trillion dollars of value by the end of this decade.
Google Strategy: Free is Good As part of its wireless strategy, Google has actively promoted and shaped the development of the Android open source operating system—beginning with the introduction of Android 1.0 in the T-Mobile G1 in October 2008 to the recent inclusion of the Android 2.0 operating system in the Motorola Droid smart phone in November 2009. Google claims that there are now about 20 smart-phone models that support the Android operating system.
A unique and compelling characteristic of the Android operating system is the integration of many of Google’s popular Web-based services and cloud computing/storage applications, as well as the synchronization of a user’s e-mails, contacts, calendar and other information with smart-phone devices.
Google also has encouraged the adoption of the Android operating system among device OEMs, mobile operators and application developers by creating an ecosystem where everyone benefits. While OEMs pay no licensing fee for incorporating the Android operating system and have the capability to customize the User Interface (UI) to their own specific requirements, the application developers and mobile operators split the revenue from the sale of downloaded applications at a ratio of 70:30. This is variation from the present industry norm, where application developers evenly split revenue with the operating system platform provider.
In another paradigm-shifting move, Google in November announced that it will include Google maps and turn-by-turn navigation applications for free in all phones with the Android operating system. Although the application will at first be available only on Android 2.0 handsets, the fact that Google Mobile Maps for BlackBerry integrates functions like Street View, Layers, Latitude, Traffic, Wikipedia, and the like is proof that Google Maps Navigation eventually will also come to other smart phones.
The beauty of Google’s navigation initiative is that its offering, while free, will result in profits via mobile search and advertising.
These moves by Google are intended to drive the increased use of mobile searches and prompt new social networking behaviors that leverage cloud storage and mobile advertising. Given its overwhelming dominance in the Internet search application market, Google is now poised to leverage its search capabilities with Location Based Services (LBS) to drive mobile search results targeted at the location of the mobile consumer. Clearly, Google’s strategy is to expand into areas where it has a competitive advantage due to its dominance in search and advertising. This, coupled with mobile advertising and mobile commerce, has the potential to unlock tremendous value for the mobile user and to drive new revenue opportunities for Google.
Because of all these factors, Google is well positioned to reshape the wireless business in its own image.
Growth in PND shipments will continue to slow, stagnating at 48 million by 2015. The Asia-Pacific market will experience the strongest growth with more than 10 million shipments in 2015.
“PND shipments continue to suffer from competing navigation form factors,” says ABI Research practice director Dominique Bonte. “While the free navigation solutions from both Nokia and Google firmly establish handset-based turn-by-turn navigation as a standard feature, in-dash navigation is also becoming affordable for a larger portion of car buyers. While this leaves portable navigation positioned between a free commodity on handsets and an affordable optimized experience integrated in cars, PNDs will continue to be successful in two segments.”
Highly specified, state of the art, connected PNDs with large screens will remain attractive for high frequency, demanding navigation users because they outperform both the inherently compromised navigation experience on phones and the better integrated but quickly outdated in-dash systems, due to long automotive design cycles and a lack of upgradeability. This high end PND segment will remain dominated by Garmin and TomTom.
At the other extreme of the market, low end PNDs will attract non tech savvy users and/or higher age segments due to their superior out of the box experience and ultra low price points. In this segment there will still be an opportunity for other vendors to compete with TomTom and Garmin.
Demand for Photovoltaic (PV) installations in 2010 is increasing thanks to an improving macroeconomic situation and rapidly declining prices for systems, according to iSuppli Corp.
However, at the same time, new, unplanned downward adjustments to Feed-In-Tariffs (FITs) are causing a great deal of uncertainty in some markets, especially the world’s largest PV region, Germany.
iSuppli revised its 2010 forecast for worldwide solar installations to 8.3 Gigawatts (GW), down from 8.6GW before in light of the 5 percent decline in installations that happened in 2009. Still, at 8.3GW, this will represent a 63 percent annual growth rate year-over-year.
This growth has PV manufacturers excited for a year when revenue growth will return and worldwide adoption of solar systems begins once again to head in the right direction. In fact, iSuppli forecasts that by 2013, solar system installations will reach 28.5GW, expanding at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 32.1 percent from 5.3GW in 2008.
Demand Spreading Part of the reason for the adjustment to the forecast is that iSuppli predicts the German PV market, which accounted for 51 percent of global demand in 2009, will install only 2.9GW of solar systems, rather than the 3.4GW originally forecasted for the region in 2010.
Luckily, the Czech Republic will compensate for part of this reduction as it will install 460 Megawatts (MW) of solar systems, up from the 85MW originally forecasted for 2010.
The Czech Republic, along with China, France, Italy and the United States, will represent the bulk of the global demand increase in 2010 as the installation growth this year will come from outside of Germany.
This is actually good news for PV players that see the market diversifying beyond Germany and into these other countries. As a result, companies that wish to continue to grow at market rates need to be nimble and follow this business by investing appropriately in local sales and supply chain resources.
In homes receiving cable television, MoCA – one of the most widely-supported home media networking technologies – will be supported by some 15 million next-generation set-top boxes by 2014, according to new forecasts from ABI Research.
The next generation of set-top boxes extends beyond HD and PVR functionality, and includes, first and foremost, networking/connectivity as well as hybrid designs. At the core, next generation STBs represent a form of hybridization, which can include cable/IP, DTT/IP (Digital Terrestrial Television/IP), IP/DTT, DBS/IP, and more.
A number of technologies are vying for a share of the next phase of home entertainment networking. Such connectivity extends the service operator’s network both internally (communication between multiple service operator boxes) and externally (communicating with third-party devices), both of which enrich the user-experience and ultimately foster services and features sought by consumers.
Among the leading contenders are MoCA, HomePNA, Powerline, and Wi-Fi. But according to industry analyst Michael Inouye, “The choice of networking technology is turning out to be largely specific to particular operators, obscuring any broad trends. In general, though, MoCA seems to be gaining traction in North America (HomePNA has had some success as well on the telco side), while Wi-Fi and Powerline have seen more success in Europe.”
HomePNA has largely targeted the telco operators. While it can extend to DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) and cable, the telcos will likely remain the primary target. Considering that the North American market is already establishing support for each respective technology, Asia-Pacific and Latin America are seen as target markets.
“The industry at large needs to focus on establishing a shared working foundation (if not standards) for networking and broadband services,” concludes Inouye. “Initiatives such as the Open IPTV Forum, Canvas, and HbbTV are steps in the right direction.”
Supported by strength in trade and capital inflows as well as healthy financial systems, the positive Latin American economic outlook for 2010 will also benefit the business customer mobile services market. In its most recent quarterly update of the Latin American mobile business customer market, ABI Research expects this region’s mobile business revenues to grow 9% and reach nearly $11.6 billion in 2010.
Practice director Dan Shey comments: “Among the emerging markets, Latin America will experience the most growth in mobile business customer services revenues. Economic activity is brisk, business customer mobile services penetration is still low, and competitive price pressures are relatively subdued – all drivers that will contribute to strong revenue growth for the segment over the next five years.”
Growth highlights from 2009 through 2014 in the most recent update to the database include: · Mobile voice revenues will grow 2.6%;
· Mobile messaging revenues will grow 12.6%;
· Mobile data access revenues for handsets and computing devices will grow 22%;
· Mobile application revenues including downloads and line-of-business apps will grow 34%;
· Mobile data services (non-messaging) revenues equaled 10% of all mobile services revenues in 2009 but will grow to 20% by 2014.
“Despite the economic downturn, telco TV market growth was strong in 2009. As a result, service revenue for the global telco TV market increased to nearly $12 billion in 2009 and will increase to nearly $17 billion by the end of 2010,” says Serene Fong, industry analyst at ABI Research. Western Europe generates the largest share of global revenue which will continue to grow from $6.8 billion in 2009 to $18.4 billion in 2014, a 22% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).
Telco TV service revenue in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to reach $8 billion by the end of 2014, representing a 45.5% CAGR from 2009 to 2014. The increase in service revenue is due to growth in both the number of subscribers and the ARPU. In the Asia-Pacific region, Japan, South Korea and India saw significant increases in telco TV ARPU and service revenue and we forecast that the Japanese telco TV market will approach $3 billion service revenue by the end of 2014.
“Both satellite and cable TV service revenues are found to be growing slowly due to the more restrained growth in the number of subscribers,” comments research associate Khin Sandi Lynn. “Telco TV service revenue will grow rapidly due to customers’ increased adoption of triple play services.”
France Telecom, Iliad, AT&T and Verizon are leaders in telco TV markets. Verizon added 191,000 telco TV subscribers in 3Q 2009 alone, reaching 2.7 million viewers. Telco TV operators are trying to improve subscription growth by introducing new product features. For example, Korea Telecom, SK Broadband and LG Dacom are planning to add new channels to their telco TV services. Improved service quality would help to maintain the existing service price for telco TV subscriptions that would in turn help to increase ARPU and service revenue.
As reported in an update to ABI Research’s mobile business vertical markets database, the North American mobile business customer base was found to have contracted 2.9% in 2009. This contraction was due to the doubling of unemployment that shifted mobile business customers to the consumer category.
However, business customer 2009 ARPUs grew by 2.5%. Says practice director Dan Shey, “The bad economy accelerated greater use of mobile services by business customers, particularly use of mobile data services. Mobile services increase productivity across all occupations, with field force workers finding the greatest benefit. Assuming the recovery continues, mobile will see even bigger gains in 2010 for both subscribers and ARPUs.”
The manufacturing vertical has been hit the hardest, showing greater loss of mobile business customers than all other sectors in 2009. Mobile business customer numbers in the healthcare field stayed flat as this sector added jobs.
Over the forecast period, ARPU growth will be greatest in real estate, and in professional, scientific and technical services, two industries with occupational distributions that are increasing use of mobile services, particularly data services.
In 2015, shoppers around the world are expected to spend about $119 billion on goods and services purchased via mobile phones. That number represents about 8% of the total e-commerce market.
“Mobile online shopping is reaching critical mass,” says senior analyst Mark Beccue. “In the United States, mobile online shopping rose from $396 million in 2008 to $1.2 billion in 2009. While definitions of ‘mass market adoption’ vary, a more than threefold increase in one year indicates significant consumer interest."
Noteworthy is that even that $1+ billion turnover in the US is dwarfed by the size of the mobile online shopping market in Japan, which exceeded $10 billion in 2009 alone.
This market is growing solidly in Europe too, and is expected to outpace the US by the end of 2010.
“The driver for mobile online shopping in the US has been the recent sharp spike in smartphone adoption and the corresponding enthusiasm for mobile Internet. Also, many more retailers have been launching mobile commerce websites,” adds Beccue. A longer-term driver in global terms is the fact that in many less-industrialized regions, mobile is virtually the only way to access the Internet.
Not only does mobile online shopping allow shoppers to manage their time better, but in the fourth quarter of 2009, an interesting trend emerged: consumers were checking out products in bricks-and-mortar retail stores and using their phones for comparison shopping.
A subset of mobile commerce is the trade in virtual goods, generally associated with online gaming. This too has seen rapid uptake, as mobile payments are the best option for online purchases under about $20, and this way of shopping is especially suitable for those – often young gamers – without credit cards.
OBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA: London and San Francisco - The Symbian Foundation announced that it is joining the Open Screen Project, an industry initiative led by Adobe dedicated to enabling the Adobe® Flash® Platform across a broad range of devices. The work of the Open Screen Project will help deliver Adobe Flash Player on future versions of the Symbian platform. The rich and open capabilities of the Symbian platform combined with the Flash Player will enable Symbian device users to benefit from the huge amount of Flash-based web content for a vivid and complete Internet experience.
"It’s difficult to imagine the Internet without the creativity of the millions of developers using Adobe Flash technology, so we’re excited to be able work with industry leaders in the Open Screen Project to offer the option of Adobe Flash to our community. This is an important step, alongside our open source initiatives, to provide a powerful Internet experience on the Symbian platform." said Robert Ackland, Technology Manager for Runtimes, Symbian Foundation.
"We’re delighted to welcome the Symbian Foundation into the Open Screen Project," said David Wadhwani, General Manager and Vice President, Platform Business at Adobe. "Symbian has a strong history of supporting Adobe Flash and we look forward to working with Symbian’s open source community to greatly enhance the web experience of the millions of people around the globe who use Symbian devices."
Innovation in HD, 3D, and Apps, Now Available to All.
MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA: London and San Francisco – The Symbian Foundation today unveiled the Symbian^3 (S^3) platform, the first entirely open source release following the platform’s transition to an open source license on 4 February, 2010, which was the largest of its kind in history.
S^3 is expected to be “feature complete” by the end of Q1 and the release will include: significant usability and interface advances, faster networking, acceleration for 2D and 3D graphics in games and applications, HDMI support (High-Definition Multimedia Interface), music store integration, an improved user interface with easier navigation and multi-touch gesture support, a feature-rich homescreen, and the ability to run even more applications simultaneously.
Members of the Symbian community, including device creators, network operators, hardware technology providers, professional services companies and application developers are already engaged with S^3 and the first devices using the platform are expected to ship as early as Q3 this year.
S^3 introduces major advances, which include:
# HDMI support enables users to plug their phone into a TV and watch a high-definition movie at 1080p quality without a Blu-ray player. # Music store integration embedded within the radio enables users to identify a song and learn more about it. The addition of a “buy now” button, which links with the user’s chosen music store, makes purchasing easy. # More efficient memory management due to Writeable Data Paging allows more applications to run in parallel for a faster, more complete and efficient multi-tasking experience, especially on mid-range hardware. # A new 2D and 3D graphics architecture takes full advantage of the hardware acceleration available to deliver a faster and more responsive user interface. Users, developers and device creators will all benefit greatly from the visual enhancements and smooth transitions that will significantly improve the look-and-feel of their applications and services. Combined with industry-standard OpenGL ES, the new architecture also provides a great platform for high performance games – all without slowing the phone down. # The industry-leading networking architecture, ready for 4G networks, provides next-generation Internet experiences on today’s devices. Consumers will benefit from the architecture's ability to seamlessly balance each individual application’s needs regarding factors such as bandwidth, latency and jitter. This improves the consumer’s experience of network-dependent applications and Internet services like VoIP and media content streaming. # One-click connectivity for all applications greatly simplifies the process of connecting to the Internet, without interrupting the user. New global settings allow the user to configure platform-wide behaviour, for example ensuring the device automatically switches from cellular to WLAN when a free WLAN network is available. # Usability enhancements across the user interface include the adoption of a direct “single tap” interaction model, making it much easier to complete common tasks on a device. Multi-touch support for gestures such as “pinch-to-zoom” forms the basis of a gesture framework that can be extended and leveraged by the developer community. # The Homescreen takes a big step forward with support for multiple pages of widgets and a simple flick gesture to move between them. The widget manager makes discovery and download of new widgets simple and support for multiple instances of a native widget means that consumers can monitor multiple weather forecasts, news feeds, social networking accounts or multiple email accounts simultaneously through a common interface.
Lee M. Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation, said: “S^3 is another huge milestone in the evolution of our platform. Now that it is fully open source, the door is open to individual contributors, device creators and third-party developer companies, as well as other organizations, to create more compelling products and services than ever before. We have enjoyed significant momentum since we completed S^2, with companies including Sun, Nokia, Ixonos, Comarch and Accenture, among others, contributing to S^3. We are now looking to build on this momentum and remain on course to complete S^4 later this year.”
The developer experience has also been greatly improved. The Qt toolkit is pre-integrated into all kits and the runtime in S^3 will run on existing devices back to S60 3.1. The Web Runtime support provided in the platform remains a key part of the developer story, allowing web developers to directly re-use their skills in HTML, CSS, Javascript and AJAX to create Homescreen widgets and standalone applications.
Symbian community comes together to realize Ideas.
MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA: London and San Francisco - Symbian revealed that ideas submitted to the Symbian Ideas web site are already being realised as platform enhancements and innovative applications.
The Symbian Ideas web site (http://ideas.symbian.org) is integral to Symbian as an open organisation and an open platform. Now anyone can propose an idea for enhancing the Symbian mobile experience, however large or small. Through the web site, Symbian and its community can debate the usefulness of each idea and cast votes to select the most-needed and desirable ideas for implementation by developers from within the community.
"The Symbian Ideas web site is the focal point of a three-way conversation between users, developers and the foundation. It provides developers and device creators with the opportunity to create applications that meet consumers’ express wishes, to make improvements to the world’s market-leading smartphone platform, and to contribute features that will influence the platform roadmap and may run on more than a billion devices in years to come," said Lee M. Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation.
He continued, "As a consumer, if there’s something about your mobile you don’t like, you can change it. We’re encouraging absolutely anyone who owns a mobile device to get involved at the Symbian Ideas web site, by sharing your ideas, and discussing and refining them with the developers who will ultimately implement them. Symbian Ideas is our invitation to you to participate in and define the future of mobile."
Close to 1000 ideas have been submitted from around the globe to the Symbian Ideas web site since its launch in October 2009. Thirty-three of these have since been approved by the community and are being matched with an individual or company to develop and contribute the code for the new or enhanced platform features or applications.
Some of the ideas that will be realised as new Symbian platform features include: · The functionality to paint using the Image Editor is being developed by Ixonos, a foundation member, and will be available in Symbian^3, the latest version of the platform that will be “feature complete” by the end of Q1. · The ability to change the default browser on your device will be available in Symbian^4, thanks to a contribution from Opera. · Users will be able to synch their Facebook contacts with those on their phone in Symbian^4, thanks to a contribution from Nokia. · The ability to pause music when headphones are disconnected from the device, an update realised by Nokia and will available in Symbian^3.
"The idea of providing consumers with the ability to use ‘paint’ to edit the photos they take on their Symbian devices was submitted to the Symbian Ideas web site by Mikael Laine" said Panu Kause, Director of Partnerships and Innovation at Ixonos. "Mikael only recently took over the ownership of the Image Editor package and so we’re truly excited to have contributed not just the idea but the actual code for this fun feature.
"Symbian Ideas is an integral part of the future of the open source Symbian platform, listening to what its community wants from future devices and apps and then acting on it, which is why we volunteered to bring this particular idea to fruition."
Symbian applications that are under development as a result of ideas submitted to Symbian Ideas include: · "Carbonfund", a mobile CO2 calculator which calculates your carbon footprint and allows you to offset it using Paypal. Developed by OpenPath Products in collaboration with Carbonfund.org and Open Mobile Solutions, this will be demoed at Mobile World Congress and the application will be available to consumers soon. · A Wikipedia widget to help you access Wikipedia from your mobile both quickly and with ease. Developed by Ivan Litovski of the Symbian Foundation, this application is now available for free from Symbian Horizon (http://horizon.symbian.org).
"Carbonfund is a unique application that will appeal to all those who are concerned about their impact on the environment. Open Mobile Solutions is excited to have worked with OpenPath Products, Carbonfund.org and the Symbian Foundation to bring this idea to life for consumers across the globe for use in their daily lives," said Jai Jaisimha, CEO of Open Mobile Solutions. "Matching consumers’ ideas with the highly-qualified developers that can make them a reality has been a great experience. We are now looking forward to using our expertise to develop other ideas in the future."
Symbian expects increasing numbers of user-inspired applications and features present on the Symbian platform in future releases. There are thousands of developers already developing Symbian code; they now have the opportunity to tap the insight of users into what is effective and valuable on a mobile device.
MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA: London and San Francisco - The Symbian Foundation today took time out from Mobile World Congress to talk about the variety of ways in which members have been contributing to the success of the open source platform, while giving their own business a boost.
"Symbian is the only mobile open source project in which active members truly determine the future of mobile," said Lee M. Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation. "Members are raising their profile in the ecosystem and generating new business opportunities for themselves through the diverse ways in which they are engaging with the project. These range from making major technical contributions in code to platform direction and organizational governance. We have active member representatives from around the industry leading platform evolution on the four technology Councils, and many companies sponsoring and leading regional events and developing new web-based services that serve the Symbian community."
An example of one of these services is the Collaborative Test Database, currently in development by foundation member Comarch SA. It will offer a web-based interface for accessing test suites for the Symbian platform, saving developers both time and money.
"At Comarch, we are very proud of the fact that we are delivering world-class expertise through the design and implementation of the Collaborative Test Database – a potent web-based tool that will increase collaboration, sharing and innovation throughout the Symbian community," said Pawel Bieryt, EVP, Telecommunications Business Group, Comarch SA. "Comarch experts are contributing their time and extensive know-how to ensuring the continued growth of the most recognized community in the mobile world."
Symbian has also begun holding member events around the world that are planned and sponsored by member companies. The purpose of these events is to update members on the latest innovations in the Symbian roadmap and provide unparalleled regional networking opportunities.
Foundation member Teleca has recently established a presence in India, so it was beneficial to them to help sponsor the first member event in Bangalore. "As a company with many years’ involvement with the Symbian platform, we are committed to promoting the development of the Symbian community in India," said Edwin Moses, Senior Vice President and Head of Europe and APAC Organization at Teleca. "It was a pleasure for us to sponsor the Bangalore member dinner, at which we met new customers and networked with existing customers active in the Symbian ecosystem.
"We look forward to solid growth in India. Sponsoring this dinner gave us the opportunity to show the development community our expertise and global strength."
The Symbian Foundation manages the release of the platform source code, but the foundation itself has no development resources and so members are wholly responsible for creating and contributing feature enhancements to the Symbian platform.
Foundation member ISB Corporation saw an opportunity to enhance the platform with a camera implementation. "We have three reasons for contributing the ECAM source code to the Symbian platform," said Shohei Yoshida, Senior Manager, Sales and Business Promotion at ISB Corporation. "Because our primary business is engineering services, this contribution will prove our Symbian expertise and promote our high-level engineering ability in the Japanese and global markets."
"Another reason is to promote our vertical integration services to businesses that want to integrate their camera engines and codecs with the Symbian platform. Finally, this contribution is part of a larger project we’re working on, a distribution of Symbian that will include a Japanese-language SDK, targeted at Japanese carriers, semiconductor manufacturers, OEMs and application developers."
Foundation member Tieto attended the first two member events, in Finland and in India, and found them valuable. So when Symbian members requested an event in Beijing, Tieto took a leading role in both sponsoring and planning the event.
"Tieto firmly believes that in order for any open source community to be successful, members need to actively participate," said Mika Yletyinen, Senior Vice President, Head of Tieto’s Mobile Devices business. "Tieto has long offered world-class services and solutions on Symbian and actively supports the Symbian Foundation, since we believe in their activities and the platform. As a demonstration of this, we seized the opportunity to help make the forthcoming Symbian China Forum happen."
"In all ways, we are member led," concluded Lee M. Williams. "This is a unique aspect of Symbian’s model, as no single company controls the direction of the platform or our organizational efforts. In our second year, we expect members to be ever more active and to generate even more ideas for the evolution of the platform."
Seymour High School’s Creative Campaign Rang Up Community Support.
Seymour, Tenn. – U.S. Cellular associates surprised the first $100,000 winning school today in its $1 million Calling All Communities campaign. Seymour High School’s faculty, students and community members thought they were going to hear a motivational speaker until a parade of about 50 U.S. Cellular associates burst into the gymnasium, tossing t-shirts and launching confetti everywhere. The unexpected but welcomed interruption brought screams of excitement from the more than 1,100 Seymour students filling the gym.
"This is just unbelievable," said Seymour High School Principal Greg Clark, who was notified of the school’s victory just days before the surprise announcement. "When I got the call, I was so happy that I had to sit down so I wouldn’t fall over. Lots of people really worked hard for this throughout the campaign. This is a good thing for the whole community."
The high school plans to share their winnings with Seymour Primary, Intermediate and Middle schools that played a major role in pushing them to the top. During the campaign, all four schools rallied voter support for the high school by hosting pep rallies, marching in the Christmas parade, creating their own Calling All Communities holiday carol and ornament, and posting signage in local businesses. "Vote for Seymour" flyers were even placed in residents’ monthly utility bills.
"It’s a great day when a community works together to achieve a goal that directly benefits our children’s education," said Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters. "The students’ school spirit was contagious and spread throughout our community. They should be very proud that their hard work paid off for the hundreds of students who will benefit now and in the future from this victory."
This is the second year that U.S. Cellular is awarding $1 million to 10 schools to use however they choose. The Knoxville area is home to two 2009 Calling All Communities champions. Bearden High School and Heritage High School took home $100,000 each last year.
"We love that the first 2010 champion was announced right here in Knoxville," said Tom Catani, regional vice president of U.S. Cellular. “Our local associates are thrilled to surprise the happy students today. There is nothing like being able to see their excitement first-hand and know that we were a part of making a real difference for these kids.”
Voter participation was almost four times last year’s campaign with 430,000 votes cast for 6,800-plus schools nationwide. Seymour High School’s final tally was enough to land them in the winner’s circle alongside nine other Calling All Communities 2010 Champions. U.S. Cellular associates will make random, spontaneous visits to the remaining schools throughout February. Winning school results will be posted throughout the month at uscellular.com/callingallcommunities and on U.S. Cellular’s Facebook page.
St. Liborius School Named Second Champion in "Calling All Communities" Campaign.
Crete, Ill. – A dodge ball tournament turned into a $100,000 celebration this morning at St. Liborius School in Crete. Seventy-five U.S. Cellular associates interrupted the game with big news for the little private school. The elementary school became the second winner in U.S. Cellular’s 2010 Calling All Communities campaign. Students, teachers and faculty erupted into cheers of joy as confetti filled the air in the school gym and U.S. Cellular associates passed out t-shirts and 100 Grand candy bars to the new champions.
"We are such a small school and we worked so hard," said St. Liborius Principal Mary Jane Bartley, who was notified of the school’s victory only days prior to the surprise announcement. "I couldn’t believe it. You don’t know how difficult it was to keep it a secret. I am just ecstatic."
St. Liborius joins nine other winners who will share $1 million. The eight remaining champions will be announced throughout the month. The winners beat out more than 6,800 schools by receiving the most community votes during the two-month campaign to earn a winning spot. Each school receives $100,000 to use anyway they choose. St. Liborius plans to use the money to consolidate its Crete and Steger campuses to bring all K through 8th grades to one location for a more unified school.
"This gift is just wonderful and could not go to a more deserving institution. I know for fact that it will be put to good use," said Crete Village President Michael Einhorn. "This victory proves that when communities work together, amazing things happen."
Unlike Seymour High School in Tennessee, that received news of its win on Tuesday, St. Liborius never appeared in the Top 10 during the campaign. U.S. Cellular officials say the school is one of four surprise winners that came from behind to unseat some long-time frontrunners. An outpouring of community support pushed the 90-student school into the money in the final weeks of the campaign.
"We are proud to have a champion in the Chicagoland area this year," said Shelley Boersma, vice president of U.S. Cellular’s Midwest region. "I had no doubt that our communities had the power to bring home a win and St. Liborius ran an amazing campaign. Playing dodge ball with the kids was almost as much fun as giving them $100,000."
This year’s voter participation on the Calling All Communities campaign nearly quadrupled with 430,000 votes cast for 6,800-plus schools nationwide. U.S. Cellular associates will continue to make random, spontaneous visits to the remaining schools throughout February. Visit uscellular.com/callingallcommunities or U.S. Cellular’s Facebook page to view winning school results.
Central Lutheran School One of 10 Winning Schools To Share $1 million.
NEWHALL, Iowa – Governor Chet Culver joined U.S. Cellular CEO John E. Rooney and area associates struck a chord when they ambushed a concert at Central Lutheran School by delivering a $100,000 surprise. The school was the third winner named in U.S. Cellular’s $ 1 million Calling All Communities campaign. Central Lutheran launched into the Top 10 early in the campaign. Community support kept the 133-student school there until the end. While news of their victory may not have been the biggest surprise, the messenger certainly was.
"I’m so glad I could be here today to congratulate Central Lutheran," said Gov. Culver. "As a former teacher myself, I recognize the tremendous value to our communities when schools and teachers receive the support they need."
The Governor kicked off the exciting celebration as U.S. Cellular associates paraded into the gymnasium tossing t-shirts, handing out 100 Grand candy bars and launching confetti. Students, faculty, parents and community leaders attending the concert burst into cheers as the news sank in that the school was $100,000 richer. Central Lutheran will join nine other schools in sharing $1 million. Two other winning schools, Seymour High School in Tennessee and St. Liborius School in Illinois, also were announced this week.
"Although we were in the Top 10 for several weeks, we didn’t take any chances," said Principal Jan Doellinger, who was notified of the school’s victory but kept it a secret until the surprise announcement. "We pushed for votes all the way through the end of the campaign. Seeing the smiling faces of our students made the journey worthwhile."
Central Lutheran rallied voter support by getting their alumni involved, using facebook and rallying area churches.
This is the second year that U.S. Cellular has awarded $1 million to 10 schools and the second time an Iowa school has earned the prize. Kuemper Catholic High School in Carroll was among the 2009 champions.
"Our associates are thrilled to surprise another winner in Iowa," said U.S. Cellular CEO John E. Rooney. "We believe a solid education is the very foundation on which futures are built. These children deserve every opportunity to succeed and we’re just proud to be a part of it."
This year’s voter participation nearly quadrupled with 430,000 votes cast for 6,800-plus schools nationwide. More than 1,000 schools in Iowa joined the campaign. U.S. Cellular associates will make seven more surprise visits to the remaining schools throughout February. Visit uscellular.com/callingallcommunities or U.S. Cellular’s Facebook page to view winning school results.
BARCELONA, Mobile World Congress – HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, introduced the HTC HD mini, an HTC Sense-based Windows Phone focused on delivering the popular experience of the HTC HD2 in a more compact design.
“The demand for the HTC HD2 has exceeded our expectations, and the HTC HD mini fulfils a desire from some customers to bring the capabilities and experience of the HTC HD2 to a more compact design,” said Peter Chou, chief executive officer, HTC Corporation. “The integration of HTC Sense and Windows Phone on HD mini and HD2 gives customers an additional choice for an advanced Windows mobile phone that is sleek, well crafted and easy to use.”
The HTC HD mini sports a high degree of usability along with its own unique and beautiful design. Precision fasteners used to assemble the phone are externally visible, displaying a high level of craftsmanship rarely found in mobile phones. And the strong design ethos continues under the battery cover where a bright yellow internal structure, offers an unexpected surprise when the phone is opened.
The HTC HD mini utilises HTC Sense, a user experience focused on putting people at the centre by making the phone work in a more simple and natural way. This experience revolves around three fundamental principles that were developed by observing and listening to how people live and communicate. These core tenets of Make It Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected continue to be the key to the new HTC Sense experience.
Like the HTC HD2, the HTC HD mini continues the same focus on people-centric communication with complete Outlook integration. It helps you stay close to the important friends and colleagues in your life by providing a single contact view that displays individual communication snapshots of your conversations, regardless of whether it was a call, text, status update or email. HTC’s Windows-based Twitter application, HTC Peep, enables you to tweet and follow your twitter stream.
HTC HD mini includes capacitive touch for viewing, zooming and resizing websites, Microsoft® Office files, PDF documents and pictures with just a pinch of your fingers. Leveraging its 3G broadband connectivity, the HTC HD mini also offers personal Wi-Fi anywhere for your computer or other devices. The HD mini can also be further enhanced to reflect your needs and style by downloading a variety of applications from the Windows® Marketplace for Mobile.
Availability The new HTC HD mini will be broadly available to customers across major European and Asian markets beginning in April.
HTC LegendTM and HTC DesireTM take Android 2.1 to a new level with HTC Sense.
BARCELONA, Mobile World Congress – HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, introduced an enhanced HTC Sense experience that will be available on two new smartphones that take Android to the next level, the HTC Legend and HTC Desire.
“At its essence, the mobile phone is the most personal item you have in your possession. HTC Sense was created to magnify your ability to create and define your own unique mobile experience,” said Peter Chou, chief executive officer of HTC Corporation. “HTC Legend and HTC Desire take Android to another level in both substance, with HTC Sense, and style, with HTC Legend’s revolutionary crafted aluminum unibody design.”
HTC Sense HTC Sense is a user experience focused on putting people at the centre by making phones work in a more simple and natural way. This experience revolves around three fundamental principles that were developed by observing and listening to how people live and communicate. These core tenets of Make It Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected continue to be the key to the new HTC Sense experience.
The new HTC Sense experience continues to focus on improving your interactions with your most important people. This begins with a new HTC application and widget called HTC Friend Stream that seamlessly aggregates all of your social communication including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr into one organised flow of updates. This simple aggregation makes it easier than ever to focus on what friends are doing as well as to view the images and links that they share. In addition to Friend Stream, people can be organised into specific social circles, such as groups of friends, colleagues or any other way that makes sense.
The new HTC Sense experience also introduces broad improvements to applications including the browser, email client and others. In addition, the new version of HTC Sense includes a new newsreader application and widget, as well as a new seven-screen ‘Leap’ thumbnail view for quick and easy access to specific screens.
HTC Legend Built around a newly enhanced HTC Sense, the HTC Legend boasts a unique design with a smooth, continuous surface, machined from a single aluminum block into a seamless compact frame. To complement its looks, the HTC Legend includes a stunning 3.2 inch, AMOLED HVGA display. The traditional trackball has also been replaced with an optical joystick, surrounded by a narrow button to improve usability without interrupting its unique design.
HTC Desire HTC Desire is the richest way to visually experience news, friends, photos, favourite places and whatever else is important on a mobile phone. With one of the most advanced displays available on a phone today, HTC Desire is designed with a large 3.7 inch AMOLED WVGA display to enhance and maximise content, whether it is pictures and videos, browsing the Web or checking on friends’ status updates. HTC Desire is powered by a one gigahertz Snapdragon processor and is Adobe Flash 10.1 ready. As with the HTC Legend, the HTC Desire also includes an optical joystick.
Patrick Chomet, Group Director of Terminals for Vodafone said, “HTC is a valued partner for Vodafone and has made a strong contribution to the growth of the mass market appeal of smartphones. Vodafone endeavours to offer our customers the widest and most compelling choice of smartphones and to that end the HTC Legend, the HTC Desire and the HTC HD mini will be ranged in selected Vodafone markets across our footprint. I’m particularly pleased that through our collaboration with HTC, Vodafone customers will experience a differentiated experience on the HTC Legend which will come customised for them with pre-loaded Vodafone 360 Internet services.”
Availability The new HTC Legend will be available in Europe through Vodafone and in the direct channel beginning in April. It will roll out to other parts of the world including Asia in early Q2. HTC Desire will be broadly available to customers across major European and Asian markets in early Q2. The HTC Desire will be exclusively available in Australia through Telstra. The enhanced HTC Sense experience will also be offered as a free upgrade on the HTC Hero in Europe and Asia.
Xbox LIVE games and Zune music and video service coming to HTC phones in 2010.
BARCELONA, Mobile World Congress – HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, announced plans to bring Microsoft’s next generation of Windows ® Phones, the Windows Phone 7 Series, to market later this year. The revolutionary new software offers a fresh approach to smartphones by bringing web content and applications together to create a phone experience that is very personal, relevant and connected. With this news, HTC builds on its Windows Phone leadership and extends its commitment to offering customers the most innovative mobile phone experiences available.
“Windows Phone 7 Series is a significant milestone for Microsoft, the industry and ultimately people looking to do more on their phones. HTC is working closely with Microsoft to bring the unique HTC experience that customers love,” said Peter Chou, chief executive officer of HTC Corporation. “Microsoft has clearly listened to feedback from people and brought a new, fresh approach to the smartphone experience that is beautiful, powerful and compelling.”
Announced today at Mobile World Congress 2010, 7 Series offers a new approach to phone software, distinguished by smart design and truly integrated experiences that bring to the surface the content people care about from the web and applications. For the first time ever, Microsoft will bring together the Xbox LIVE games and the Zune music and video experience to the mobile phone, exclusively on 7 Series phones.
“People are moving faster than ever, juggling more priorities and turning to technology to manage it all. Windows Phone 7 Series simplifies common tasks by bringing together related content from the web, applications and services into a single view to make life easier,” said Andy Lees, senior vice president of Mobile Communication Business at Microsoft. “We are pleased to work closely with HTC, a global leader in mobile phone technology and design, to bring new Windows phones to customers around the world.”
About HTC HTC Corp. (HTC) is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile phone industry. By putting people at the center of everything it does, HTC creates innovative smartphones that better serve the lives and needs of individuals. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.
New Skype Mobile product for Verizon Wireless smartphones brings more value to US mobile consumers.
BARCELONA, Spain; BASKING RIDGE, NJ, United States; and LUXEMBOURG, Luxembourg – At the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Verizon Wireless and Skype announced a strategic relationship that will bring Skype to Verizon Wireless smartphones in March. The new Skype mobile™ product enhances Verizon Wireless’ smartphones for users who have data plans by offering a new way to call around the globe, while also giving hundreds of millions of Skype users around the world the opportunity to communicate with friends, family and business colleagues in the United States using Verizon Wireless.
The two companies have created an exclusive, easy-to-use Skype mobile offering for 3G smartphones. Verizon Wireless 3G smartphone users with data plans can use Skype mobile to:
* make and receive unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls to any Skype user around the globe on America’s most reliable wireless network; * call international phone numbers at competitive Skype Out calling rates; * send and receive instant messages to other Skype users; and * remain always connected with the ability to see friends’ online presence.
Initially, Skype mobile will be available on millions of best-selling Verizon Wireless 3G smartphones with data plans, including the BlackBerry® Storm™ 9530, Storm2™ 9550, Curve™ 8330, Curve™ 8530, 8830 World Edition and Tour™ 9630 smartphones, as well as DROID by Motorola, DROID ERIS™ by HTC and Motorola DEVOUR™.
John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless, said, “Skype mobile on Verizon Wireless changes the game. For Verizon Wireless’ more than 90 million customers, Skype mobile adds great value because we’re effectively giving customers with smartphones and data plans the option to extend their unlimited calling community to hundreds of millions of Skype users around the globe. And you’re not limited to using a single type of phone; we’ll have nine smartphones ready right at launch in March.”
Josh Silverman, chief executive officer of Skype, noted, “People want to take their Skype conversations with them wherever they go, whether it’s on a PC, TV or increasingly mobile phones. Verizon Wireless will give US consumers the best Skype experience on mobile phones and will truly change the way people call their friends and family internationally.”
Customers interested in learning more about Skype mobile for Verizon Wireless smartphones can visit www.verizonwireless.com/skypemobile. Additional information about the service will be available next month.
Visit www.verizonwireless.com for more information about Verizon Wireless or follow the company at twitter.com/verizonwireless. Learn more and download Skype at www.skype.com or follow the company at twitter.com/skypemobile. About Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless operates the nation’s most reliable and largest wireless voice and 3G data network, serving more than 91 million customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, NJ, with 83,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone (NASDAQ and LSE: VOD). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.
fring's mobile video-calling usage is twice the leading PC video-calling provider's.
LONDON, fring, the multi-award winning mobile application that lets users enjoy rich internet communication over mobile internet on their mobile devices, today announced that, only 2 months after its launch, its mobile video calling usage rates are already a substantial percentage of its users’ mobile internet calls. Video over Internet calls account for more than 40% of fring's global call traffic, on supported devices, and more than 60% of its call traffic throughout Western Europe, where fring mobile video call usage doubles the leading PC-based video call services.
fring launched the world’s first fring and Skype mobile video calls last November, enabling users to conduct video calls to other fringsters as well as with Skype contacts over their device’s Wi-Fi or 3G internet connection. This video feature is embedded within the fring application that enables free voice calls to other fring users, Skype and GTalk buddies as well as friends on regular phone lines via Skype-Out and hundreds of popular SIP services.
fring video calls solve many challenges that previously prevented significant uptake of GSM video call services. fring video is fully integrated into the whole social communication experience whereby users communicate with friends on all their favorite social networks – able to see their online presence, chat with them, upgrade to a voice call, and now, enjoy a full video calling experience. Understandably, the majority of fring's mobile video calls are international – something that was unheard of over the GSM network due to a lack of rate clarity. With fring, all communication is free over Wi-Fi, or on their data-plan. Finally the convenience of being able to receive as well as make video calls from a mobile device while the other person is on their phone or their PC, anywhere around the world, is a compelling use case that has made fring an instant mobile-video success.
Avi Shechter, Co-Founder & CEO of fring: "fring is proud to revive mobile video calls. Since introducing the world’s first fring and Skype mobile video calls over internet last November, fring has been providing users the video call experience they enjoy on their PC, on the go."
Shechter continued, "The overwhelming usage of fring video calls is another testament of user demand for the Internet communication choice from their mobile devices, and we will continue pushing the innovation envelope to bring users more choice, richness and always-on connectivity of Internet communications, to the convenient mobile interface."
Following fring's video call success, fring is ramping up the number of devices that support video calls over internet to include all Symbian 9.2 & 9.3 Nokia devices such as the popular E71, immediately available for download, This comes as an addition to the already supported N95, N95 8G, N83, N97, 5800 and other Nokia touch-screen S60 devices and the iPhone and iPod touch
CUPERTINO, California—Apple® introduced Aperture™ 3, the next major release of its powerful photo editing and management software, with over 200 new features including Faces, Places and Brushes. Building on the innovative Faces and Places features introduced in iPhoto® ’09, Aperture 3 makes it even easier and faster to organize large photo libraries. Aperture 3 introduces new tools to refine your photos including Brushes for painting image adjustments onto parts of your photo, and Adjustment Presets for applying professional photo effects with just one click. Stunning new slideshows let you share your work by weaving together photos, audio, text and HD video.
“Millions of people love using iPhoto to organize, edit and share their digital photos,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Aperture 3 is designed for both professionals who edit and manage massive libraries of photos and iPhoto users who want to take their photos further with easy-to-use tools such as Brushes and Adjustment Presets.”
“Aperture 3 gets it right,” said National Geographic photographer, Jim Richardson. “The image editing tools are exactly what I have been asking for, they’re so easy to use and give me a level of control that I never even thought possible.”
“I chose Aperture because it was the most powerful archiving application around, but it’s now an unbelievable imaging tool as well,” said Bill Frakes, Sports Illustrated staff photographer. “I am beyond impressed with the massive changes made in Aperture 3.”
Aperture 3 allows you to organize large photo libraries with even more flexibility using Projects and the new Faces and Places. Faces uses face detection and recognition to find and organize your photos by the people in them. You can view faces across your entire photo library or view just the faces that appear in selected projects. In a new view that speeds up the organization process, Aperture 3 displays faces that have been detected but haven’t yet been named. Places lets you explore your photos based on where they were taken, and like in iPhoto, Places automatically reverse geocodes GPS data into user-friendly locations. In Aperture 3, you can assign locations by dragging-and-dropping photos onto a map or by using location information from GPS enabled cameras, tracking devices or your iPhone® photos.
The new Brushes feature allows you to add professional touches to your photos by simply painting effects onto the image. Aperture 3 includes 15 Quick Brushes that perform the most popular tasks like Dodge, Burn, Polarize and Blur, without the complexity of layers or masks. Brushes can automatically detect edges in your images to let you apply or remove effects exactly where you want them. Aperture 3 includes dozens of Adjustment Presets that apply a specific style or look to the entire image with just a click. You can create your own custom presets or explore the techniques of other photographers by importing theirs.
Aperture 3 makes it easy to share your work with stunning slideshows that weave together photos, audio, text and HD video. You can select one of six Apple designed themes or choose your own transitions, background, borders and titles, and even add your own soundtrack. You can export your slideshows directly to iTunes® to take with you on your iPhone or iPod touch®. You can also share photographs as beautiful prints, create custom-designed hardcover books and publish to online photo sharing sites like Facebook and Flickr, right from Aperture 3.
Pricing & Availability Aperture 3 is available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) and existing Aperture users can upgrade for a suggested retail price of $99 (US). A downloadable 30-day trial version is available at www.apple.com/aperture/trial. Aperture 3 runs as a 64-bit application on Mac OS® X Snow Leopard® on Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Full system requirements, online tutorials and more information on Aperture 3 can be found at www.apple.com/aperture.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.
Selects Nokia Siemens Networks’ unified charging and billing solution.
Smart Communications, the largest mobile communications service provider in the Philippines, will soon be able to rapidly introduce new, customized services for its subscribers. The operator has selected Nokia Siemens Networks’ unified charging and billing solution to enable a faster time-to-market for its services.
“Smart Communications has deployed a large number of services in the Philippine market over the last several years,” said Orlando B. Vea, chief wireless adviser at Smart Communications. “The increased complexity in our charging and billing platform arising from this was posing challenges to the rapid development and roll-out of new services for our large and growing subscriber base. Nokia Siemens Networks’ unified solution will help us rapidly create and customize a wide range of services to enhance the end-user experience, as well as improve operational efficiency.”
“Consumers today are demanding a more personalized experience, which telecom service providers can offer by better understanding their subscribers’ usage behavior and preferences,” said Ricky Corker, head of the Asia Pacific region at Nokia Siemens Networks. “Smart Communications has always been recognized as an innovative provider of mobile communications services. And our solution, based on the charge@once unified product, will further help it improve the speed and efficiency of bringing more innovative services to the Philippine market.”
charge@once unified is a key component of Nokia Siemens Networks’ unified charging and billing solution. It allows Smart to charge for content, transactions and data sessions, independent of whether subscribers use the prepaid or postpaid method of payment. The solution offers hundreds of predefined marketing scenarios which can be combined and configured to rapidly create a wide range of services. It also provides Smart Communications with in-depth insight into its subscribers and their service usage patterns.
Nokia Siemens Networks will also provide installation, customization and systems integration services to Smart to support the integration of charge@once unified into its network. Deliveries of the solution begin this month. About Smart Communications
Smart Communications, Inc. is the Philippines' leading wireless services provider with 40 million subscribers on its GSM network as of end-December 2009. SMART has built a reputation for innovation, having introduced world-first wireless data services, including mobile commerce services such as Smart Money, Smart Load and Smart Padala. SMART also offers 3G and HSPA services. Its Smart Link service provides communications to the global maritime industry. Smart Broadband, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary, offers a wireless broadband service, Smart BRO, with 1 million subscribers as of end-December 2009. SMART is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Philippines' leading telecommunications carrier, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company. For more information, visit www.smart.com.ph
Nokia Siemens Networks outlines transformation required to cope.
Nokia Siemens Networks’ chief executive, Rajeev Suri, has outlined the changes required by mobile operators to cope with the huge rise in mobile traffic caused by smart devices. Addressing press and industry analysts attending this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Suri cautioned that if the blunt “just add capacity” approach used by other vendors goes on, this will be enough to bring most networks to a painful, grinding halt.
Nokia Siemens Networks predicts that by 2015, annual mobile data traffic will reach 23 Exabytes - equivalent to 6.3 billion people each downloading a digital book every day. Pure capacity is just one issue, however, as the unique properties of mobility, such as intermittent connectivity and shifting location, coupled with the increasing range of smart devices, require mobile broadband networks to be far more intelligent in their handling of traffic growth.
As an example, having predicted the current surge in smarter mobile devices, Nokia Siemens Networks is the only vendor to have built into its networks an industry standard* – already common in smart phones – that allows it to reduce unprofitable, congestion-causing signaling by three times while increasing smart device battery life.
The company’s overall activities at Mobile World Congress highlight its comprehensive approach to meeting the needs of people who use smart devices. Nokia Siemens Networks’ Experience Center in Hall 8 is centered on three themes aimed squarely at its customers: “Relationships built around insight,” “Solutions built around your business” and “A network built around individuals. The Network of One.”
A webcast of the press and analyst conference, along with a virtual tour of the Experience Center can be found at http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/mwc.
Highlights among its demonstrations, launches and announcements in Barcelona include:
LTE
* Enabling Telefónica to present a live demonstration of LTE (4G mobile broadband) with applications running in a real-network operating across the Congress site, providing a taste of what the future holds. * Demonstrating its support for 4G mobile broadband in China, by showcasing its Femtocell for TD-LTE, at its Experience Center.
WCDMA/HSPA
* With over half the world’s 3G (WCDMA/HSPA) subscribers supported by its radio networks, there is a particular emphasis on improving the experience for these users. * Demonstrating HSPA+, a 3.5G mobile broadband technology, at speeds of 112Mbps using Qualcomm terminals. * Last week the company was the first to conduct a call using a network technology known as “continuous packet connectivity” (CPC). Once incorporated into HSPA+ networks, via a simple software upgrade, CPC can double device battery life.
End-to-end IP
* Demonstrating its Flexi Network Gateway (NG), part of its evolved packet core that leads the industry in four key dimensions: subscriber sessions, data throughput, intelligent service support and signaling. * Launching two new Microwave backhaul products at the Congress that are needed to transmit the increasing amounts of smart device data between base stations and the core network. The FlexiPacket FirstMile aggregates traffic from mobile base stations and the FlexiPacket Hub 1200, a certified Carrier Ethernet access switch, can provide up to 10 Gbps switching capacity in a single unit. * Launching its Open Multimedia Gateway, the first in the market based on ATCA* off-the-shelf hardware to handle data and voice traffic for IP-based and legacy networks.
Customer experience
* Coupled with technological breakthroughs, the company is also providing operators with more intelligence to better serve their customers. It today launched an Insight & Experience Framework that combines the company’s consulting and systems integration expertise with software that can process data related to subscriptions, charging and billing, services and applications, devices, and subscribers’ perception and satisfaction. * An example of its focus on new services for subscribers is the deal also announced today with Movistar in Argentina where Nokia Siemens Networks is linking network authentication via the SIM cards in smart phones with web single sign-on to automate logging on to third-party sites online such as Flickr or Facebook.
Nokia Siemens Networks’ dedicated Experience Center is located in exhibition Hall 8 at Mobile World Congress. For media and analyst tours please visit our reception desk.
Introduces new gateway application for off-the-shelf hardware to boost operators’ competitiveness.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia Siemens Networks is launching its Open Multimedia Gateway, the first in the market based on ATCA* off-the-shelf hardware. Multimedia gateways handle data and call traffic for IP-based and legacy networks. This new gateway product enhances the company’s portfolio of open and cost-effective core network applications that help operators reduce energy consumption and operating expenses.
“As the telecom industry evolves and matures, it is important that we transform the way we design our products,” said Michael Clever, head of voice and IP transformation at Nokia Siemens Networks. “Our aim is to decouple hardware and software, making our network applications more hardware independent. Decoupling creates a more open environment that gives service providers greater flexibility to meet their hardware requirements and reduce their operational costs.”
By adapting its field-proven core network software to run on off-the-shelf ATCA hardware, Nokia Siemens Networks is allowing service providers to support a greater number of subscribers with a smaller equipment footprint and significant energy savings. Compared to current solutions based on proprietary hardware, the Open Multimedia Gateway cuts power consumption by almost 40 percent. The new gateway also delivers up to four times more capacity per footprint compared to legacy platforms, thus requires less floor space.
By relying on open ATCA platforms, service providers can also combine several core network applications into one hardware rack, again helping reduce space requirements, and improving the management and maintenance of spare parts by having the same hardware used by multiple telecom applications.
In a unique software design, the Nokia Siemens Networks’ gateway software can be used in either legacy hardware or the new ATCA-based Open Multimedia Gateway. This means that service providers can benefit from having the same software running on multiple hardware options. This represents gains not only in network operational efficiency, but also in the speed of launching new services and functionalities.
FlexiPacket FirstMile and FlexiPacket Hub 1200 bolster Nokia Siemens Networks’ mobile backhaul offering.
Nokia Siemens Networks launched two new microwave switch products – FlexiPacket FirstMile and FlexiPacket Hub 1200 – that will enable operators to easily migrate from legacy networks to all-IP as they cope with increasing data traffic. Launched at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the two products are part of Nokia Siemens Networks’ FlexiPacket Microwave solution.
“Traditional networks are not equipped for the surge in mobile broadband traffic that operators are witnessing due to rising smartphone use,” said Vesa Tykkylainen, head of microwave transport at Nokia Siemens Networks. “Our FlexiPacket Microwave solution helps operators transform their networks to handle this deluge of data and offer their customers a better broadband service. These new products – FlexiPacket FirstMile and FlexiPacket Hub 1200 – allow operators to optimize their networks for data traffic, but also ensure that the quality of voice calls is not compromised.”
Microwave backhaul technology is used to transmit data between base station sites and the operator’s core network. The FlexiPacket FirstMile switch is a cost-effective platform for base station sites that need to aggregate traffic from different kinds of networks, for instance, from both 2G and 3G sites. It is optimized for connecting a series of microwave links (daisy chaining). The FlexiPacket Hub 1200 is a Metro Ethernet Forum certified Carrier Ethernet access switch engineered for mission-critical use at aggregation points (hub sites). It provides up to 10 Gbps switching capacity in a single hardware unit.
The two products further strengthen Nokia Siemens Networks’ mobile backhaul offering based on its FlexiPacket Microwave solution. Optimized for carrying vast amounts of packet traffic in a cost-efficient manner, the solution offers operators the flexibility to add the capacity needed to keep pace with growing demand. In addition, the FlexiPacket Microwave solution’s network management system eliminates the need to configure individual network nodes and allows connections between them to be set up in a point-and-click fashion.
Unique framework turns customer data into real-time, actionable insights.
Nokia Siemens Networks is launching its Insight & Experience Framework at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, giving service providers a powerful way to truly treat their customers as individuals. The framework lets service providers derive real-time, actionable insights from the wealth of customer data available across their networks.
The framework combines Nokia Siemens Networks’ consulting and systems integration expertise with a set of software products that provide a wide array of data and insights about subscribers’ preferences and behavior. Service providers can use the insights gained in this way to enhance their customers’ service experience and their own business performance.
The framework includes two new innovations. First, it lets service providers sift through the large amount of customer data in their networks to find the pieces of information that are most useful for enhancing a subscriber’s service experience. Service providers can use these real-time, actionable customer insights to intelligently manage the growing traffic in their mobile broadband networks by offering customized tariff plans and quality packages as part of targeted marketing campaigns. For example, the framework can identify subscribers whose tariff plans are not suited to their data usage habits, allowing the service provider to offer those individuals more beneficial packages.
The second innovation is the way the framework, unlike any other software before, enables a subscriber’s experience to be visualized and modeled in a graphical presentation, based on “customer experience indexes”. These indexes are values that sum up how subscribers are experiencing their service and relationship with the service provider. The indexes are based on a sophisticated and customizable combination of factors such as customer perception data, customer subscriptions, monthly invoices, service usage patterns, and recent problems with the service. A service provider’s marketing department can use the indexes to create personalized service packages for individual customers.
“Today, it is hard for service providers to leverage the full potential of the real-time customer data at their disposal,” said Juergen Walter, head of Business Solutions, Nokia Siemens Networks. “We are offering a way for them to not only use this data to improve their insights about customer behavior, but to go even further and use long-term trend analysis and customer understanding to trigger automatic actions across the organization. This enables service providers to better respond to their customers’ needs and generate new revenues.”
For example, a service provider can analyze data in real-time to quickly introduce customers to individualized services by automatically launching accurately targeted micro-marketing campaigns based on predetermined criteria. A leading African operator expects to increase revenues by 25 million euros in 2010 using this approach.
The Insight & Experience Framework is built on top of Nokia Siemens Networks’ market leading subscriber data management (SDM) solution. Together with other cutting-edge software that are part of the framework, such as Serve atOnce Traffica, the company’s SDM solution serves over one billion customers of more than 200 service providers. The framework combines the company’s consulting and systems integration expertise with software that can process data related to, for example, subscriptions, charging and billing, services and applications, devices, and subscribers’ perception and satisfaction. The result is a customized framework that complements customer relationship management (CRM) in a unique way.
Visitors to Mobile World Congress can view sample uses of the framework at Nokia Siemens Networks’ Experience Center. A key component of the framework – Nokia Siemens Networks’ Customer Care Automation solution – has already gained recognition in the industry and has been shortlisted for the GSMA Global Mobile Awards 2010 in the category of “Best Billing and Customer Care Solution”.
Proves feasibility of improving HSPA+ speed and capacity by using “four-carrier” technology.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Nokia Siemens Networks is demonstrating an HSPA+ data call with a peak throughput of 112 Mbps. The call will be made using four base station radio transceivers, or “carriers”, simultaneously for one data connection. Network infrastructure with this technological enhancement is expected to be commercially available by 2011. Its successful demonstration proves the viability of multi-carrier technologies in HSPA+ networks and its potential to offer high data rates and increased network capacity for the growing needs of mobile broadband users.
The demonstration is to be conducted using a Nokia Siemens Networks’ commercial Flexi Multiradio Base Station and test terminals provided by Qualcomm.
“With the rapidly growing use of mobile broadband, subscribers are increasingly using bandwidth-intensive applications,” said Marc Rouanne, head of Network Systems, Nokia Siemens Networks. “Existing and new 3G operators can deploy multi-carrier HSPA+ technology, like we’re demonstrating with Qualcomm, to deliver a superior end-user experience with significantly higher data speeds and congestion-free services.”
“Qualcomm continues to help drive the evolution of network technologies to enable new opportunities for the industry and better experiences for users,” said Alex Katouzian, vice president of product management, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “This demonstration with Nokia Siemens Networks is just one example of our co-operation to explore the viability of new concepts in networks and devices.”
The demonstration by Nokia Siemens Networks will combine four HSPA carriers to increase performance and peak rates. By balancing data traffic between the four carriers on the downlink connection, multi-carrier technology enables better speeds, better use of base station resources, and higher spectrum efficiency. The four-carrier technology will be standardized in 3GPP Release 10. A base station feature that uses two carriers per data connection will be available from Nokia Siemens Networks already in the first half of this year.
Nokia Siemens Networks’ Flexi Base Stations and radio network controller (RNC) can support four-carrier HSPA with a simple software upgrade. An HSPA+ network can theoretically support speeds of 28 Mbps or 42 Mbps with a single 5 MHz carrier.
Madonna a model, singer and now a designer. Widow of Guy Ritchie, who previously designed a line of clothing for H&M is rumored to be soon launched a collection of clothing and lingerie for the largest department store Macy's. The names being considered to increase the collection of famous label apparel for men and women including the chanter Material Girl.