Telefonica, the Spanish mobile operator, has selected Olista's mobile user-experience platform to improve its customers' experience when using Telefonica's data services.

With social media content and value-added services as key strategic tools for driving revenue and reducing churn, Telefonica chose Olista's technology to promote increased subscriber usage of its mobile internet premium services, both encouraging customers to successfully use the services and ensuring that the services work every time on any device.

Telefonica needed a platform that would identify users' behavior patterns as well as technical and operational barriers and automatically suggest ways to enhance their experiences.

"We are excited to be working with Olista, which shares our commitment to improving customer satisfaction within mobile data services," says Ms. Cristina Alvarez, General Director of Service Development at Telefonica. "Thanks to Olista, we can use this highly granular insight into usage to make informed decisions and better target user experience and quality improvements, offerings and campaigns."

By deploying solutions such as Olista's mobile user-experience platform, Telefonica can uncover usage patterns, revealing precisely where individual users and segments are most active; review price sensitivity data; and eliminate technical barriers and trigger actions via various channels.

"Olista is proud to partner with Telefonica and to have the opportunity to help its customers benefit from our innovative technology," explains Olista CEO, Mr. Gadi Bahat. "Our mobile user-experience platform is designed to improve the customer experience as it helps increase operator revenues. We are confident Olista will prove to be an instrumental tool in achieving Telefonica's goals of increased customer satisfaction and ARPU."

Brings Twitter, free push Gmail and media sync with PC and Macs to mass market social mobiles

INQ Mobile has launched two new 3G Social Mobiles complete with internet-based Twitter and media  sync capabilities.

The new phones are claimed to offer 'high-spec functionality' without the hefty price tag, and is said to provide operators with a 3G social mobile with the speed, usability and suite of applications capable of driving data usage in the mass market.

The INQ Chat 3G is the company's first qwerty-style phone, while the compact INQ Mini 3G expands the range and provides an entry-level social mobile, claimed to be ideal for the price-sensitive prepay market.

For the two new phones, Twitter joins the suite of communications applications which include Facebook, Skype and Instant Messaging.

Working closely with the Twitter team, INQ says it has developed an authentic Twitter application for both its new Social Mobiles.  After the initial log in, Twitter will be 'always on', and users can send tweets and retweet via the internet rather than using SMS. With the INQ Chat, a specially designed Twitter widget will deliver Twitter updates straight to the home screen.

According to INQ, the Chat 3G was developed in response to consumer and operator demand for a qwerty-style keypad device. It has a new email client developed by INQ that incorporates free push Gmail – removing a cost for push mail typically borne by operators or passed on to consumers.  The INQ Chat 3G comes complete with the expanded suite of INQ applications; Facebook, Skype, email, IM and Twitter.

The INQ Mini 3G is a slimline Social Mobile that offers Twitter, Facebook, IM, Skype and web-based email services like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and GMail. 

Both phones have plug and play HSDPA modems enabling high-speed wireless broadband on PCs and Macs.

INQ is also introducing seamless media syncing between its devices and PCs or Macs. The software, enabled by doubleTwist, syncs music from iTunes and WMP straight to a INQ mobile and, unlike most other sync solutions, doesn't require the customer to give up using their favourite media player on their computer. The new mobiles from INQ can also sync video and photos.

INQ's platform was built from the ground up for the mobile internet and offers integration throughout the handset. Popular internet applications are not simply bolted on but embedded within the underlying software, delivering benefits such as native messaging and an address book that consolidates phone contacts with those from relevant applications.

This allows INQ to remove many of the cumbersome steps that have made using these services on ordinary mobiles frustrating or time-consuming. INQ phones multi-task, so key applications like Facebook, Skype, IM and email are 'always on' and accessible with one click from the home screen; a log-in to any application is required only once.

Frank Meehan, INQ's CEO, said: "We build phones that focus specifically on what people want to do most on mobile, and deliver it at a price point that's easy for consumers and profitable for operators. We have completely broken the vice grip hold that high end smartphones had on great mobile internet experiences, and made them available to everybody."

"With the INQ Chat 3G, we've reinvented the qwerty for consumers by creating a fantastic social mobile. With the INQ1, we were blown away by how much consumers were writing just using the standard 12 keys –  30% of them were regularly sending emails. So we know that a keypad will go down a storm."

The INQ Chat 3G and INQ Mini 3G will be available in Q4 2009.

Entrust has joined forces with Clickatell, an enterprise global mobile messaging solutions provider, and expanded its ability to provide one-time-passcode (OTP) delivery to mobile devices via SMS. Often known as mobile soft tokens, the partnership expands the options available to customers using the Entrust IdentityGuard authentication platform across multiple channels.

"Working with Entrust, we give customers a powerful mobile choice in how they deploy strong authentication to protect against online attacks," said Clickatell CEO Pieter de Villiers. "A one-time-passcode solution, delivered via our secure and reliable SMS-as-a-Service offering, can help reduce security access costs, improve enterprise application authentication success and provide an unprecedented level of convenience."

The partnership provides technology to enable single or multiple one-time passcodes to be sent to a mobile device. Entrust IdentityGuard can automatically issue a configurable number of OTPs directly to the end-user's mobile phone via Clickatell text messaging. These passcodes are used as a second factor for out-of-band authentication with Entrust IdentityGuard. Leveraging a user's existing mobile device, Entrust IdentityGuard can also provide automatic refresh of the passcodes and even enables user authentication while out of cell phone range, providing a continuous security capability to the end-user regardless of their location.

A leading provider of mobile messaging, Clickatell interoperates with more than 775 network operators in 220 countries, including AT&T, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Orange, O2, SingTel, Telstra and more.

"With wide market penetration, Clickatell was the perfect partner to help expand OTP soft token capabilities to Entrust's global customer base," said Entrust President and CEO Bill Conner. "Their expertise and global reach provides Entrust customers the ability to use the Entrust IdentityGuard OTP authentication capabilities with a proven global delivery provider, providing simple and secure authentication to end-users and enabling a level of convenience and versatility not found on other third-party authenticators."

Because of its ubiquity and availability on all handsets, text messaging has great potential to reach billions of users with a low total cost of ownership. Combined with the security of out-of-band authentication, SMS delivery of an OTP can be a secure, cost-effective method of authentication for consumers, citizens, employees, contractors and partners. In addition, OTPs expire after a brief period, making them ideal and ultimately secure via SMS; there is no need for customers to worry that the OTP will be "left" or "available" on the mobile device itself.

"SMS OTPs offer customers an easy, convenient way to gain secure access to financial accounts, corporate environments and government networks via the proven second-factor authentication method," said de Villiers

Entrust IdentityGuard enables organizations to layer security – according to access requirements or the risk of a given transaction – across diverse users and applications. The platform's authentication options include strong username and password, IP-geo-location, device, questions and answers, out-of-band one-time passcode (delivered via voice, SMS or e-mail), grid cards, eGrid cards and a range of one-time-passcode tokens. Entrust IdentityGuard also provides multiple methods of supporting mutual authentication, including picture and caption replay.

International payment provider paysafecard has teamed up with BT, to offer 70 million mobile users the chance to buy online by charging the purchase to their mobile phone. The scheme launches with all of the UK's major mobile operators which include Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and 3. Mobile users will be able to spend at any of paysafecard's 2,700 integrated websites, without ever having to disclose their financial details.

BT's agilemedia team and service provider Dialogue Communications have been working with paysafecard to deliver the service to address this rapidly developing market. From the outset, the design brief was to make the user journey simple and convenient, while conforming to the UK mobile industry standard Payforit.

Until paysafecard introduced the prepaid voucher for online payments, consumers across Europe without a credit or debit card were typically excluded from online shopping. Now with this additional functionality, anyone with a mobile phone has a simple, safe and convenient way to pay online.

David Hunter – UK CEO, said "This is a great team effort between, BT agilemedia, Dialogue, paysafecard and the mobile operators. Millions of people could potentially benefit from the ability to pay online without plastic. Many for the first time, which is incredibly exciting."

Mike Steel – Head of Business Development (Participation Media) at BT agilemedia, said, "This project has been an innovative example of how to use the Payforit scheme for online purchases.  The use of frictionless payment methods such as Payforit, provide exciting opportunities for all players in the value chain in the coming months."

As well as being available via 70m mobile phones, paysafecards and vouchers are available at over 20,000 local PayPoint shops throughout the UK. paysafecard is accepted at websites ranging from airlines, to games, music downloads and telephony, enabling web-shoppers to make purchases on the Internet in a matter of seconds, without disclosing bank or credit card details.

Sonaecom and Huawei have announced the launch of Soanecom's HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access Evolution) services in Portugal. The new mobile broadband service is said to allow Sonaecom to offer an improved user experience to customers with lower latency and much higher speed. Via 64 QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) in the air interface, Sonaecom's HSPA+ network supports downlink data rate of up to 21.6 Mbps.

"Due to Huawei's smooth introduction of HSPA+ on our existing network, the new technology can help us maintain our leading position in the Portuguese competitive market," said Mr. José Pinto Correia, CTO of Sonaecom. "This new technology will enable our customers to enjoy higher speed and higher quality mobile broadband services, while delivering more capacity to our network."

To enhance Sonaecom's existing UMTS network, Huawei provided an end-to-end solution with state-of-the-art HSPA+ networks and customised mobile broadband modems.

"We are pleased to contribute towards Sonaecom's growing market leadership," said James Xie, Managing Director of Huawei, Portugal.  "Huawei's proven All-IP fixed mobile convergence solutions enable consistent delivery of compelling and differentiated services anytime, anywhere, via any terminal that extends market leadership of operators worldwide."

Sonaecom launched HSPA+ services after a successful technology trial carried out in June 2009, in which the maturity of the technology was proven. The trial phase has been supported by Huawei and Qualcomm and uses terminal equipment featuring Qualcomm's MDM8200 HSPA+ chipset.

According to the findings of a new survey from Cognito, despite the trend towards business mobility, many UK enterprises lack the expertise needed to implement a comprehensive mobile strategy.

While 86% of IT departments have been charged with the responsibility of implementing a mobile strategy to help improve employee productivity and business efficiency, nearly a half of IT directors say that their team lacks the skills needed to integrate a range of business critical applications with mobile devices. More worryingly, says Cognito, 1 in 4 blamed the potential failure of mobile projects on the mobile industry's lack of experience in supporting business customers.

"This is a reality check for mobile IT in the UK. Whilst there have been significant advances made in mobile applications, hardware and networks, successfully applying these to complex business scenarios requires an emerging set of skills that organisations do not typically possess," said Steve Alderson, Managing Director at mobile systems integrator Cognito. "When enterprise level IT departments that command significant budgets are struggling, we've no doubt that smaller teams with fewer resources will find it even more difficult to support a comprehensive mobile business strategy. As a result, companies are only able to go as far as implementing mobile email using one of many off-the-shelf solutions on the market."

According to the survey only a half of UK enterprises today have a mobile strategy that goes beyond basic email. However, for businesses that depend on employees working out in the field, email is just one of many business critical applications. For example, a delivery driver or salesman out on the road would benefit from direct access to a CRM database. An effective mobile strategy requires these workers to have an equivalent standard of IT to employees in the office. Unfortunately for businesses that do plan to go beyond email, the survey says it uncovered a major concern: A third of IT directors said they were worried that their company's lack of experience in mobile IT strategies would significantly impact the ROI from these projects in the near term and reduce long-term investment in this area.

Alderson continues, "The greatest rewards from implementing mobile technology are usually across business critical functions where a high degree of automation and control is required. These applications are increasingly complex, involving the integration of complementary mobile and service optimisation technologies with existing legacy systems; technologies which are new to most IT departments. Hence, as this survey has indicated, IT buyers are worried that both their own inexperience and that of their suppliers will hamper success."

Sumair Dutta, Strategic Service Management Analyst at Aberdeen Group confirmed how this survey reflected some of his observations on mobility: "Organisations with field service operations in particular are still looking to make investments in mobility despite tough economic times. This is because greater mobility can make these companies more productive. In fact, we have found that companies that are able to adopt a best practice approach can improve productivity by nearly 20 percent. So it's quite worrying to see how mobility is being held back by a lack of experience on the part of both IT departments and suppliers in general."

The survey of 200 IT directors from organisations with over 1000 employees was conducted by Vanson Bourne.

Vodafone Portugal has successfully completed a Mobile Broadband Experience Management pilot based on Carrier IQ's architecture and is moving it into operation. According to Carrier IQ, the new technology will enable Vodafone Portugal to offer a highly optimized and personalized Customer Care experience by allowing an accelerated problem identification and resolution. It is also claimed to give Vodafone Portugal the ability to make pinpoint accurate network planning and investment decisions based on the true end-customer experience.

"Our goal is to have the most satisfied customers in the industry and so, offering the best mobile broadband service is naturally on the top of our priorities," said José Oliveira, Operations Director for Vodafone Portugal. "The Carrier IQ's Mobile Broadband Experience Management solution provides a unique and valuable perspective of the customer's true experience helping us to better address our customers' needs." Jose Oliveira continued, "We believe that this solution will further increase Vodafone Portugal's customer satisfaction and loyalty and it will also help improving efficiency on our investment decision making."

"We are excited to work with Vodafone Portugal who has consistently pioneered many innovative customer and service solutions in the Mobile industry" said Mark Quinlivan, CEO of Carrier IQ. "Our technology works with both mobile broadband devices as well as mobile phones and for the first time allows the mobile operators to understand the end-customer's true experience. It is critical to offer a service that is high quality from both a data network and customer experience perspective." Quinlivan went on to say, "Innovative operators such as Vodafone Portugal continue to stay out ahead of their competitors by offering highly tuned network and services based on per subscriber Mobile Broadband Experience Management as well as a markedly improved Customer Care experience."

ShoZu, the social media hub, today announced the availability of its mobile application for download in the new OVI Store by Nokia, offering millions of Nokia device users around the world the option of two-way interactivity with a variety of social networking sites.

The ShoZu app for the OVI Store provides two-way interactivity with a number of social networking sites, including real-time status updates and uploading high-resolution images and video. Other benefits include: uploading via Wi-Fi (for devices supporting Wi-Fi) for free and fast service; automatically continuing uploads in the event of service disruptions; and reducing download size to save users money if their data plan isn't unlimited.

Users can download ShoZu's mobile social media hub application for a one-off fee of €7 for the life of the Nokia handset, in line with Nokia's commercial arrangement with content providers for the OVI Store. For those Symbian Series 60 users already using the application, ShoZu recommends they backup the application when they reset their device's firmware so they don't incur a fee to download the service again.

"It's now easier than ever for the millions of Nokia users to communicate with their favorite online communities, blogs and social networks, whether they're uploading photos, blogging or using other social media features to keep up with their online social life," said Chris Wade, Chairman and CEO of ShoZu. "Our goal is to make it as convenient as possible for consumers to find and pay for our apps. Leveraging the OVI Store is part of that strategy."

The service is initially available on all Series 60 Version 3 devices and the Nokia 5800 with support for the N97 device coming soon.

Damovo UK, an enterprise ICT solutions and service provider, and Agito Networks, a specialist in solutions for enterprise mobility, today announced a partnership agreement to deliver the latest fixed mobile convergence (FMC) and mobile Unified Communications (UC) capabilities to enterprise customers.

Under the terms of the agreement, Damovo will integrate Agito Network's  RoamAnywhere Mobility Router product as part of its overall enterprise FMC solution offering.  Damovo claims its offering solves the key mobility challenges that today's enterprises are facing, including: poor in-building mobile coverage, escalating mobile call costs, lack of IT control and visibility over mobile usage and lack of integration between the enterprise PBX and mobile devices.  By utilising existing WLAN networks and extending enterprise PBX and Unified Communications functionality onto dual-mode handsets (smartphones), productivity can improve and mobile costs can be significantly reduced by routing calls over the WLAN network and allowing calls to seamlessly transition between WLAN and mobile networks.

RoamAnywhere is said to be the only network appliance that brings together enterprise WLAN, carrier mobile networks, IP telephony and location technology to mobilise voice and data applications, while remaining agnostic to customers' choice of carrier and equipment vendors.  This provides enterprise customers with low-cost in-building voice coverage, improved visibility and control over mobile usage and better accessibility and improved productivity for mobile workers.  With RoamAnywhere, mobile workers can stay connected to enterprise voice and the applications they need wherever they are.  It intelligently connects users to the best available network (enterprise WiFi, mobile, home wireless broadband, hotspot) with fast and automatic handover as users move between networks. RoamAnywhere also ensures that calls and data sessions are routed over the most cost-effective route.

A further expansion to RoamAnywhere's current support of more than 40 Symbian and Windows Mobile smartphones is the integration with BlackBerry smartphones currently being trialed with an availability date from July 09.  BlackBerry users could previously access only UC and PBX functionality over the cellular network, which negated some features as well as the coverage and cost-saving benefits delivered by utilising WiFi.

Paul Donovan, VP EMEA at Agito Networks stated: "We are pleased to meet these requirements after significant investment and effort over these past two years. We look forward to further penetrating this untapped market of BlackBerry users, and expanding our ability to meet the mobility needs of organisations worldwide."

Paul Butcher, Managing Director of Damovo UK, said: "The current economic climate is forcing a number of organisations to re-evaluate their mobile policies and costs, which is significantly strengthening the business case for FMC. By partnering with Agito Networks we are now providing enterprise customers with an outstanding leading-edge FMC solution which delivers excellent returns in both in terms of pure mobile call cost savings and business efficiency improvements."

Paul Donovan, added: "We are very pleased to be partnering with Damovo, as it has a long heritage in the PBX market and great capabilities in delivering mobile solutions to enterprise clients.  This partnership continues our ongoing strategy of working with a number of key partners in different territories to distribute and implement the next generation of FMC using our RoamAnywhere solution."

Anite, a global specialist in testing technology for the wireless industry, today launched its SAS-Lite network simulation solution. Said to be designed to expand the range of real-world testing options and support rapid product development, SAS-Lite is claimed to offer all the high-end features of Anite's interoperability tool SAS, whilst creating a flexible upgrade path as customers' testing needs grow.

Mobile network operators, terminal and component manufacturers can now debug or prove mobile devices in an environment that is said to offer real-world derived scenarios, applications, benchmarking and performance testing, as well as in-depth signalling analysis. Unique to Anite is claimed to be the ability to create operator based test scenarios or import data taken from network measurement tools, such as Nemo Outdoor.

SAS-Lite is said to be designed to save time and money demanded by live network trials by building testing scenarios and scripts in a controlled and repeatable laboratory environment that reduce test times by 50%. Anite also claims that customers can save further by taking advantage of SAS-Lite's ability to execute playback scripts autonomously using Anite's comprehensive script campaign management and terminal control tools, which reduce the need for field trials further.

SAS-Lite is available in single- or dual-cell emulator configurations with each cell covering the 3GPP GERAN and UTRAN standards as well as HSPA+. Modular upgrades are said to enable easy, cost-effective expansion to other technologies, such as Long Term Evolution (LTE).

"In today's tough economic climate, our customers are keen to deliver the maximum return on their investments without compromising quality or time to market," said Paul Beaver, 3GPP Director, Anite. SAS-Lite helps our customers to achieve their goals by giving them access to the high-end application features of our premium SAS product in a choice of two simple packages. The boom in applications and performance testing, driven by the success of smartphones and mobile broadband, makes SAS-Lite the ideal choice for fast, cost-effective product tests."