Thirsty Rock

Less than four months after the launch of two social networking phones, Microsoft has withdrawn the mobile devices. Dismal device sales are the main reason for dropping the Kin I and Kin II. The European launch, slated for third quarter 2010, has also been cancelled. This is the second failed attempt by the Redmond firm to prise open the mobile phone market. In 2008 Microsoft acquired Danger Inc ., the company behind Kin, to get a foot onto the lower rungs of the mobile device manufacturing ladder. Like the Zune phone , Kin did not impress. Ironically, Andy Rubin a co-founder of Danger Inc. moved on to develop and sell the Android operating system to Microsoft's key competitor - Google. Android phones have outsold Kin by a long shot and are on track to challenge the iPhone's dominant position.

Most mobile phone manufacturers offer emulators to help developers with software tests. Java and C++ programming environments usually provide plug-in facilities for emulators . Products such as Pulsar go a step further to integrate and maintain the entire development space. Although emulators catch a fair amount of design and runtime errors, software behaviour on real phones is unpredictable. For most developers it is not financially feasible to test the behaviour of their mobile applications on all target platforms. To get around this obstacle some companies offer on-line services that allow for application testing on real devices. These services are often expensive. In software provided by phone manufacturers multiple instances of the emulator are invoked to simulate the behaviour of federated handsets. One solution is to run an instance of the application on a PC and set up a local communication channel with a real phone. A neat, inexpensive and elegant solution is availab...

Mobile Network Operators (MNO) seldom roll out GSM services in rural or sparsely populated communities. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), CAPEX and OPEX determine which areas are serviced and those which are not. A small rural population of 2.000 can generate annual revenues around USD 48.000 (assuming ARPU of USD 2.00/month). Lets see how this compares with equipment cost. Equipment manufacturers do not publish price lists and almost all transactions are covered by Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA). However, by gleaning promotional materials it is possible to arrive at a good guestimate cost of a small BTS . To service a small subscription base of 2.000 you require an investment of about USD 90/subscriber (USD 90.000 per transceiver (TRX) including connectivity to the core network - BSC and MSC). About 70% of this cost is infrastructure related: air conditioning, security, generator sets, sleeping quarters, civil works etcetera. The cost of active elements (electronics) is roughly US...

Sedmak, M. and Longhurst, P. (2010) Business Process Management Journal, Vol 16(4), pp 76 - 91 This paper discusses research design choices available to enterprise systems researchers from a social science perspective. The overall approach is relevant to most IS systems research as it unpacks the different layers including the researchers notion of reality (epistemology), theory building (variance and process theory), research approach, strategy and the method of inquiry (survey, experiment, case study and grounded theory). The authors also discuss techniques for data collection as well as researcher involvement in the research setting (immersed, external or participant). From the onset the paper acknowledges the complexity of information systems research and highlights the problematic distinction between closing an IS project and going 'live'. A second hurdle for a novice researcher is the absence of standardised terminology within the research community. While the third ...

In 2008 Jerome Kerviel, a French national, was formally charged with the trading incident in which Société De Générale lost close to € 5 billion. Jerome held pole position as the greatest rogue trader to tread the earth. Until Bernard Madoff turned up. Last week Fabrice Tourre, believed to be the architect of the sub-prime mortgage mess, took leave to wait out an SEC probe into privileged hedging aided (and some say abetted) by Goldman Sachs . Mr Tourre is a French national. France has a history of producing some of the best brains in mathematics: Siméon-Denis Poisson (1781-1840), Joseph Fourier (1768–1830) and, of course, Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749 – 1827). Concocting complex derivatives demands a high aptitude for numbers, a trait shared by Monsieur Kerviel and Tourre. We haven't seen the last of French mathematicians brewing complex algorithms.

Microsoft on Monday (12 April 2010) unveiled two new smart phones aimed at teenagers. The low cost phones target the bottom of the smart phone pyramid where Research In Motion's Blackberry rules supreme. Both phones (Kin One and Kin Two) have a touch screen and are wired for social networking (Facebook, Tweeter and MySpace) where teenagers like to hang out. The following Tuesday saw Nokia showcase the C3, E5 and C6 phones, aimed at the world's bottom billion - the low tier CIA markets (China, India and Africa). Nokia's arsenal in the battle for mobile commerce is almost complete. Expect to see an upswing in M&A involving OEMs, MNOs and financial institutions later in the year.

Software developers are flocking to the mobile platform en masse lured by exponential growth in subscriptions that are fast approaching one billion. However, mobile phones present different challenges to PC software development. The most significant hurdle is size – both physical and virtual. Mass market handset typically sport 512 KB on-board memory, with 2 MB or more available on smart phones. Another challenge is security. Since data is transmitted over the air (using well known frequencies), rogue intrusions and interceptions are a real threat. Advanced encryption techniques only add to the another limitation of mobile phones – power. Network traffic places a huge demand on processors and therefore power consumption. Inelegant designs place limitations on application usage (hours). One final hurdle is choice of development environment. Developers are faced with a plethora of tools: Java ME, EclipseME, C++, Adobe Flash, QT and many others. Then add to that cocktail a slew of di...