• VeriSign expects 1.7 billion inter-carrier and a total of 3.5 billion SMS messages to be sent in North America on Valentine’s Day. Calendar year 2008 was a banner year for mobile messaging as VeriSign’s Messaging and Mobile Media Division delivered more than 224 billion messages, which not only shattered its original estimates of 200 billion messages, but it also saw a 134 percent increase in its total messages delivered from 2007.
• Qualcomm unveiled a new family of chipset solutions that expand its HSPA+ product portfolio. The new HSPA+ products include solutions for mobile handsets and data cards and a new Qualcomm transceiver that supports worldwide 3G bands and integrates Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio and necessary codecs to in a single chip. Qualcomm also announced a new Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chipset designed to enable smartphones for under $150. The MSM7227 solution uses HSDPA/HSUPA and can support Android, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile and BREW Mobile Platform.
• DigitalGlobe and Nokia agreed to bring the perspective of high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery to Nokia Maps, both on mobile devices and on Ovi, improving the global driving, hiking and walking navigation capabilities for consumers who use these applications.
• Cellebrite is launching CelleSync, an integrated over-the-air (OTA) and point-of-sale (POS) platform, at Mobile World Congress next week. The solution allows mobile phone operators and retailers to offer both OTA and POS back-up of phone and SIM content, including phonebook, text messages, calendar, images, videos and music.
• SingTel, Singapore’s largest mobile operator, has selected Comverse HUB Mobile Advertising to provide an advertising service that analyzes subscriber information and location and then delivers ads using multiple media formats and channels.
• Shipments of Wi-Fi-enabled cellular handsets will double in volume by the end of 2010 compared with January 2008, and that growth curve is expected to continue through 2013, according to ABI Research.
• Mobile music discovery provider Shazam says it has grown from 20 million users to 35 million users worldwide since September 2008.
• Networks In Motion (NIM) will partner with Ericsson to offer NIM’s location-based services (LBS) for GPS-enabled mobile phones to Ericsson customers worldwide. Mobile network operators will be able to use Ericsson’s network services to offer their own branded versions of NIM’s phone navigation service.
• Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL), the 50:50 joint venture formed by 3 UK and T-Mobile UK to integrate and manage their 3G radio access networks, has selected Ericsson to provide managed services to complete the consolidation of their 3G infrastructure. Under the terms of the contract, about 220 T-Mobile staff have transferred to Ericsson. It is the seventh managed services contract announced in the U.K. by Ericsson.
• Verizon Communications named John Killian to the CFO position effective March 1. He succeeds Doreen Toben, who is retiring. Killian currently is president of Verizon Business.
