Fabrizio Giordano

The top cellular carriers in the United States do not often play nice with each other. Yet, when there is a common enemy on the horizon, even the fiercest of rivals will band together to keep from being pushed aside. That is apparently what AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are doing by jointly investing $100 million in Isis, an NFC mobile payment solution set to battle Google’s Wallet project.

According to Bloomberg, the carriers may invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the NFC solution to battle Google Wallet. Mobile payments may be a $670 billion industry by 2015, making the early moves by all the players extremely important.

Sponsor

First Step: NFC Chips

NFC chips are beginning to become ubiquitous in new smartphones and it is a matter of time before consumer behavior starts to change when it comes to day-to-day payment options. NFC payments is currently on top of Gartner’s “Hype Circle” which means that it is between two and five years from maturing into commercially viable technology. Given the pace of mobile innovation and the vigor of the carriers (as seen with this new large investment in Isis), it is probably best to bet on the short end of that development cycle.

There are other large companies with a vested interest in how NFC is developed. Google and the carriers are the primary drivers but the credit card companies also have a major stake. Visa, which has invested in mobile card reader Square, is investing in NFC terminals for merchants outside of what the other players are doing, according to Bloomberg.

Sprint & Google Need to Come to The Herd

Sprint is on the outside of the Isis co-operative. Hence, when Google announced its NFC plans in May, Sprint was the carrier of choice for the Wallet project. Sprint plans on rolling out its NFC and the Google payments option to its smartphones later this year, rolling out ahead of ISIS, which plans on releasing its NFC option in mid-2012.

Google Wallet and Isis are probably the future of the daily deals industry as well. Sprint, Isis and Google (through its Offers program) plan on using mobile wallets to push coupons to consumers while taking a cut of the sales.

Isis probably has the upper hand over Google and Sprint. It has the cooperation of all the major payment operators and a large existing customer infrastructure. Google’s partners include Sprint, CitiBank and MasterCard. Those are important players, but Google and Sprint should consider joining Isis for the good of the ecosystem, which is in danger of becoming extremely fragmented.

One Reader to Rule Them All

What it will all come down to is the ubiquity and simplicity of NFC card readers. If a player (like Visa or one of the large financial management companies) creates a NFC reader that will be carrier, device and service agnostic, then all players can survive and compete together. Yet, most merchants will not put in multiple payment readers.

Therefore, for NFC to truly take off as a payment option, a compromise will need to be reached. That is not outside the realm of possibility as Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile show us with their investment in Isis.

Discuss

When HP decided to kill off webOS, most people were more concerned with who would snatch up the PC business that went tumbling down the trash chute alongside it. A few options were thrown out, but most bets were placed on Samsung, who’s reportedly been looking to outsource some notebook orders. Little did we know, Samsung may be interested in grabbing webOS, too.

DigiTimes’ sources report that Samsung may very well be considering the purchase of webOS to better compete against Apple and other Android phone makers. With Google’s proposed acquisition of Motorola, the game has changed significantly.

IP wars have become a bit of trend lately within the mobile industry, and no one is completely safe. However, Android now has a much better position thanks to Motorola’s massive patent trove. HP made a similar move last year with its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm and its patent portfolio. If Samsung really does end up buying webOS, it may buy itself some desperately needed protection, as well. Which would be quite the boost since the South Korea-based company has been under a full-scale attack from Apple for the past four months. Plus, a webOS acquisition may give Samsung an edge competitively, as well.

Though Google promises to leave Android “open,” Motorola will undoubtedly have the upper hand in terms of Android devices. That said, many Android partners are likely feeling a bit frazzled, and may be looking for their own way to comfortably differentiate. Android’s certainly a success story compared to webOS, but it’s also up for grabs and Motorola will henceforth get first dibs. That’s rather uncomfortable to just about anyone but Motorola.

Apple has iOS. HTC has its massive supply chain. Nokia will have Windows Phone 7 Mango. And Motorola will, of course, have Android. That leaves Samsung, who is a notably strong competitor among these big five device makers, without something special to set it apart.

While webOS hasn’t been a shining star among mobile platforms, that’s not to say that it’s a bad operating system. Quite the opposite actually. webOS partners the beauty and simplicity of iOS with the multi-tasking of Android, but just doesn’t have enough apps to walk the walk. With a little tweaking and some app support, webOS might just be what Samsung needs. Especially if the South Korea-based company is looking to free itself from the litigation-inducing Android.

In other news, HP’s ex-VP of Marketing for the Personal Systems Group has reportedly been recruited by Samsung to take over PC sales, adding weight to rumors that Samsung is interested in HP’s soon-to-be spun off PC business. Samsung has denied, rather vehemently, any intention of picking up HP’s PC business. We agree it wouldn’t be the best fit, since HP’s lower-margin PC business doesn’t really jive with Samsung’s high-margin panel and DRAM businesses.

Here’s Samsung’s statement on the matter:

To put to rest any speculation on this issue, I would like to definitively state that Samsung Electronics will not acquire Hewlett-Packard’s PC Business. Hewlett-Packard is the global leader in the PC business with sales of 40 million units last year, while Samsung is an emerging player in the category and sold about 10 million units in 2010. Based on the significant disparity in scale with Samsung’s own PC business and the complete lack of synergies, it would be both infeasible and imprudent to even consider such an acquisition.

After a steady stream of information in June, all has been quiet on the Facebook Project Spartan front in recent weeks. Originally, at least some thought the plan was to unveil Spartan in July — but that obviously came and went. It’s certainly possible we won’t hear anything until f8 in late September now. But one new bit of information has come to our attention that could be related. Say hello to BoltJS.

BoltJS is a UI framework that’s being built by Facebook for the purpose “helping developers build fantastic mobile web applications in HTML5 and Javascript,” as you can read for yourself here. It is written entirely in JavaScript and runs in the browser, meaning no backend processing is required. And guess where the focus of the project lies right now: mobile WebKit browsers — just like Project Spartan.

Here’s the description in developer Shane O’Sullivan’s own words from the project’s GitHub page:

BoltJS is a UI framework designed by Facebook to be compact, fast and powerful. It is written entirely in JavaScript and runs in the browser, needing no server backend. While BoltJS can be used in a progressive enhancement approach, it is primarily designed for UIs that are built mostly, if not completely, in the browser.

While it is the aim of the BoltJS project to support as many modern browsers as sensible, it is currently focused on supporting mobile WebKit browsers, with the intention of being the best possible development platform for mobile sites and HTML5 apps.

O’Sullivan is a software engineer at Facebook on the Client UI team. The other authors of the project are Will Bailey, Vlad Kolesnikov, and Tom Occhino.

BoltJS is built on top of Javelin, and plays nicely with Facebook’s current code, O’Sullivan notes. It also features modules that use the CommonJS standard. For all the other technical details, check out the GitHub docs page.

But here are a few other interesting things about the project. First, Facebook doesn’t seem to want to say a word about it. I asked them about it several hours ago after a back and forth about something else. So far, nada in response to this. That’s not surprising given what I’ve been told about BoltJS — namely that it’s still meant to be a secret.

While the documentation does reside on GitHub, the source code hasn’t been released to the public yet. The links on this page to the zip and tar source files don’t work. But I’m told that BoltJS is already being licensed secretly to third parties who are preparing apps to show off using the platform. At least one of those third parties is a major player in the consumer web space. Again, this sounds a lot like Spartan.

Also found on GitHub is a demo app built using BoltJS called “Weather App“. If it looks familiar, it’s because you own an iPhone. It is essentially the Weather app re-created using the JavaScript framework. Still think Facebook doesn’t intend to battle with Apple in mobile down the road?…

That’s all for now. More as we get it.

There has been a huge scrum amongst the smartphone players to capture the market for phone-based purchases. In a very surprising move, the major US-based carriers just folded their mobile payments hand, and folded it hard. Isis, the mobile payment system sponsored by Verizon, AT&T and TMobile, announced that it had signed deals with Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover to its touch and go payment systems.

In the European and Asian markets, mobile carriers are payment providers, and people use their phones to pay for goods and services and then pay their carrier, and the carriers get a cut. So why are US carriers not going after this incredibly lucrative market?

There’s actually a very simple reason. Payment providers require trust, and the US carriers decidedly do not have their customers’ trust. When your Verizon bill shows up and you see that it is $50 over what you expect, your first reaction is that they are screwing you yet again, not that you bought dinner with your phone a couple of week ago. For years, the carriers have regularly gouged customers for text messages, talk overages and data roaming, to the point where “cell phone bill shock” is a well known problem, and the carriers are amongst the most hated companies in United States.

The carriers are renowned for byzantine statements more complicated than IRS forms, obtuse voice jail systems, and horrible customer service. Can you imagine calling your carrier to dispute a payment? These are the people that try to convince their customers that overage fees are a good thing, rather than simplifying their billing so that people can understand the cost when they use services.

With the ISIS move, the carriers now have to play nice with the credit card companies just like everyone else and no longer have an edge in the NFC scrum. Instead, there is a good chance that the carriers will be completely cut out by Google, Apple, and PayPal.

Google is aggressively going after mobile payments, testing NFC systems, acquiring Zetawire to accelerate its NFC technology, teaming up with Citi and MasterCard on NFC payments. Microsoft has also made NFC moves. Apple is one of the biggest payment processors with its iTunes store and is in a strong position to go after NFC payments. PayPal has been all over mobile payments and is doubling its forecast for mobile-based payments, and is making real world mobile transactions a huge initiative..

Now that the carriers have capitulated on carrier payments, startups such as Zong and Fortumo working on the bill-to-carrier infrastructure will likely have to focus on the “unbanked,” as BillToMobile has successfully done on the web and is starting to do on mobile.

One thing carriers could do to try to stay in this game is break out their billing so that the regular billing shows up in one area, and mobile payments are in a separate, clearly segregated area. Carrier billing providers like Payfone attempting to roll out mobile payments based on archaic roaming protocols are going to have to shift their strategy, as roaming charges are amongst the most obtuse parts of a mobile bill.

Hey, remember when you had to pay $250 because you used Google Maps in Europe, or $75 because you talked too much during a deal that required a lot of concalls? Don’t feel bad. The guys that charged you just lost out on a multibillion dollar opportunity that should have been a bird in the hand.

Peter Yared is the VP/GM of Social at Webtrends. He has founded four e-commerce and marketing infrastructure companies that were acquired by Sun, VMware, TigerLogic and Webtrends. You can follow him at @peteryared.

Filed under: Business and Technology, feature, mobile, VentureBeat

Google diventerà presto un competitor di Skype grazie a WebRTC, una tecnologia open source per la realizzazione di conferenze audiovisive col browser in HTML5. Il prodotto sarà integrato in Chrome e dipende da SPDY, il progetto di Google per rendere il web «due volte più veloce» del normale. E Microsoft sta iniziando a preoccuparsi.

Real-Time Communications (RTC) può essere sperimentato su Chrome con un plugin: Google ha intenzione d’estenderne la compatibilità ad altri browser tra cui Firefox, Opera e Safari. Perché dovrebbe diventare un problema per Skype? Soprattutto negli Stati Uniti e in Canada, Google Voice ha già abbracciato il VoIP e dialoga con GTalk.

Sommando le caratteristiche di Google Voice, GTalk e WebRTC si ottiene un sistema di comunicazione del tutto simile a quello di Skype. La differenza è nell’utilizzo di soluzioni open source e compatibili con tutte le piattaforme. Inclusi Windows e Internet Explorer. Ciò potrebbe alludere all’arrivo di Google Voice in Europa e Asia.

Via | TG Daily

Google rivale di Skype con una chat audio/video via HTML5 per Chrome é stato pubblicato su Downloadblog.it alle 12:00 di venerdì 24 giugno 2011.

SPDY (cioè “speedy”) è un progetto di Google per rendere il web due volte più veloce. Inaugurato nel novembre del 2009, è costituito di vari componenti legati allo sviluppo di Chrome e Chrome OS. Fino a ieri SPDY era presente soltanto sui server di Google: Strangeloop l’ha aggiunto alla propria offerta di hosting col Site Optimizer.

Trattandosi di un protocollo sperimentale, non ancora elevato a standard, SPDY funziona esclusivamente su Chrome e i Chromebook. Strangeloop è la prima società ad adottarlo al di fuori di Mountain View. Perché possa approdare su tutti i browser, è necessario che SPDY sia disponibile su larga scala: questo è soltanto il primo passo.

Strangeloop ha lavorato su SPDY con Google dal primo momento: grazie ai miglioramenti apportati il protocollo può ridurre del 50% il caricamento delle pagine web. SPDY include un’accelerazione per SSL. La disponibilità al pubblico dovrebbe incrementare la possibilità che SPDY costituisca davvero un futuro per il web insieme a IPv6.

Via | ZDNet

SPDY di Google è già stato aggiunto al Site Optimizer di Strangeloop é stato pubblicato su Downloadblog.it alle 10:00 di martedì 14 giugno 2011.

(Cross-posted to the Google Enterprise Blog and the Gmail Blog)

For web applications to spring even farther ahead of traditional software, our teams need to make use of new capabilities available in modern browsers. For example, desktop notifications for Gmail and drag-and-drop file upload in Google Docs require advanced browsers that support HTML5. Older browsers just don’t have the chops to provide you with the same high-quality experience.

For this reason, soon Google Apps will only support modern browsers. Beginning August 1st, we’ll support the current and prior major release of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on a rolling basis. Each time a new version is released, we’ll begin supporting the update and stop supporting the third-oldest version.

As of August 1st, we will discontinue support for the following browsers and their predecessors: Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7, and Safari 3. In these older browsers you may have trouble using certain features in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Sites, and eventually these apps may stop working entirely.

So if it’s been a a while since your last update, we encourage you to get the latest version of your favorite browser. There are many to choose from:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Internet Explorer
• Safari

As the world moves more to the web, these new browsers are more than just a modern convenience, they are a necessity for what the future holds.

Posted by Venkat Panchapakesan, Vice President of Engineering

If you’ve taken the chance to work with the Bing Webmaster Tools you’re in for a happy surprise today. Bing has put the word out in a blog post about some pretty hefty changes to the system that will give you more configuration and deeper customization.

Crawling Delays

Busy time? You can make sure that Bing crawls a bit slower so that it doesn’t interrupt normal traffic. Want to set up crawling times? You can now do that in your Crawl Settings panel by dragging and dropping a graph by the hour.

New Index Explorer

This isn’t just an improvement, according to the team, it’s a complete re-write. Index Tracker will now focus more on these six points:

• Freshness
• Performance
• Extensibility
• Reduced machine footprint
• Stability and failure detection
• New sites will have Index Explorer data the moment they sign up

Role Management

With no change to code, you can now let other people have admin or read and write access to your site via a Users panel:

This is the sort of upgrade that Bing has been releasing over the past twelve months: incremental improvements to core technologies that impact both searchers, and webmasters. Today’s changes will certainly help those who run websites interact with Bing, something that might persuade more to do just that. That won’t boost Bing’s market share directly, but it could improve its results, which in turn could grow its search volume.

Sound off in the comments, does this sort of upgrade by Bing help it in its struggle against Google, or is it just spinning its wheels?

News out of Finland has put Samsung as the latest potential buyer of ailing mobile vendor Nokia, shifting focus from Microsoft, which was also rumoured to be tabling a bid for the company.

The Wall Street Journal has attempted to chase Nokia and Samsung for comment – predictably, both have responded with statements that they do not comment on rumours.

Reports of a Samsung takeover by the WSJ may hold more weight than the speculative tweets of industry insider Eldar Murtazin, although the pundit has successfully predicted acquisitions and partnerships in the past. Nokia recently moved to state that Murtazin was “getting obviously less accurate with every passing moment” but did not categorically rule out an acquisition by Microsoft.

Nokia, which is currently working on readying Windows Phone devices to release in the fourth quarter of 2011, recently laid off 7,000 staff as it tried to streamline operations.

If Samsung was to acquire the stricken manufacturer, it would position the company as the top Windows Phone provider, in addition to the success of its Android offerings.Image Credit