ON THE 25th anniversary of the first commercial mobile phone call, the industry gathered in Las Vegas this week for the annual CTIA Wireless Convention at a time when the pace of change in the sector continues to accelerate.
With the arrival of the iPhone and a concerted drive to bring the mobile internet to the mainstream consumer, delegates heard a string of announcements from some of the biggest players in the technology sector as more than 1,200 companies exhibited their products.
"The wireless revolution is here," said Robert Mesirow, CTIA vice-president and show director. "This year's show is our most exciting ever as exhibitors and keynoters address the current and future technology developments that are making the mobile lifestyle a reality."
However, Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin told delegates that the wireless industry needed to rally behind a single 4G standard and not waste resources on technology wars in order to take full advantage of the massive opportunity of the mobile Internet.
"The last thing we need is duelling standards to take resources away from developing something that is in the common interests of this industry."
In a keynote address to the convention, Sarin said that the mobile Internet was the industry's future, but that companies needed to listen to consumers if they wanted to be among those benefiting from that trend.
Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, introduced programmes to help companies manage their mobile phones, aiming to win more corporate customers from Research In Motion's BlackBerry. The Mobile Device Manager will let companies increase protection of their communications and manage information better, the company says in a statement. Microsoft also says that it is in talks with wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless about offering a Microsoft service plan for businesses.
Microsoft is courting business customers with its mobile software as sales of e-mail-equipped phones surge.
US shipments of so-called smart phones tripled in the fourth quarter, with the BlackBerry taking a 41 per cent share of the market, according to UK-based research firm Canalys.
Yahoo! Inc, the second most popular Internet search engine, which is currently a bid target of Microsoft, has announced that it has upgraded its mobile-phone software to allow voice queries and to provide more information in results.
The new version of OneSearch lets Web publishers integrate the search programme into their mobile sites the same way they do with personal-computer Web pages, Yahoo says.
Yahoo is challenging Google and Microsoft in the mobile Internet market, where US advertising revenue may triple to $4.8 billion in 2011 from this year, according to New York-based research firm EMarketer.
While Yahoo trails Google in PC search queries, it has the most popular mobile applications, including search, e-mail and calendar services.
The social networking giant MySpace says that it is exploring ways to let users access music featured on its pages through Internet browsers on their mobile phones.
"People want to take music on the go with them," Brandon Lucas, MySpace's senior director for mobile business development, said in an interview at the Las Vegas convention this week. "It is something very interesting to us."
Within a few years, MySpace will get as much as 50 per cent of its user traffic through mobile devices, Lucas says.
A number of Irish companies attended the event, including Altobridge, Changing Worlds and Nubiq. - (Bloomberg/Reuters)
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