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Vodafone has launched a new business tariff for firms of less than 20 persons. The main benefits are free calls to UK landlines (if you are on a 24 month contract), free calls to a designated area code, and free calls to other businesses on the same tariff. Prices start at £22 per month.
More here.
Chic alors! What the hell's going on in Frenchland?
Apparently the Orange one and the fruity one have fallen out over the sweet deal to sell iPhones to the French ones.
My translating department tells me that the story is all about the fact that Orange France are saying a big 'NON' to the outrageous percentage that Apple wants for iPhone sales (note we are talking about handset sales not contract business as per the big fat ten per cent UK deal with O2, see below).
Apparently it all stems from the fact that there is a legal separation of handset and contract sales in Frenchland.
This excellente story is from the superbe frenchie weblogsite Challenges.fr
How do you sell a digital camera. Like this for god's sake. What's scary is how many videos like this Canon makes. Thanks to Idiot Toys blog for the headsup on this one.
O2 is to pay Apple ten per cent of revenues on the iPhone, according to Mobile Today.
OK, various figures have been bandied about for a few weeks now (ranging up to 40 per cent), but MT quotes so-called 'insiders' at O2, so it must be true eh? Ten per cent sounds right, any more would have been daylight robbery, come to think of it ten per cent is still robbery according to the other operators, but hey, Apple have the kids sewn up, and kids are tomorrow's mobile users etc etc.
O2 and Orange are set to introduce new competition bashing tariffs on Monday.
O2 will introduce a flat-rate data tariff for £7.50 per month, capped at 200Mb, but cheekily called 'unlimited'.
Meanwhile, according to Mobile Today, 3 is set to launch its new Mix n Match tariff directly against T-Mobile's Flext. This will allow punters to opt for bundles of minutes that are transferable between text and call minutes (a text equals one minute). Bundles will be 100, 300 and up in 200 increments to 1,100. Tariffs start at £15 per month.
Click the link on the left 'Where to buy phones and UMPCs' for full details of each operators offer.
Cost Comparison: 3 remains the best data deal with 1Gb for £5 per month.
Chatterbox.com, a website selling mobiles, appears to have upset hundreds of customers because of not paying cashbacks as promised.
Mobile Business Magazine has got hold of a letter the firm has sent to customers which effectively tries to blame the operators for the fact that thousands of pounds of cashbacks haven't been paid. Here's an excert:
We believe that you are entitled to know why these delays have occurred and this letter is being sent to you so that you will know what has happened. For many years, Chatterbox.com worked on, and budgeted for, 100% redemption of cashbacks in relation to all cashback promotions with customers. However, in recent years, there has been a change of emphasis by telecom operators (and by one operator in particular). As a result, we were put in a position whereby we adopted a 40% redemption model. This model was based on the business assumption that only 40% of all customers would claim their cashback. This model, however, proved to be wrong as the redemption actually was approximately 80%. As a result, the company's financial resources were drained. We believe that the problem which we have faced has been caused by the large corporations which introduced the 40% model. We are taking legal advice as to whether we have a claim against these companies. As you will appreciate, we are not at liberty to disclose a great deal about these issues at the present time.
Read the full story here.
Wapple - the DIY mobile website people, have unveiled Canvas, a template-based application that should make it a doddle getting yourself on the mobile web. Here's the blurb:
The Wapple Canvas Market package includes templates for creating dynamic and vibrant mobile marketing campaigns that can be targeted at specific mobile phone users. And by using features such as campaign, forms and content downloads, companies can create truly interactive sites, driving traffic to them via wap-push, text trigger, brand domains and through Wapple’s ad- partners. Success can then be measured using detailed statistics and changes can be made easily to the content through-out the campaign to enhance results.
Jan Selfridge, Director, IXIT:
“This seems like an interesting way of overcoming falling ARPU - a free mobile service to users in return for advertising – haven’t I heard that somewhere before? 217 texts and 43 minutes every month is fine for the text generation now but what happens after age 24? Blyk could open up a new more ‘adult’ service to which they can migrate but the older subscriber is likely to need more voice and data.
"For people used to being online all the time Blyk will be limiting – as phones get smarter and Messenger & Skype go mobile, the 16 – 24s will soon become the content generation (as if they aren’t already!) and look for something more useful from their mobile.”
Verdict: UKMR thinks that the age range is something of a gimmick. Blyk won't care too much about the age of subscribers so long as they have buying behaviour that mimicks that age group. Its impossible for them to check any details of those using the service as its a self-certifying system.
IXIT provides a software platform for development of mobile applications
Andre Pagnac, CEO of Actimagine: "While the Apple iPhone is undoubtedly a well-designed, high-quality product which is certain to be a big hit with consumers, it is unlikely to dominate the market unchallenged.
"The pricing of the iPhone means that it will primarily compete with high-end, high-value smartphones rather than mid-range fixed-phone products. Latest commercial forecasts indicate that 10 million iPhones are likely to be sold between now and the end of 2008, while according to a study from industry analysts, ABI Research, the smartphone market - excluding iPhone sales - should grow by 300 million devices over the same period.
"So, there is clearly an appetite among users for these high-end products, translating into a significant market opportunity for smartphone manufacturers to exploit. The key to doing this effectively will be in delivering a premium user experience, running high-quality video over a mobile, offering video-on-demand and enabling free TV channels and user-generated content from websites like YouTube to be accessed over the Internet.”
Actimagine creates and supply Mobiclip, a video codec that lets you can watch seven hours worth of DVD-like quality blockbuster movies on your mobile phone.
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