And without further ado:

Now, I agree that it seems a bit creepy that some faceless conglomerate can track everything I do in my car even after I have told them I don’t want anything to do with them. Plus, you might think that once scorned by your desire to longer do business with them that maybe they might get a little vengeful with the information they continue to collect. Just sayin.

I did also think that with these new terms that in essence OnStar is offering to provide some of their services for free. I mean, if you are in a crash and OnStar is indeed still tracking you even though you told them to take a hike, aren’t they obligated to inform someone that you have been in an accident? I guess that’s assuming faceless conglomerates have morals.

However, the to-do-edness of this whole to-do seemed a bit funny to me considering society’s ever increasing shift to want to share just about anything we do anyways, whether it’s tweeting that we are using a public bathroom to posting pictures of using a public bathroom on Facebook. It seems to me that if anything OnStar is on to something by offering to share everything that we are doing and are likely to share anyways, automatically.

Instead of someone actually having to type out that they are going to a baseball game, they can just have OnStar automatically sketch out the actual path I am driving letting people not only know where I am going, but what route I took to get there. It’s like combining Twitter, Facebook and FourSquare into a single, awesome, life-tracking application. Who wouldn’t want that?

Can you imagine the time savings being offered here? Just think of all the extra spare time we would have to play video games if we were not spending all day twittering, updating Facebook or hiring skywriters to spell out our every thought to everyone?

I think at this point OnStar is going to have its hands full trying to repair the PR damage caused by this bit of news, but if it can somehow tie in some sort of social networking angle my guess is that many people will roll over and happily accept this auto tracking.

OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:

–Regional player Cellular South this week announced a name change that in most instances would not have caught my attention, especially as the change was from a name that seems to mean something – cellular in the south – to one that means absolutely nothing – C Spire. (C Spire? What the hell does that mean? Do you “see” to “inspire” something or someone? Are you pointing out some conical structure that I just have to see? Did AT&T want too much money to re-use the Cingular brand?)

But, with AT&T noting in its attempt to purchase T-Mobile USA that Cellular South is one of its fiercest rivals, the fact that Cellular South was changing its name is now big news. Or at least bigger news than if T-Mobile USA were changing its name.

–Received word this week that the Mobile Roaming World Summit 2011 event is set to take place in mid-November in London. Not that I am in favor of any more trade shows, because I am most definitely not, but this one is of interest due to the topic. And more specifically, the ridiculousness that is what customers are charged for roaming services.

Now, I can see where roaming charges within a country can be priced at some crazy rate because there are competitive concerns between operators and I think consumer backlash in turn forces operators to bolster their coverage. But, overseas roaming charges are out of whack for all the wrong reasons.

Why do carriers think it’s cool to charge their loyal customers multiple-dollars per minute to make a phone call when traveling in a country where that carrier does not even offer service? I can guess that their responses would be that they are just passing along the costs they are being charged from that international carrier, but I am not buying it. I can’t believe Vodafone is charging Verizon Wireless some exorbitant fee for roaming charges, or if it is, it’s just moving money from one pocket to the other.
And if that is true, then there has to be a way to set better roaming rates. Thus, I guess, this event.

I can only hope that the big news out of this event is that those in attendance realize the insane nature of roaming charges and do something to fix it. The clock is ticking, and at the rate they are charging that bill is growing fast.

I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at: dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.

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And without further ado:

So, AT&T Mobility is finally set to commercially launch LTE services across five markets this weekend, throwing its hat into the oncoming LTE battle that is currently dominated domestically Verizon Wireless. (Sorry MetroPCS.)

(I only half kid with the use of the term “finally” as I still vividly remember an AT&T executive speaking at a 4G World event a couple of years ago basically saying the carrier was in no hurry to roll out LTE services as its plans for HSPA+ would take care of its mobile broadband needs. This plan was quickly pushed aside following Verizon Wireless’ rapid LTE rollout plans and AT&T Mobility has managed to throw up a LTE network in a relatively short period of time.)

Now, we will finally see a head-to-head battle between the nation’s two largest wireless operators using what is in essence the same network technology. Let the marketing hype begin!

Verizon Wireless to this point has done a tremendous job of getting across the point that its “4G” network is somehow superior to that of its competitors as well as to its own 3G network. Well done Verizon Wireless.

Now, it will be up to AT&T Mobility to somehow convince customers that its new LTE-powered “4G” network that should be the equal to Verizon Wireless’ is in fact superior. There are several ways AT&T Mobility could do this, including coverage claims and network capabilities.
For coverage claims, AT&T Mobility will obviously be at a disadvantage as its network will initially be limited to but five markets. (I am shaking my fist at you Atlanta, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and Chicago!) While Verizon Wireless has spread its LTE love to more than 140 markets across the country since its launch less than a year ago.

AT&T has said it plans to cover around 70 million people by the end of the year, which would be a good number if Verizon Wireless was not on track to cover close to 200 million potential customers by the same deadline.

This leaves network capabilities as perhaps AT&T Mobility’s only ace-in-the-hole.

With both networks using basically the same LTE technology in the same spectrum bands, this will be a tough point to prove. Sure, AT&T Mobility initially might be able to throw around some faster network speed claims as its network will be relatively bare of customers while Verizon Wireless is now serving a couple million. But, that will only get you so far.

AT&T Mobility will likely continue to press the fact that its LTE customers could have access to faster speeds when not actually on the LTE network as compared with Verizon Wireless customers (HSPA+ vs. EV-DO), but that sort of takes the wind out of LTE sail. (Hey everyone, our LTE network is so awesome because when you are not on it you will get faster speeds then those morons over at Verizon Wireless! LTE Rocks!)

I think the bigger challenge connected to this will be that some AT&T Mobility customers already think they are on a “4G” network with those HSPA+-powered mobile devices, and any sort of marketing that now claims the carrier has a “better” 4G network could be a tough pill to swallow. I am not saying that people will run from AT&T Mobility in protest, but I would not be surprised to see an increase in the number of Motorola Atrix 4G devices coming into AT&T Mobility stores with “excess” damage caused by the throwing of said devices against concrete walls or using them to make stunt ramps.

I know marketing departments are filled with sharp people that know just the right way to make me want to buy the latest and greatest product, only to then make me feel like an idiot once that product falls out of its return period as something even later and greater is now available. But, this whole “4G vs. 4G” issue that it appears AT&T Mobility will have to tackle could be touchy. (I am guessing any marketing folks that are reading this have already figured out a whole plan of attack for such an issue that includes a subtle way of calling me an idiot, and making me feel like a loser for whatever new thing I purchase moments after I purchase it. Those people are good.)

So, while I excitedly look forward to my first interaction with AT&T Mobility’s LTE network as well as the operating metrics provided by the new offering, I am really most anticipating the marketing blitz that is set to be unleashed. Let the battle begin!

OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:

–So, Google recently picked up 1,023 patents from IBM, which was on top of some 17,000 patents it expects to pick up through its pending $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. I am guessing all of these patents will be placed into Google’s current patent stash that must number in the millions.

What are the chances that just one of these is somehow related to a technology that is actually useful and not just entertaining? Like why I can’t stop playing “Angry Birds.”

–I attended a couple of industry events this week and thus was able to take in some of pricing habits of hotel Wi-Fi offerings. And if you think the price wireless carriers are charging for mobile broadband access is out of control, what hotel’s charge for their computing services is criminal. One hotel in Houston wanted to charge conference goers $50 a piece for a Wi-Fi connection, while a hotel in Las Vegas was charging guests $1 per minute to access the Internet through a business center desktop. I now apologize for ever insinuating that wireless carriers, or loan sharks, are charging too much for their services.

I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at: dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.

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And without further ado:

Wait, is it Friday? What the hell? What happened to Wednesday?

Not sure if I am like the rest of you, but short work weeks are somehow the most awesome and most frustrating things ever invented by the Dalai Lama. As such I both love and hate these four-day work weeks with a passion I usually reserve only for breakfast.

I think the awesomeness of a four-day work week is pretty self-explanatory, so won’t go into those details. However, the frustrating-ness of it is hitting hard as for the life of me I can’t remember anything that has happened over the past four days.

Did someone try to buy someone?

Did some government agency declare something was wrong with something?

Was a new smartphone – or 20 – launched?

Did someone lose something?

B. L. A. N. K.

One thing that sort of rings a bell is that someone – Motorola, maybe Samsung? – launched a new LTE device with Verizon Wireless. Six-million-dollar-man-something or other? What sort of name is that?

I am sure whatever it is (was) that it’s a lovely device with lots of great features that will somehow not get lost in the pack. Or maybe it will. I really am in a bit of a fog.

Regardless, this brings up the pertinent fact that no one should ever launch or unveil something they want people to remember during a four-day work week. That’s like trying to propose to your girlfriend during a Justin Beiber concert.

Now, for those that are looking to make less of an impression – you know those companies that are trying to hide some interesting information that they legally need to disclose, but really don’t want anyone to know about it – well then four-day work weeks are tailor-made for such subterfuge. They are like having four Friday afternoons all in a row.

Have an executive that crashed the corporate jet into a hotel pool trying to impress his friends?

Have a few billion dollars that need to be written off because your idea for a glow-in-the-dark handset antenna did not pan out as you had hoped?

A company party got out of hand and the head of HR managed to lose the company’s 401K program in a cock fight?

These are what four-day work weeks were made for.

Looking to show off your latest and greatest mobile device widget that is the key to whether your company makes it until next week?

Not so much.

So for those companies out there that managed to waste a perfectly good four-day work week and not air out all that dirty laundry, shame on you. These things are precious and should not be wasted.

And for those companies that for some reason thought this was a good week to announce or launch a new product that needed to succeed or your kids would mutiny, shame on you as well.

OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:

–Speaking of trying to get attention for yet another new mobile device, I think the folks at Sonim are onto something here.

Sure, their devices are not the sexiest, but I think we can all relate more to having a phone drop out of our pants while suspended 100 feet in the air or accidently dropping our precious mobile device in an industrial blender then hitting “puree” more than the need to have quicker access to social networking services or the need for the latest Android operating system.

–And finally I would be remiss if I did not offer my greatest thanks and good luck to RCR Wireless News’ backbone and soul Tracy Ford, who is on her final day here before joining the fine folks at PCIA. For some reason Tracy hired me as an editorial assistant in the previous century and put me on my path to wherever it is I am today. (So you can blame her for the mess that has been my reporting/writing over the past 12 years.)

I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at: dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.

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GroupMe, launched just 370 days ago has seen its messaging system aped by the big boys of tech, including Facebook, Google and others. Founders Steve Martocci and Jared Hecht are now the newest members of New York’s startup success stories.

According to a blog post on the GroupMe website, the firm has been in talks with Skype for several months, mainly centering around potential commercial partnerships.

“As we got to know the core Skype team better, though, and as our conversations evolved, it quickly became evident that our visions were perfectly aligned. Both companies are focused on changing the way the world communicates and helping people stay in touch with the people they really know. With a shared vision — an ambitious one — we decided our efforts to own real-time communications and the real life network could be best executed as one company,” the post went on.

Of course, Skype was recently acquired by Microsoft, though that deal has not closed yet, making this a purely Skype centered acquisition for now.

By accepting the move, GroupMe is boosting its current user base by some 175 million monthly Skype users. For Skype, the service represents another step towards a more encompassing messaging service spanning text, phone and video chat.

NetFlix added 1.8 million subscribers in the second quarter, bring their total customer base to around 24.6 million in the United States. The company believe they will not add many new subscribers in the next quarter, however they will likely make up those lost subscribers and then some when their oft-rumoured international expansion goes ahead next year.

Netflix’s competitors continue to bolster their offerings – Amazon recently bundled free unlimited streaming for all Prime subscribers – however the video giant remains unfazed. Hastings was particularly quick to dismiss Hulu, who only added 325,000 customers in Q2 compared to Netflix’s 2 million, and confirmed they would not be making an offer for the TV streaming service due to its focus on ad-supported content – something Netflix has traditionally avoided.

The unpopularity of the recent price rise will certainly be a low point for Netflix, who have seen near-universal acclaim and astronomical uptake of their service since they launched in 1997.

First a DVD rental by mail service, Netflix expanded into streaming in 2008 and has been pushing its customers that direction ever since. Streaming offers better value for consumers in the form of unlimited consumption, as well as instant availability. Netflix also saves money with streaming by doing away with the need for postage costs and DVD storage and sorting facilities. Currently 40% of Netflix’s customers are streaming-only, and this is only set to grow as fast broadband and Netflix-compatible devices become more widespread.

The Finnish company released their quarterly results yesterday, and it makes for difficult reading. Nokia lost €487 million in the three months to July, lost money in its smartphone division (hardly a shocker given the lacklustre performance of the latest flagship devices) and crucially, its regular cellphone division too. Nokia has previously been the dominant force in basic handsets, the sale of which has been the firm’s cash cow for the last few years, but a wave of cheap devices from China is eating into Nokia’s sales. Excessive inventory meant the firm had to cut prices to move their products, which in turn ruined their margins. Nokia’s smartphone market share is now thought to be around 16%, down from 37% just fifteen months ago.

The firm’s CEO Stephen Elop called the results “obviously disappointing”, however he tried to paint a positive picture of Nokia’s prospects. Elop confirmed the first Nokia Windows Phone 7 device would release to consumers before the end of the year – the device it is hoped will turn the company around.

A interesting tidbit from the financial results is Nokia’s newest revenue stream. Following a patent licensing agreement with Apple (similar to the agreement Microsoft is attempting to extract from Android and Chrome OS manufacturers), Nokia received a lump-sum payment of €430 million. Nokia will also continue to receive regular license payments from the iPhone manufacturer. The flipside of that argument is that without divine intervention from their patent lawyers, Nokia would have clocked up losses of almost one billion Euros. Nevertheless, the firm will be relying on all the income it can get as they work back towards profitability and market leadership.

So what could one ever possibly want to do with six World Bank applications, developed – appropriately, one would assume – for the most expensive smartphone and tablet on the market? Well, there’s one app called “World Bank at a Glance” which purports to offer “a wealth of information about the Bank Group.” We’re loving the play on words there, very witty, masters of the financial universe.

For those who would rather know just what the World Bank is actually doing with all that cash – aside from putting its wildly overpaid executives up in ludicrously priced New York hotel suites and subsequently having to hire them lawyers – users can download the “World Bank Finances” app.

“Ever wondered what the World Bank’s doing with its money? Where does the World Bank fund development projects? How much has been disbursed? Are you interested in a specific project in your neighborhood? The World Bank presents open financial data to the public, continuing its commitment to increased transparency, modernization, and focus on accountability,” the blurb claims. And yes, we do often wonder what the World Bank does with, ehem, “its” money.

If you are more results driven and have less time to spend pontificating the philosophical problems of the World Bank’s spending dilemmas, you may be more interested in the “World Bank Results at a Glance” app, which claims to highlight “450+ results profiles across more than 85 countries over the last decade.” Primarily, the app displays data from World Bank partnership with developing countries, and the progress of those countries towards the intriguingly back-to-the-future named “Millennium Development Goals.” Best value proposition yet? It doesn’t even require an Internet connection, meaning all that useless, er, fascinating data will be saved to your actual device.

If all that data still isn’t enough for you, may we recommend another gripping app from the good people at the WB? Introducing World Bank Infofinder, which promises to come good on the organization’s July 2010 “Access to Information” policy. “Now nearly all information from The World Bank is open to everyone, except for materials falling under a limited list of exceptions,” promises the app. Unfortunately, it’s probably the exceptions that prove more interesting than the rule.

Not into finding “info” and would rather find “data”? Well, the World Bank is nothing if not a master at subtlety and nuance, presenting avid fans with “World Bank DataFinder” differing from its InfoFinder cousin in that it “lets you access 50 years of World Bank data on global economic indicators, chart and visualize that data, and share those charts for use in your presentations, research, and projects.” In other words, students, it does your economics homework for you.

For those who have already left the classroom and are already busy drumming up potentially dodgy deals from Dakar to Damascus, you mustn’t leave home without the World Bank’s “Doing Business at a Glance” app either. This affords users the ability to measure “the ease of doing business according to business regulations in 183 economies,” and is helpfully made available offline, in case the connection is a bit dodgy in Sierra Leone.

So next time you feel the urge to complain about what the World Bank is actually doing – don’t! These people are busy, damn busy, developing a whole host of financial apps that someday – we hope – will be able to actually help them do something efficient. Might we recommend an app called “World Bank Bucket” – it might really help with those bailouts….

The company posted profits of $7.31 billion on revenues of $28.57 billion. Compare this to profits of $3.25 billion in the equivalent quarter last year and you get a feel for how much the company has grown in just the last twelve months.

In terms of raw sales the Cupertino company managed to shift 20.34 million iPhones, up 142% on last year, 9.25 million iPads, up 183% and 3.95 million Macs, up 14%.

The one sore point is the sales of the firm’s ubiquitous iPod, which continue to fall steadily. In the last quarter Apple sold 7.54 million (around half of which were the premium iPod Touch), which equates to a 20% decrease in overall sales.

During the earnings call Apple also announced that their long-awaited OS X Lion would be available for consumers today (Wednesday) from the Mac App Store.

Clearly the iPad is the apple of Apple’s eye at the moment – their tablet business is now pulling in more cash than their Mac lineup does – and the company’s execs were quick to talk up the iPad’s business credentials. According to Apple, 86% of Fortune 500 companies are either testing or actively deploying the iPad in their everyday operations.

Ever the teases, Apple also mentioned in their forecast that they were planning a “product transition” in September which they said could hurt their margins. Of course, more details were not forthcoming – but you can expect September to be the nexus of all Apple rumours for the foreseeable future.

Although in its heyday MySpace made News Corp a bundle through an advertising deal with Google, it has suffered heavily at the hands of more popular rivals in recent years, bleeding users and staff as revenues dried up. Since its acquisition by News Corp in 2005 for $530 million, the site has lost a little over $241,000 per day to end up at its current valuation.

The sale marks another sad day for News Corp’s beleaguered online services division,which lost the company millions last quarter. MySpace isn’t the only lame horse in Murdoch’s stable, however. Tablet-only newspaper The Daily is showing strong signs of atrophy just months after launching.

MySpace had been subject to a takeover bid from original owners Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, as well as several other parties, however News Corp eventually chose Specific Media. The media conglomerate has been looking to shift its costly social network before the end of June, so it can start the new financial quarter without it.

MySpace CEO Mike Jones sent he following memo to all remaining staff -

“Today, we are announcing that Myspace will be acquired by Specific Media, one of the world’s leading online media and advertising platforms. Over the next few days you will be hearing from the team at Specific, including their CEO, Tim Vanderhook, regarding their exciting plans for Myspace and how it fits in with the overall vision of their company.

“In conjunction with the deal, we are conducting a series of restructuring initiatives, including a significant reduction in our workforce.”

RIM only dealt with shipments of their devices, not actual sales – so while the firm say they’ve shipped 500,000 Playbooks to date, its impossible to know how many of those made it into the hands of consumers, and how many are languishing unsold in warehouses. That figure did beat forecasts though – analysts were expecting only 400,000 devices to be shipped.

Although the company still produced $695 million in profit, their year-on-year earnings were down 16%. RIM themselves had forecast shipments of 13.5-14.5 million handsets, but only managed to ship 13.2 million units.

In response to the dwindling demand for Blackberry products, RIM has said they will introduce cost-cutting measures including layoffs and a share buy-back. Unfortunately, RIM predicts the slowdown will only get worse in the next quarter. Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said -

“Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start. The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing into Q2, and delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August is leading to a lower than expected outlook in the second quarter.”

That delayed product he’s referring to is the 4G version of the Playbook tablet, which has been pushed back to the autumn.

RIM’s other co-CEO, Mike Lazaridis, tried to  brighten the mood a bit, pointing to forthcoming updates to the Playbook software – which was widely criticised for lacking several key features at launch – and the Android player as key launches that should help bolster the Blackberry offering.