BuzzCity, a provider of global wireless communities and consumer services, today announced the release of the BuzzCity White Label Ad Service-a powerful management tool for mobile web site publishers that run large-scale mobile advertising programs.  The system allows publishers to tap into the powerful infrastructure behind the BuzzCity Global Mobile Advertising Network, stress-tested with the delivery of more than 20 billion mobile ads.
 
The BuzzCity White Label Ad Service is a turnkey service that enables mobile internet site owners to sell their own ad inventory while avoiding the large cash outlays and long-term commitments of having to build their own ad serving infrastructure.  The state-of-the-art technology underlying the service allows companies to tap into the infrastructure behind a global mobile advertising network and take full control of their ad sales. 
 
For most mobile web site owners, simply running ads directly from an established advertising network works well for monetizing mobile internet traffic.  But on fast-growing and popular mobile sites, the BuzzCity White Label Ad Service can help sell higher paying ads and generate revenue by optimizing campaigns to suit specific business needs. 
 
Additionally, when mobile internet site users have unfilled or unsold ad inventory, the BuzzCity White Label Ad Service will run advertisements from the BuzzCity Global Mobile Advertising Network-drawing from a network that serves more than 3 billion mobile ads per month.  This relieves publishers of any excess ad inventory, and allows them to take advantage of maximum revenue possibilities.
 
"The BuzzCity White Label Ad Service represents the first time that advertisers running large scale advertising campaigns can easily tap into the infrastructure of a major global mobile advertising network with low start up costs and no investment in back-end infrastructure," said KF Lai, BuzzCity CEO.  "Part of BuzzCity's mission is to encourage the growth of the mobile internet and mobile internet advertising through innovative products and services that empower mobile publishers and advertisers alike.  This a significant step forward in this regard."
 
The product is available now to customers around the world and represents the latest addition to BuzzCity's mobile advertising offerings.  The company's BuzzCity Global Mobile Advertising Network, on which the BuzzCity White Label Ad Service's underlying technology is based, now includes more than 2,000 mobile internet publishers in 200 countries globally.

Radio Waves has announced a new family of microwave antennas. The UHP series is an Ultra High Performance microwave dish and the first UHP antennas are the UHP6-59 for the lower 6 GHZ band and the UHP6-64 for the upper 6 GHz band. The new UHP series offers superior protection from interference with low side lobes and an exceptional front-to-back ratio.

"This is an important addition to the Radio Waves product portfolio as the UHP family offers up to 76 dB font-to-back ratio and gives network operators a new tool to protect links from interference," said Andy Singer President of Radio Waves. "The UHP series is made in the USA and backed by our industry leading 5-year warranty like all Radio Waves microwave antennas."

TextMagic, a provider of online text messaging software for businesses, developers and consumers, has announced immediate availability of its latest downloadable version of TextMagic Messenger for Mac OS X platforms.

TextMagic Messenger allows users to send and receive SMS messages from an Internet connected desktop or laptop computer. The software helps companies communicate with customers and employees, and delivers an inexpensive way to add SMS messaging to their business communication arsenal. TextMagic Messenger is also ideal for consumers seeking a reliable, user-friendly text message program to send text messages to mobile phones of friends and colleagues. The application is one of few text message programs compatible with Mac OS X platforms, and is claimed to outperform Skype's SMS feature on price and functionality.

"Our TextMagic Messenger is used by many small businesses to text from computers to mobile phones around the globe," said Priit Vaikmaa, marketing manager of TextMagic Ltd. "You can communicate a lot within the 160-character limit, as Twitter has demonstrated. Time is money, and TextMagic Messenger delivers an unparalleled solution for sending important SMS messages quickly and efficiently."

TextMagic Messenger reaches more than 700+ mobile phone networks in more than 200+ countries worldwide. This innovative text message program allows users to perform a variety of SMS messaging functions, including:

    a.. Import contacts from Microsoft Entourage, Outlook and other contact management tools.
    b.. Send text messages to large groups.
    c.. Use templates to send personalised greetings, invitations and other text messages.  
    d.. Check the delivery status of text messages easily from the Sent Folder.
    e.. Send long text messages (up to 3 texts linked together).

TextMagic Messenger is free to download, and users can text from a PC or send SMS from a Mac computer. Customers must purchase SMS credits based on their needs and frequency of usage Up to 50,000 credits can be purchased at one time. Payments are processed securely by PayPal. New customers, both Mac and Windows users, are eligible to receive 20 free bonus credits on their first orders.

Accumulate UK, a provider of flexible pricing solutions for mobile retailers, today announced its newly branded service Flexion and the launch of the On Game Portal (OGP) feature. The enhanced service makes it easier for consumers to find new products that they like and to purchase them with pricing options that makes sense to them.

Accumulate UK first presented Flexion at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year to service providers, demonstrating how it can empower mobile game retailers.

Flexion allows mobile retailers to provide a range of purchase options and offers for mobile content, introducing traditional retailing models to increase penetration and ARPU for mobile services.  The Flexion wrapping engine automatically prepares any java application or game and acts as the gateway to delivering a flexible pricing and licensing platform which can be managed by the retailer. 

Flexion lets consumers be curious about mobile content and gives them the chance to ‘try-before-you-buy', ‘rent for the day' or ‘have-a-go for 25p'. With these choices, the retailer is able to offer a plethora of promotions, removing the need for a one-price-fits all model.

Increasingly, competition for promotional space on operator portals is getting tougher and publishers are finding it harder to reach out to customers.  The newly launched feature, called the On Game Portal (OGP), acts a retail store delivered with every ‘wrapped' application, making it easier to cross-promote products and to give customers the option to buy more.

 "We have worked with our flexible licensing solution for over two years now with leading games retailers like Hutchison 3UK and have, during this period, analysed where the market is going.  We now cater for all players in the value chain and can serve customers both on and off portal with new pricing models," said Accumulate UK MD, Jens Lauritzson. "Our On Game Portal can be part of any wrapped java content and offers great on-device retailing opportunities to the masses."

Accumulate has grown from strength to strength over the last 12 months.  The company has been on the winning teams in two of the biggest games outsourcing deals in the UK.

"We are delighted with the results and the winning partnerships we have formed with partners such as Buongiorno and Player X over the last year and believe that we can go on to win more deals together," continued Lauritzson. 

Clarity, a specialist in Unified Operational Support Systems (OSS), has announced that it is demonstrating its Integrated Service Operations Centre (iSOC) at Management World 2009, Nice, to complement the launch of the white paper by Stratecast, "Service Operations Centre – An Essential Necessity – An Executive Brief Featuring Clarity".

The iSOC is now critically important to service providers as the shift from network and technology to customer and market gains momentum across the industry. Without a customer centric view of the network, service providers are effectively left in the dark. They are unable to assess which customers are impacted by what network planned outages or faults and what the commercial ramifications of these might be. They are unable to assess which problems to resolve in order to improve the customer's experience and address the most important jeopardy situations. They are unable to identify which provisioning activities are over-running, and what agreements are in jeopardy as a result.

The "Service Operations Centre – An Essential Necessity" white paper provides essential insights for those service providers who are investing or considering investing in an iSOC. It describes the new paradigms of customer experience management and customer service assurance, and how an iSOC addresses these. It concludes by describing a practical example of the deployment of a iSOC. Copies of this paper will be available from Clarity's Stand at Management World, which takes place from 6-8 May 2009 in Nice.

"As our converging industry places greater emphasis on the customer, it comes with a strong need for new tools and new ways of doing business", commented Karl Whitelock, Senior Consulting Analyst OSS BSS Global Competitive Strategies at Stratecast a division of Frost and Sullivan. "Service- and Customer-oriented operations are essential to any business strategy that places the customer first. It is the next step in the evolutionary chain for managing services involving more than a network connectivity pathway be it mobile or fixed-line broadband."

Vopium has announced the launch of its free application on BlackBerry App World. As the first mobile VoIP application available on BlackBerry App World, the launch cements Vopium's commitment to offering consumers and businesses worldwide a free and heavily-discounted international communications service.

Vopium's award winning technology takes advantage of 3G, GSM, WiFi and GPRS networks and doesn't limit users to just using WiFi hotspots. Vopium automatically re-routes calls via the cheapest available route, ensuring that customers are always able to save money when calling international numbers. Once downloaded, the Vopium application on BlackBerry App World seamlessly integrates with the address book. It intelligently recognises international numbers and automatically re-routes calls without the need for user input. When an international number is dialed, the call is made using the cheapest method available while also preserving the highest level of call quality.

The launch of Vopium on BlackBerry App World  comes hot on the heels of the company's iPhone application. Vopium is now compatible with more than 500 devices across all operating systems including Windows Mobile, Symbian and Java. Users that download and register Vopium from BlackBerry's App World, will receive 30 minutes of free calls and 30 text messages (SMS).

"Whilst consumers and businesses alike are looking to save money where they can, they don't want to compromise on quality. Vopium is dedicated to helping friends, families and businesses communicate, regardless of where they are in the world, providing the same high level of call quality they're used to receiving with their mobile operators," said Vopium CEO, Tanveer Sharif. "Vopium on BlackBerry App World will enable the millions of BlackBerry users to significantly cut their international call costs whether these are for business or pleasure."

Wireless modem, data card and embedded module vendor Option has reported first quarter sales  down a third from 2008, scoring revenues of €50.7 million compared to €76.7 million last year.

This meant the company recorded a net loss for the quarter €5.2 million, against a net pofit last year of €2.8 million.

The vendor blamed customers "exercising caution" with their inventory management, meaning that although the demand from end-users may be high, that does not mean that the operator necessarily re-orders the same amount of products from Option.

A spokesperson told Mobile Europe that the vendor has also faced "strong competitive pressure from low cost vendors (Huawei and ZTE)."

But Option said that with new credit lines of €12 million, and ongoing restructuring, it was confident it could cope with the current adverse market conditions.

The adverse results came despite growth in sales of USB broadband modems and dongles by mobile operators in recent months.