A 2010 survey commissioned by the Federal Communications Commission found that more than 30 million Americans are affected by bill shock each year. This translates to nearly 1 in 5 Americans who have been hit by unexpected charges on their cellphone bills. The survey, which was conducted on behalf of the FCC by Abt/SRBI and Princeton Survey Research Associates, also revealed that the vast majority of respondents who experienced bill shock believed that their wireless carrier had made no effort to warn them about it.

In response to these findings, CTIA, in conjunction with the FCC and the Consumers Union, recently announced the Wireless Consumer Usage Notification Guidelines, a proactive, industry-backed program to provide subscribers with free alerts before and after they reach their monthly voice and data limits.

The new guidelines will be integrated into the industry trade organization’s existing Consumer Code for Wireless Service and cover alerts for data, voice, text and international roaming. Wireless carriers have agreed to implement two of these four types of alerts within the first year beginning in October 2012, and all four by April 2013.

This is a positive sign that wireless carriers are committed to stemming bill shock and strengthening their relationships with subscribers. However, it is clearly the first salvo in what will be a protracted process to deliver customer-centric programs that help consumers better manage their wireless usage.

Initial plans call for carriers to employ voice mail and SMS text messages to deliver alerts to subscribers. While both may appear to be viable options, they are becoming increasingly ineffective as tools for resolving the bill shock dilemma. In a world where consumers are often overwhelmed by information overload and too often resort to avoidance as a coping strategy, other solutions are needed.

Traditional voice mail service has been around for almost 40 years, and Americans spend more than 1 billion hours annually recording, managing and listening to voice messages according to a 2010 study by Yap. The study also shows that Americans receive more than 70 billion voice mail messages annually.

While this may seem fathomable in the digital age, more concerning is the fact that, according to a recent Wired magazine story by Clive Thompson, more than a fifth of all voice messages are never heard. All indications are that voice mail as we know it is coming to an end in an era in which instant gratification is demanded.

These statistics may seem to point in the direction of SMS text messaging as a more natural alternative to voicemail, but SMS usage as a customer care tool is exploding and will surely reach a saturation point as well. With the now ubiquitous use of text-based personal messaging, this platform just doesn’t pack the punch necessary to solve the bill shock dilemma. For example, Neustar revealed that 2.5 billion text messages are sent each day in the U.S.

At Cenoplex, we are working to transform customer care for wireless operators by harnessing the gap between call placement and call connection. Our goal is to make it easier for wireless operators to communicate more effectively and intelligently with their customers by placing precisely targeted Actionable Audio Messages into the call stream of any mobile phone. Our customer-centric technology inserts a four-second audio message into the call sequence between the time that a caller hits the ‘call/send’ button and the moment they begin to hear the ring on the other end. AAMs allow wireless operators to reach customers 100 percent of the time with precisely targeted and timely messages, from warnings about data service overages to alerts about international roaming charges.

AAMs can be a powerful augment to the traditional tools for reaching customers. In addition to being completely unavoidable and requiring no additional dialing into voice mail or reading of text messages, AAMs make it possible for subscribers to either delay their dialed call and be dropped into the right place in the IVR stream for immediate issue resolution, or they can choose to receive further instructions and support via SMS, MMS or a WAP-enabled page without interrupting the call sequence itself.
In addition to an array of other options including live voice alerts, IVR, hotline resolution and text messages, we are convinced that AAMs are an ideal augment to the carrier’s bill shock strategy as they give wireless carriers a definitive acknowledgement that subscribers have received the targeted alerts required under the new agreement with the FCC.

We recently announced an AAM pilot program with Iowa Wireless Services (i Wireless), a partnership between T-Mobile USA and Iowa Network Services, the first ever implementation of our pre-call message insertion technology. Currently being undertaken as an internal test program, we expect to roll out the Cenoplex solution in a larger subscriber trial with i Wireless and other U.S. wireless operators next year.

I applaud the wireless carriers and the industry as a whole for taking the necessary steps toward answering the needs of subscribers as embodied in the CTIA’s cooperative guidelines with the FCC. This is indeed an exciting time for our industry. The bill shock dilemma challenges us to consider alternative and complementary services and solutions — not only AAMs, but a mix of targeted, unavoidable messages, delivery platforms and self-management solutions.

Meeting the bill shock challenge is a win-win for wireless providers and consumers alike, as we strive to achieve lower customer care costs while simultaneously eliminating shocking cellphone bills.

Gregory O. Welch is the president and CEO of Austin-based Cenoplex Inc. With eight companies to his credit, his 20-year career has covered multiple facets of the telecommunications industry including executive roles with a global reseller, MVNO, facilities-based carrier with infrastructure in the U.S. and abroad, and a software developer.

Today, Polycom begins shipping its CX7000 product, a video collaboration solution built to integrate with Microsoft Lync. Polycom also said that it has expanded interoperability with Microsoft Lync to additional Polycom SIP-based wired and wireless voice products.

Training, telemedicine, customer service and project collaboration are all proven uses of telepresence, or videoconferencing. Cisco, which competes with Polycom through its Tandberg telepresence division, says that enterprises spend more than $2 billion a year on videoconferencing.

Polycom reported $1.2 billion in revenue last year. The company is based in Pleasanton, Calif., and employs about 3,200 people, including 200 at its Austin office. Polycom is currently hiring at several locations worldwide.

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Job postings for mobile app developers on wireless job board Telecomcareers.com mention both iOS and Android, but iOS still seems to be the more common background for app developers.

Among developers who work on apps part time or as a hobby, Android is the more popular platform. Late last month, ABI Research released a report saying that downloads of Android apps have overtaken those of iOS apps.

Followers of the wireless job market see app development as one of the fastest growing professions in the industry. George Orr, president of executive search firm Telecom Connections in Austin, says a software background is a key asset for job seekers today. “If you have the aptitude and if you can get involved in any way in electrical engineering, the opportunities there are still very, very abundant,” Orr said. “You are never going to be without a job or even unsatisfied.”

Not since 2001 has the software industry seen this level of venture capital investment, according to John Taylor of the National Venture Capital Association. Nina Kjellson, general partner at InterWest Partners says the industry has seen “disruption due to major platform changes related to social media and mobile. Meanwhile, cloud computing is revolutionizing the enterprise side. Some say we spent ten years getting technology into the enterprise and now we will spend 10 years getting it out into the cloud.”

Of the deals done so far this year, 859 are first-time funding deals, versus 1,866 follow-on deals. The average deal size was $7 million, down from $7.9 million in the previous quarter. The National Venture Capital Association says the average deal size is falling for early stage deals, as investors shy away from the more capital-intensive clean tech and life sciences areas in favor of information technology companies that can typically be started more efficiently.

Nina Kjellson of InterWest Partners sees "major disruption" in software industry due to mobile and social media

The MoneyTree Report is a quarterly study of venture capital investment activity in the United States. As a collaboration between PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based upon data from Thomson Reuters, it is the only industry-endorsed research of its kind.

Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft’s Server and Tools Business, said this week at the company’s BUILD Developers Conference in Los Angeles that “developers have long been the cornerstone of Microsoft’s success, and that relationship is now more important than ever.” Developers at Austin’s Mutual Mobile are watching Microsoft closely. Earlier this year Mutual Mobile hosted Microsoft Developer Evangelist Chris Koenig to talk to Austin app developers about the Windows 7 Phone. Koenig emphasized tha phone’s “Metro” design which he said was much easier to view and more pleasing to the eye than the interfaces of other smart phones.

This week Microsoft demonstrated new support for Windows 8 Metro style applications built with HTML 5, JavaScript, C#, Visual Basic and C++. The new tool, called Visual Studio 11 is expected to be available for public preview on Friday, September 16.

“I wish I could say that once you register your number in the system, notification is immediate, but it is not,” says Ed Schaefer, Director of Homeland Security for CAPCOG. “You cannot put your cell phone in, and expect that if a fire breaks out in your area within an hour you will receive a call.” But with no rain in the Central Texas forecast, Texans know the danger may be far from over. And with more and more people forgoing landlines and relying solely on mobile service, registration with the Emergency Notification System could be a life saving decision. “This system is great for waking people up,” says Schaeffer, noting that while the news media has done a good job of covering this weekend’s disaster, traditional media does not have the power to alert people who are not watching.

Schaeffer says CAPCOG made 8,794 calls this weekend between noon on Sunday and 11:00 pm on Monday, with about a 70% connect rate. About 25% of the calls were answered by a live person, and another 45% reached answering machines or were picked up by a person who did not respond. The computer generated calls are activated by specially trained personnel working in the 911 caller response centers. The calling system, purchased by CAPCOG from California’s Cassidian Communications, is capable of placing 30,000 calls simultaneously according to Schaeffer.

LibreDigital Inc., the fast-growing digital content distribution provider, will stay in Austin and expand here after its recent acquisition by Chicago publishing giant RR Donnelley & Sons Inc.

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Read full article here via Austin American Statesman

Bazaarvoice, Inc. announced today that it has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of shares of its common stock. The shares will be offered by Bazaarvoice and certain of its stockholders.

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC will serve as joint book runners for the proposed offering. Piper Jaffray & Co., Pacific Crest Securities LLC and BMO Capital Markets Corp. will act as co-managers.

Copies of the preliminary prospectus for the offering, when available, may be obtained from: Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10014, by email at prospectus@morganstanley.com, or by phone at (866) 718-1649; or Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Attention Prospectus Department, Harborside Financial Center, 100 Plaza One, Jersey City, New Jersey, 07311-3988, by e-mail at prospectus.cpdg@db.com, or by phone at (800) 503-4611; or Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, One Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10010, by phone at (800) 221-1037, or by e-mail atnewyork.prospectus@credit-suisse.com.

A registration statement related to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

Press Release via Bazaarvoice

The drop in waiting time from upwards of four to five weeks when the device debuted had dropped to three to five days a week ago and now is as little as one to three days to ship from Apple’s online store this week.

The new expectations are due to component and manufacturing partners stepping up to help Apple keep its market share, including the rebound of parts shortages from the Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami. The company’s iPad lineup held around two-thirds of the tablet market at the end of the first quarter for 2011, which has seen some decline with a huge release of competitors.

Competition from Google Inc.’s (GOOG) Android and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) rivals haven’t enjoyed the same success due to lack of a simple userface, the ability to supply content and pricing that is on-par or more expensive than the iPad.

The latest OS for Google’s Android is on its way, with the 3.2 update already arriving to Motorola’s (MMI) Xoom tablet. Other tablets expected next in line for the update include Samsung Electronics Co.’s (SSNLF) Galaxy Tab 10.1, Toshiba Corp.’s (TOSBF) Thrive, and Acer Inc.’s  Iconia Tab 500.

According to a July 15 post on the Android developer’s blog, “The new platform includes API (application programming interface) changes and the API level is 13.”

Improvements include optimization for a wider range of screen sizes for developers looking beyond a 10.1-inch screen, a new fill-screen mode to allow a zoom-to-fill screen on devices that scales pixels, the ability for media files to be directly loaded from a user’s SD card to apps that use them, and an extended screen support API so developers can have more control over the user interface and targeting of screens by their dimensions.

In other iOS and Android news, InMobi today released its mobile insights report on Europe for the second quarter, in which it finds that one in five of every mobile ads in Europe over the last quarter was delivered on an Apple device, propelling the manufacturer past Nokia to the top spot for the first time.

This report provides insights from InMobi’s network, which served over 104.9 billion mobile ad impressions across the globe for the second quarter, including 10.8 billion in Europe.

As a result of the iOS popularity, Android has lost 5.0 share points against iOS’s gain of 3.3 over the past quarter. RIM ranked third in terms of operating systems but saw the highest gain during this period, gaining 6.1 share points. However, Android remains the top mobile platform by ad requests with nearly 25% of all requests.

Click here to see a detailed chart from the report: InMobi Graphic.

The family of i.MX50 chips launched in 2010 with the i.MX508, a SoC, or system-on-chip design that combines an ARM Cortex-A8 processing core with a hardware display controller for E Ink electrophoretic displays. The all-in-one solution by the company is designed for powerful eReader devices and Freescale is hopint the new i.MX chips will fill gaps in the product line where using the i.MX508 is too expensive to use.

On the low-end, the i.MX502 provides LCD-based gadgets with decent processing power due to a 800Mhz ARM Cortex-A8 processing core with 256KB L2 cache at a much lower price than the i.MX508. The i.MX503 is a little upgrade with the same SoC design as its cheaper brother but with an upgrade to the graphics capabilities to add OpenVG 1.1 hardware acceleration at resolutions as high as SXGA+ and higher-end user interfaces.

At the top end, the i.MX507 uses the same central and graphics processing as the i.MX503 but adds an integrated electrophoretic display driver which can run up to 4096 by 4096 resolution E Ink screens at the same time as an SXGA+LCD display.

”E Ink is collaborating with Freescale to integrate hardware, simplify design and lower overall system costs,” said Giovanni Mancini, director of product management for E Ink Holdings. “This collaboration is creating new markets for ePaper and Semiconductor solutions.”

The company confirmed plans to launch an evaluation kit to give developers the chance to try the chips out in real-world scenarios before basing their product lines around them, along with an eReader reference design based on the higher-end, EPD-equipped parts. The new i.MX50 chips are sampling as of now with volume availability expected later this quarter.

“Freescale is delivering comprehensive, optimised solutions with power savings and flexible design features, allowing customers one-stop shopping, ease-of-use and quick time to market,” said Ken Obuszewski, director of product marketing at Freescale. “Our new i.MX50 devices offer an outstanding solution for simplified display applications, and now with a comprehensive portfolio to choose from, customers can pick the best option for their specific product needs.”

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The Freescale I.MX50 family of chips.