That would make Sony Ericsson number three after Samsung and Nokia. A goal I know they have been trying to reach for a long time. Congratulations!

According to Skyhook Wireless over 300 iPhone apps are location-aware as of October 3rd. According to Mobclix there are over 4,000 apps in circulation. If these numbers are correct this puts the location-aware percentage at under 10% — far, far less than I would have suspected based on my own experience.

“The most significant of these may come from Motorola. One of the original partners in the Open Handset Alliance behind the open-source mobile OS, Motorola already has 50 people on its Android team and is growing that to 350, according to an Android developer approached by a headhunter to join the team. That is a huge commitment that shows how big a bet Motorola is making on Android.”

Motorola has not been committed to one OS or the other before, maybe this is a shift in their strategy.

The move towards open platforms is about nothing else than cutting the cost and speed of innovation. No manufacturer can afford not to go open.

This is a huge change compared to just a few years ago, when open source was a forbidden word. The big question now of course is what OS will prevail and become the Windows of the mobile world. The fact that there is no clear contender should tell us that this war will last for quite a while.

Then again, things move so swiftly that in one or two years time the playing field can be completely changed. Regardless of the underlying platform, one thing is certain: the web will be the true winner.

For someone who grew up with the Commodore 64 and the Amiga, the picture above is a beautiful sight. More over at Engadget.

They will also release a Pocket PC. Interesting trend to see smaller manufacturers pop out mobile devices.

What is it? A black and white foldable screen, small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, with 3.5G internet connection, bluetooth and USB support. I’d buy it.

Mobile phones vs fixed landline phones
Change from voice to SMS
Move from enterprise to consumer centric
Smartphone customers
Postpaid vs prepaid
Subsidised handsets vs unsubsidised
Operator (carrier) designed phones
The expansion of the mobile phone’s capabilities from one to eight
Networks and their coverage
Want to see the antenna of the phone
Multiple subscriptions and phones
Replacement cycles
The mobile phone as an aspirational thing
Phone and fashion
CDMA vs GSM
The SIM card and unlocked phones
The Receiving Party Pays model shifting to Calling Party Pays
Clamshell form factor vs candybar
Emergence of childrens phones
Youth need to text blindly

It’s a long post, full of insights, including this one:

Ten years ago the primary service on cellphones was voice; and many American top telecoms experts in wireless still today will repeat this faulty mantra “but in the end, we must remember that the cellphone is primarily a voice communciation device”. TOTALLY WRONG. And don’t buy into the iPhone hoopla (so, eh, its a.. media device?). No! Don’t buy into the RIM propaganda (oh, I get it, you mean wireless email?). No, as all mobile telecoms execs in all leading markets - from Scandinavia to Italy and Spain to Ireland and the UK to Israel to Singapore to South Korea - know: the only addictive service on cellphones is SMS text messaging. The killer app - the only killer app - is SMS.

(Emphasis added.)

Sony Ericsson has announced Yet Another Mobile Platform:

Project Capuchin will provide developers with an intuitive tool to create applications with a cleaner user interface (UI) without sacrificing the strong, feature rich and widely deployed Java ME
infrastructure, including secure, well-developed content distribution. Project Capuchin’s bridging software will empower two distinct developer communities to leverage their respective expertises to create the next generation of highly engaging and immersive mobile content.

The GUI layer in MIDP2 is one of its biggest drawbacks, limited and full of bugs and incompatibilities. Merging Flash Lite as a GUI layer with the Java APIs as the underlying engine could be a brilliant move towards a new platform.

The question of course is: do we need yet another mobile platform?

Anyway, nice to see Sony Ericsson be at the forefront of the upcoming merger between the web and telecom from a technology perspective.

I guess the upcoming JavaOne sessions will be more telling than the press release. Go see Viktor Mårtensson talk about CHAPI (JSR211) if you’re there! Should be interesting.

Updated: Adobe is announcing a move towards a more open Flash, even removing the licensing fee for mobile devices.

This means that the Sony Ericsson feature phones will have a powerful and open development platform based on JavaME and Flash. Now, if they only could bring in the web browser and XHTML/Javascript in the mix…

Please update your links to this blog if you have any and they point to the softwaresweden.com URL. The URL to this blog is http://www.mobilewebtablet.com/ and nothing else.
Thanks!

If you have a blog about mobility and want to be part of the link roll, send me a message.