Communication Breakdown

Brown in, Zander out. Erstwhile Motorola president and COO Greg Brown is now CEO after Ed Zander announced his departure. Zander will remain chairman until a shareholder's meeting in May.

Motorola has not been doing very well lately, partly as a result of heavy undercutting. What also cannot help is the various factions within the company, as exemplified by the current confusion over mobile Linux. Various mutations of Linux already form the basis of many consumer handsets, including Motorola's, but Motorola now has two more enormous open source-based platforms - Motomagx and Android - on its hands. And UIQ.

I'm guessing that we might see a bit more coherence in the future.

More soon...

A quick heads-up for anyone who, like me, uses a T-Mobile Vario II (aka HTC Hermes). T-mob has finally gotten round to issuing a Windows Mobile 6 update for the handset, which can be found here.

I've run it and everything seems to be fine. And, seeing as my work phone is also a Windows Mobile 6 phone - but without the touchscreen - it will be interesting to (belatedly) compare the two versions.

As analyst Ian Fogg told us yesterday, Skype has a battle on its hands to regain the trust of business users, after it withdrew almost 10,000 0207-prefixed SkypeIn numbers from its user base.

I contacted a few analysts for their opinions, and one more got back to me this morning, Mark Main of Ovum. He made an interesting point - not only is Skype's approach to VoIP very light on regulation, but its avoidance of infrastructural investment means it will always be over-dependent on those who do own the infrastructure. Over to Mark:

The problem can affect any telecoms business that relies on third parties for the supply of PSTN numbers for call termination. Ultimately it's down to Skype 's commercial people to ensure that the fine-print of supplier contracts does not leave them exposed in the future. Unfortunately its naïveté in traditional telephony may have been somewhat exposed since PSTN number blocks are owned by Ofcom and are clearly allocated to specific carriers. The use of a reseller meant there was an additional layer of contractual detail which has compromised the perpetuity of the PSTN numbers that SkypeIn customers are expecting. Skype has severely misjudged the value to its customers of PSTN numbers in this instance.

While it can be highly advantageous to be focused on services and features rather than networks, the disadvantage of being an infrastructure-light telecoms business is that it is then much more exposed to supplier contractual matters. Unfortunately this episode will add nothing to the confidence of enterprises (in particular) in Skype. The only option for Skype customers who want to retain the London numbers is to port their VoIP service from Skype to another provider that directly resells Gamma Telecom's call termination service.

By the way, Don McQueen of GCI Telecom (the erstwhile intermediary supplie between the wholesaler Gamma Telecom and Skype) suggested yesterday that many VoIP providers who are claiming that they can port/redirect the affected numbers are being economical with the truth, as only Gamma can provide those numbers.

Voipfone, for example, has been actively trying to recruit disgruntled Skypers, but McQueen said they would not be able to use the same 0207 numbers. Vonage, on the other hand, is supplied by Gamma, so its claims to retaining said numbers hold more water.

UPDATE: Speaking of truth economies, it seems Voipfone is indeed cosy with Gamma and can port the numbers. Hmm!

The advent of the iPhone launch on November 9 had rather Scrooge-like consequences for the employees of Carphone Warehouse, one of the few retailers allowed to carry Apple's wonderphone.

As it turns out, the following evening had been previously set aside for the company's Christmas party. However, in anticipation of customer demand, that was scrapped and the party postponed to, er, April.

Mobile Today has some great quotes from disgruntled employees. "Store staff were expected to be rushed off their feet, but this doesn't look the case," sobbed one. "IPhone stole our Christmas."

It's the iGrinch!

According to new research, the internet is going to run out of space and fall over! At least, that's the impression I got from some reportage of this press release from Nemertes Research. Here's the gist of it:

Consumer and corporate Internet usage could outstrip network capacity both in North America and worldwide in a little more than two years, according to “The Internet Singularity, Delayed: Why Limits in Internet Capacity Will Stifle Innovation on the Web,” a landmark study conducted by Nemertes Research. This study—the first-ever to assess internet infrastructure and model current/projected traffic patterns independent of one another—indicates that Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years.

Aha, so it's the access problem - much like our own such problem here in the UK - again. Heels are being dragged on this issue, but things may soon start moving along Blighty-side. As it happens, we shall be at a Westminster E-Forum talking shop about next-generation networks and access tomorrow - so expect more from us soon.