AllThingsD » Mobile World Congress

After Making a Business, Huawei Aims to Make a Name for Itself in Smartphones

Ina Fried — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:30:02 +0000

While most phone makers were trying to find ways to sell more devices, Huawei made several moves last year that actually cost the company business.

The Chinese phone maker said no to opportunities to build 30 million additional feature phones, as well as to do more work making phones sold under other companies’ brand names.

“A product without a brand means nothing,” Huawei Device unit Chairman Richard Yu said in an interview at last month’s Mobile World Congress. “It’s not sustainable for the future.”

Instead, Huawei has been focused on moving up the food chain, with high-end products like the Ascend line, which debuted a year ago. At the Barcelona show, the company unveiled a new campaign touting the Huawei brand and the “Make it Possible” tagline.

Building one’s image is an understandable urge. It’s a path blazed by HTC, and more recently by ZTE and others.

However, HTC’s stumbles could serve as a cautionary tale for phone makers seeking to take on Samsung and Apple at the high end of the market.

Yu said even some of his colleagues were questioning his strategy. But, a year later, he said the company has repositioned itself, and the higher-end products have gained traction.

“We are not dying,” he says. “We are still alive.”

Indeed, he notes that Huawei is one of the few companies in the industry that is both profitable and growing — albeit making far less money than Apple or Samsung.

“In the coming years, we will be better and better,” Yu said. “We will do better than last year, I believe.”

In the U.S., Huawei’s push upmarket is still at an earlier stage. The company still builds products under carriers’ brands, and its products tend to be more of the budget smartphone rather than high-end variety.

“In the U.S. market, we are still in the low end and middle tier,” Yu said.

Huawei isn’t tied to any one operating system, but Yu said that “Android is still the main action.”

The company is also dabbling in other areas, including Windows Phone and Firefox OS, but Yu said that it remains to be seen how well those challengers will do.

Regardless of what is running inside the devices, though, Yu wants more people to know — and appreciate — that it is Huawei making their phones. After all, he said, Huawei is a company with 70,000 people engaged in research and development, a firm with deep understanding of not only devices but mobile communications broadly, given that they also make a ton of the infrastructure on which devices run.

“In the past, everybody knows the best products are from Samsung or from Apple,” Yu said. “I want to let people understand the best products (are) from Huawei.”

Dueling Korean Robots Among the Hidden Gems on Barcelona Show Floor

Ina Fried — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:00:21 +0000

If you attend a tech trade show and don’t leave time to wander the show floor, you are really missing out.

Sure, there are juggling clowns that can’t juggle, dime-a-dozen phones and booths touting the beauty of backhaul. But the massive show floor is also home to hidden gems and tons of quirktastic geekiness.

Perusing the booths in Barcelona, I saw all manner of phones, tablets and phablets, along with something called Motorheadphones — headphones that promised “everything louder than everything else.”

“No weak-kneed, lily-livered tin-pot and skinny sounding little pieces of garbage,” Motorheadphones (named for “the world’s loudest band,” Motorhead) promised in its marketing materials.

There were rival robots from Korean telecom operators SK Telecom and KT, both aimed at children. KT’s robot is the second version of its Kibot, and sells for around $500 or for free in Korea with a $20-a-month connectivity plan.

The latest Kibot, aimed at kids from 3 to 13, adds a rear projector and a voice recorder. It can teach things from basic sensory understanding through phonics and foreign languages. The device responds to touch — a brief petting, and the robot’s electronic eyes light up.

SK’s Kids Learning Robot is aimed at 4- to 6-year-olds and is still in the final development stages. At around $300, it’s considerably cheaper, using one’s own Android device to provide both the robot’s screen and connectivity. (Support for iPhone is aimed for later this year.)

Each part of the robot’s body contains sensors for interacting with little ones. The robot’s eyes have proximity sensors, the cheeks contain LEDs for expressing emotion and the forehead has touch sensors.

A wireless Bluetooth wand can be used to interact via gestures.

But some of the coolest stuff was hidden behind closed doors in Hall 2. There, in meeting rooms, companies showed off technology not yet ready to be put on public view.

Samsung’s component arms, for example, were said to be showing some new flexible displays. I politely asked at the door if I could have a little peek, and was equally politely, but emphatically, denied.

Hall 2 was also home to lots of deal-making. Verizon Wireless, for example, had folks at the show meeting to hammer out various international roaming agreements. The company hopes to offer 4G LTE roaming by next year in several countries, including Canada.

Even without such access, there was plenty to be seen in the acres of booths that span the length of the new convention center on the outskirts of Barcelona. (Until this year, the show was held in an older venue in the heart of the city.)

Dedicated areas focused on everything from payments to digital health, and there were also the ubiquitous national pavilions, where countries would group together various local companies.

Austria, Canada, China, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Korea, Norway, Scotland, Sweden and Tunisia were among those represented, along with host country Spain.

Other stops included a visit with Yota Devices, the Russian company aiming to market a dual-screen Android device with an E-ink screen that can be used to store handy information such as a local map or a boarding pass.

Yota hopes to bring out its first Yota Phones in the fourth quarter of this year, including in North America. The goal is to have the device cost no more than a typical premium Android device with similar specifications.

The hardware maker, spun out of a Russian carrier of the same name, has been making modems and routers, but decided to enter the phone business with its idea for the dual-screen device.

CEO Vladislav Martynov says the company filed for patents some time ago, but expects copycats nonetheless.

“I’m sure everyone will jump on it if we are successful,” Martynov said.

Huawei Plans Firefox OS Phone, but CEO Says Unclear How Consumers Will Take to It

Ina Fried — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:30:25 +0000

Although Huawei is among the manufacturers touted by Mozilla as committed to building Firefox OS devices, the Chinese company’s chief says he has doubts as to how successful the new operating system will be.

“Whether the consumers will accept it or not, it is difficult to say,” Huawei Device Chairman Richard Yu said Wednesday during an interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Carriers, he said, are eager to have alternatives to iOS and Android. It is easy to understand that, Yu told AllThingsD. “But whether this can be very successful or not, it is too early to say.”

It will take time, he said, and needs more than just devices and interest from carriers. “You need ecosystem support,” he said, adding that it is ultimately consumers who will decide if there is enough value there.

If it does find a home, it will probably be at the low end of the market.

Yu said that carriers are also encouraging Huawei to consider building devices based on the open source Tizen effort. Huawei has built experimental devices, Yu said, but hasn’t yet committed to bringing anything to market.

“We are watching,” he said.

Huawei has quietly become the third-largest maker of smartphones, behind Apple and Samsung, though Yu readily acknowledges that those rivals are far larger and more profitable.

While most of Huawei’s business is on Android devices, the company also has a Windows Phone model, the Ascend W1, which went on sale last year. The response has been strong enough that successor devices will come this year, he said.

“The W2 and W3 are in the works,” he said.

Yu had plenty more to say during our sit-down. In part two of the interview, we’ll hear how Yu plans to nearly double smartphone sales this year, and his thoughts on Samsung and Apple.

Smartphone Makers See New Market in Old People

By Ina Fried and Bonnie Cha — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:00:56 +0000

Fujitsu devoted a good chunk of its booth at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to an Android phone called the Stylistic, aimed at what the Japanese phone maker politely calls “the mature consumer.”

With its large type, big buttons and touch feedback, Fujitsu is essentially going after seniors. And the company is not alone.

Not far away, Kyocera was showing its own device, the Mi-Look. Available in Japan, the basic cellphone is designed for senior citizens living alone, and includes a number of monitoring features for family members.

A version of Fujitsu’s Stylistic S01 has also been available in Japan, but is coming to Europe this year with France Telecom-Orange. The phone will hit France around June, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany, and eventually Italy and Spain.

Its features include measuring steps and calories (using the camera to estimate food intake). The Stylistic also has a “help” button that can be pulled out to trigger an automated call to a preset number that requests help and includes GPS location information.

Kyocera Mi-Look

Kyocera’s phone features a strap at the end of the device that can be pulled in case of an emergency. When activated, the phone makes a loud sound, and an email is sent to an emergency contact with the user’s location, using the phone’s GPS.

In addition, the Mi-Look also comes with a docking station that has a motion sensor. If the sensors don’t pick up any movement over an extended period of time, the dock will send an email notification to a contact person.

The Mi-Look also doubles as a pedometer. It can track the number of steps a person takes and, you guessed it, send reports to a family member.

Emporia Telecom focuses entirely on the senior market. Here in Barcelona, they debuted a new basic phone that can connect directly to a family member’s Android device or iPhone running Emporia’s eME app.

Loved ones running the app can then directly send photos or update phone contacts on the Emporia device.

Andy Rubin: Samsung's Android Success Mostly About Just Executing Well

Ina Fried — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:35:44 +0000

The head of Android says there isn’t much he can do about the fact that Samsung is the only company making huge profits by using the Google operating system.

“There’s one big company that’s being hugely successful,” Rubin said in a roundtable with reporters at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday. “That’s mostly about execution. It’s not mostly around Android.”

Rubin says that other Android makers are still making profits, if not large ones. And if they want to make more money, they will have to find their own path to take on Samsung.

“People have to figure out how to run their own businesses,” he said. “Should I be unfair to Samsung? I can’t do that. I have to be fair to everyone.”

Rubin also noted the huge investment Samsung has made in building its brand from upstart to global household name in recent years.

Google's Andy Rubin on Firefox OS: "In General, I Feel Friendly"

Ina Fried — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:21:08 +0000

The head of Android praised the advent of Firefox OS, saying Mozilla’s effort can bring the Web to parts of the market that Android can’t reach.

Plus, it is open.

“In general, I feel friendly toward them. … open is good,” Andy Rubin said in a roundtable with reporters at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday. “Competition is good. We built Android because there was no open operating system.”

Rubin said he is glad to find himself in competition with more open operating systems than closed ones.

Getting more people with access to the Web benefits Google more broadly, he said.

“There are places where Android can’t go,” he said, referring to memory and other hardware requirements. Firefox can help reach those. “For certain markets, it makes sense.”

Apple Now a Bit Easier to Deal With, and Other Observations From France Telecom's Straight-Talking CEO

Ina Fried — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:47:05 +0000

Apple, while still a force to be reckoned with, has become a bit easier to deal with under Tim Cook, at least according to one major European operator.

“Apple has [become] more flexible, paying more attention to everyone else, probably a little less arrogant than they used to be,” France Telecom-Orange CEO Stephane Richard said during a dinner with reporters in Barcelona on Monday. Characterizing today’s Apple with the same company under Steve Jobs, Richard said, “I think they are probably a little more under pressure, and it is quite nice.”

And while carriers are rooting for Mozilla, Microsoft, BlackBerry and mobile Linux to emerge as rivals to Android and the iPhone, there’s no way the market is large enough to support that many competitors.

“There is probably not room for everyone,” Richard said. “But all of us hope that among those initiatives, at least one will be able to emerge as a third ecosystem.”

It is observations like these, made during a media dinner on Monday night, that make Richard a popular interview among nearly all the journalists on the wireless beat.

Naturally, Richard reserved some of his most pointed commentary for bemoaning what he and other European wireless firms see as the over-regulation of the telecommunications industry on the continent.

He called one particular regulator “dumb” and said another, while holding a decent view of the marketplace, appears powerless to improve the situation.

Richard compared the near-monopolies of Facebook and Google and the Apple-Samsung duopoly to the highly competitive wireless carrier market in Europe, which he said features more than 100 companies. “We are living through incredible competition; they are not living through competition. That’s it,” he said. He implored regulators to prevent further companies from entering the crowded market.

At the same time, Richard acknowledged that this is a case he and other European operators have been making for years.

“It is a little tiring to sing the same song,” he said.

As for the ecosystem battle, Richard said that Windows Phone has a “very difficult” road to truly compete with iOS and Android. Richard said devices running the Microsoft-developed operating system are neither better designed nor cheaper, nor do they offer a better application experience than iOS or Android. Put simply, Windows Phone is good but lacks a “wow” factor, Richard said.

“The Nokia family in my opinion is nice, but there is no ‘wow’ effect,” Richard said. “When you have a market with very steady players like Apple and Samsung, you need to have a ‘wow’ effect.”

Making things worse, he said, hardware makers have generally been selling Windows Phones for the same price as the more popular devices.

BlackBerry, too, has a tough road, Richard said, though he praised the work of CEO Thorsten Heins and the new leadership there.

“He is doing a great job, but I am not sure they will be successful,” Richard said. “At least they have a basis of very faithful users, which is not the case of Nokia.”

Mobile Data Revenue in U.S. and U.K. to Surpass Voice Revenue by 2014

John Paczkowski — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:01:13 +0000

There are about 1.6 billion mobile broadband connections today. Five years from now, there will be more than three times that many — 5.1 billion — and they’ll be generating a ton of revenue for the companies that provide them.

That’s the word from the GSMA, which cited those metrics in the Mobile Economy 2013 report it released this morning as Mobile World Congress kicked off in Barcelona.

According to the GSMA, worldwide mobile operator data revenue will exceed that of voice by 2017. And in countries like the U.S. and the U.K. it will do so even more quickly — perhaps as soon as 2014. Argentina’s data revenue will exceed voice this year.

Driving that surge in usage: The proliferation of smartphones and tablets, particularly lower-end models. Mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous in developed and emerging markets, and are creating a vast appetite for wireless broadband.

“Mobile data is not just a commodity,” GSMA CMO Michael O’Hara said. “It is becoming the lifeblood of our daily lives, society and economy, with more and more connected people and things.”

And more and more wallets connected to mobile broadband providers.

Asus Tries Another Phone-Tablet Hybrid, This One With Intel Inside

Ina Fried — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:52:13 +0000

Asus is known for its hybrid devices.

Its Transformer line merges tablet and laptop, while the Padfone has been an effort to allow a phone to plug in to a larger screen and become a tablet.

Now comes the Fonepad, a 7-inch Android tablet that also makes phone calls. Although it looks like a standard 7-inch tablet, it has built-in telephony features as well as an Intel processor.

Asus Chairman Jonney Shih says that the company is trying new things to adapt to changing lifestyles, but insists the company isn’t just merging things to see what can be mixed.

“There is reason behind it,” Shih said in an interview. Most people spend a lot of time using their portable device as a computer and very little time making calls. So why, Shih reckons, should the screen be so small?

The size of people’s hands and their pockets certainly comes to mind. But Shih thinks there are people willing to carry a primary device that is the size of a tablet.

Nor is Asus alone in putting phone capabilities into a clearly tablet-size product. Samsung is including phone capabilities in the global version of its just-introduced Galaxy Note 8.0.

Asus is competing particularly hard on price. It plans to sell an 8 gigabyte version of the device for $249 unsubsidized. That’s not much more than a standard tablet without a built-in cellular modem.

And while Asus is a longtime Intel partner for laptops and netbooks, the expansion into tablets is a welcome addition as the chipmaker struggles to land big-name mobile customers.

The device is slated to go on sale in Asia in March, Europe in April and the United States shortly after that.

Asus also introduced the latest in the Padfone line.

Visa Taps Samsung for NFC Payment Deal

Ina Fried — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:30:12 +0000

Visa and Samsung are announcing a deal on Monday that will see future Samsung devices come ready out of the box to connect to the payment network.

Samsung is among the initial partners for a broad Visa Ready program introduced last week. Under its deal with Visa, future Near Field Communication (NFC) compatible Samsung phones will come with Visa’s applet and pre-certified to work with its payment system. The devices will also be able to be provisioned for a specific customer over the air, Visa mobile chief Bill Gadja said in an interview last week.

Rather than viewing new payment technologies as a threat, Gadja said the Visa Ready program is a way to turn upstarts into potential allies rather than rivals.

In addition to the Samsung deal, Visa is also announcing a deal with point-of-sale hardware maker Roam.

BlackBerry said in January that its latest devices have also been certified by Visa.

The news comes just as MasterCard has announced a new payments platform called MasterPass, meant to streamline mobile payments options for both retailers and consumers.

webOS Finds New Life Yet Again, This Time in LG Televisions

Ina Fried — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 09:44:42 +0000

Like Morris the cat, webOS would appear to have nine lives.

The operating system, developed by Palm and sold to Hewlett-Packard, is changing hands again.

Korean electronics giant LG is scooping up the technology and what remains of its development team. However it is LG’s television unit rather than its smartphone business that is acquiring the software.

It’s the latest twist in a long saga of the software developed to be the reinvention of a classic name in the mobile space.

Palm released its Pre and Pre 2 phones using webOS before selling to HP for more than $1 billion. The software, though well-received initially, languished amid a paucity of apps and the slow introduction of new products.

HP shipped the TouchPad tablet before essentially giving up on the business. HP had released some of the operating system last year under an open source license, and had held out the option of using the software in its own products down the road.

CNET reported the news on Monday morning, ahead of what was expected to be an official announcement later in the day. An LG spokesman wasn’t immediately prepared to discuss the deal, but the details appear to be correct.

With New Windows Phone Models, Nokia Aims to Better Compete on Price

Ina Fried — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 07:43:02 +0000

Although Nokia has gotten plaudits for the hardware and design of its Windows Phones, the company has also been too pricey to fully compete with low-end Android.

With the launch of the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720 in Barcelona, the Finnish phone maker is hoping to change that.

“We are bringing elements of our high-end flagship Lumia devices to more prices and therefore to more people,” CEO Stephen Elop said during a press conference at its Mobile World Congress booth.

Expanding Windows Phone is especially important considering the company scrapped its Meltemi effort for low-end Linux and has introduced its last Symbian phones, leaving Windows Phone as the company’s only true smartphone platform.

But with a price of 139 Euros ($183), the Lumia 520 won’t bring Nokia into the bottom reaches of the Android market, which stretches into the sub-$100 range. There Nokia is counting on its Asha line, which it has been pitching as more entry-level smartphone than feature phone.

Nokia is also bringing improved camera and voice quality along with support for corporate email to a new basic phone, the Nokia 301. The phone also has built-in support for popular messaging program WhatsApp.

One interesting camera feature talks users through getting a good self-portrait with voice interaction. Taking a cue from Bump, Nokia is introducing “Slam,” a new means of sharing photos between nearby devices.

An even lower-end phone, the Nokia 105, shares design cues from the Lumia and Asha lines but at a 15 Euro price point aimed at the 2.7 billion people who don’t have a phone. Even at that price, it includes a flashlight, FM radio and weeks worth of battery life.

“You can charge this phone once a month and still rely on it,” said Nokia design head Marko Ahtisaari.

Beyond the new phones, Nokia noted that it plans to bring its Here location services to non-Nokia Windows Phones in some markets; it is also licensing its location technology to Mozilla for use with Firefox OS.

“By gaining scale we can increase the quantity and quality of the data we receive,” Elop said.

The company is also opening up more of its technologies on the imaging, music and location fronts to developers and announced a deal with DreamWorks Animation to create Nokia-exclusive entertainment software.

Nokia, Elop insisted, is getting bolder, a word he used frequently during Monday’s event.

“It hasn’t always been easy,” Elop said. “But without question we have remained focused on our strategy.”

GM Says AT&T's 4G LTE Will Replace Verizon Service at Heart of OnStar

Ina Fried — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 05:23:53 +0000

GM announced on Monday that it will start embedding AT&T’s 4G LTE service in its OnStar service, starting with cars produced next year.

The move, which begins with model year 2015 cars sold next year, will allow the carmaker to power a wider range of services from entertainment to safety and diagnostics than possible using the older generation of wireless it has been using.

“We envision, basically, with that big of a pipe, the car becomes a smartphone on wheels,” AT&T emerging devices head Glenn Lurie said in an interview.

It’s a multiyear deal, covering the bulk of cars sold in the U.S. and Canada, but neither company will say how long the deal will run, or what specific services will be offered and how much they will cost. In an interview, Lurie said there will be a range of services, including some that will be offered by GM and some that will be directly billed by AT&T.

Having a fast connection will allow for in-car Wi-Fi and rear-seat entertainment, as well as a new level of diagnostics never before possible, Lurie said. The car maker will also put out various programming hooks to allow software makers to create their own automobile-specific apps, Lurie said.

“We’re going to deliver a set of tools in the car that no one has ever seen before,” Lurie said.

He said he foresees a time when people will be able to add their car to a shared data plan, much as they do a phone or tablet today.

Yep, Samsung's Galaxy S IV to Launch at March 14 Event in New York

Ina Fried — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:56:51 +0000

Samsung confirmed on Monday that the Galaxy S IV will debut at a March 14 event in New York.

A Samsung representative confirmed the date and location for the event, but declined to offer further details.

The confirmation comes just as the world’s biggest cellphone show — Mobile World Congress — kicks off in Barcelona. Samsung used the show to launch an eight-inch version of its Galaxy Note tablet, but, like HTC, opted not to make its big news at the show.

The Galaxy S has emerged as the biggest single rival to Apple’s iPhone, and has propelled Samsung to become the most high-profile — and profitable — of the Android device makers.

Meet Mozilla's Host of New Mobile Partners

Ina Fried — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:08:04 +0000

Mozilla’s efforts to build a Web-based mobile operating system around its Firefox browser took a significant step forward on Sunday.

The company brought together several of its early partners in Barcelona to show the progress it has made in the months since it first unveiled the Firefox OS project.

The browser maker is looking to create for the phone an operating system similar to what Google is trying on the desktop with Chrome OS. It has been showing previews of the software since last year and last month said it was readying preview hardware for developers to begin testing apps.

Mozilla is among a number of companies seeking to provide an alternative to Android and iOS. It’s a crowded field, though, that includes BlackBerry, Microsoft and Canonical.

Among those slated to be on hand for the company’s press conference include the chiefs of carriers Deutsche Telekom, Telekom Italia, Telnor and Telefónica as well as Paul Jacobs, CEO of chipmaker Qualcomm.

We’ll have live coverage of the event when it kicks off around 9 am PT on Sunday. And Mozilla chief Gary Kovacs will have more to say about Firefox when he appears in April as part of our D: Dive Into Mobile conference.

5:36 pm Barcelona time: The event won’t begin for another 20 minutes or so, but the information is starting to trickle out. Among the additional partner names that have cropped up here at the event is Sprint.

5:47 pm: Telefonica R&D CEO Carlos Domingo is getting mobbed by reporters, most of whom want to get a photo of the Firefox OS phone he is holding.

5:49 pm: It looks like device makers LG, Huawei, ZTE and Alcatel One Touch are on board as well.

Alcatel, LG and ZTE will build the first devices, with Huawei’s first Firefox OS phones coming on later in the year.

Here’s ZTE’s phone:

Which looks to be headed to Telefonica’s movistar brand.

Telefonica plans a broad launch with devices headed to Brazil, Colombia, Spain and Venezuela around mid-year with more European and Latin American countries later in the year and into 2014. It will have models from Alcatel One Touch, LG and ZTE.

Here’s a look at an Alcatel model:

6:09 pm: Firefox CEO Gary Kovacs kicks off the company’s press conference with a shout out to the company’s co-founders Mitchell Baker and Brendan Eich, who are in the audience.

6:10 pm: Kovacs has some trouble advancing his slides, quips he is using an iPhone to control them.

Kovacs notes that when the company announced its phone OS plans last year it had only a couple early partners and it now has support from 17 carriers and several hardware makers.

6:12 pm: “We’re on the edge of unlocking mobile,” Kovacs says.

6:14 pm: Kovacs notes that his company isn’t profit-driven and won’t be with Firefox OS; the company’s goal is just to keep the Web at the center of things. That will keep power from being concentrated in one or two app stores, to allow lots of over-the-top services and support Web standards.

There shouldn’t be one or two companies that can approve the content seen by billions of people.

“That’s a broken model and it needs to change,” he said.

Kovacs asks all the partners at the event to stand, noting that it’s not easy to support version one of a product.

“I know you are not timid,” he said. “I’m on the phone with you.”

Initial handset makers, as we noted, are ZTE, Alcatel One Touch, LG and Huawei.

“There are more coming,” he said.

6:16 pm: Speaking now is Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs touting HTML5. (Of course, Qualcomm’s chips also power a ton of Android phones and all Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 devices.)

6:25 pm: Demo time.

Things start out simple and easy, says Firefox’s Jay Sullivan. That’s because most Firefox OS customers will be coming from feature phones.

There will be a Firefox Marketplace to highlight Web apps, but the company isn’t asking developers to do anything different.

“We’re not looking to create a new ecosystem,” Sullivan said.

Among the early Web apps for the Firefox Marketplace are: AccuWeather, AirBnB, Box, Cut the Rope, Facebook, MTV Brasil, Pulse News, SoundCloud, SporTV, Terra, Time Out and Twitter.

And maps are kind of important, Sullivan notes, adding that Firefox has been working with Nokia to make sure its Here Maps work well under Firefox OS.

6:29 pm: Sullivan notes that even though Firefox OS is Web-based lots of things can be cached, even running in Airplane mode. He demos it with an issue of Time Out Barcelona stored for offline reading.

And while Mozilla will have a marketplace, they won’t be the only one, meaning there can be lots of vertical marketplaces as well as the option for device makers to distribute directly.

Mozilla also has an open model for payments, including a carrier billing option.

6:36 pm: Sullivan touting ability to dynamically configure phone for a point in time, like having a bunch of movie-related content for Oscar night without requiring a user to visit an app store.

6:39 pm: Now Mozilla is trotting out the carriers supporting Firefox OS, starting with Franco Bernabe, CEO of Telecom Italia, followed by Telefonica CEO Cesar Alierta.

Telefonica plans to introduce Firefox OS devices in many markets this year and in all of its markets around the world by the end of next year.

“Duopolies are not beneficial for any industry” and Firefox OS should help, Alierta said.

6:53 pm: Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann said that his company will launch first in Poland this summer and then expand to other Eastern European markets, if all goes well there.

Latin American carrier America Movil said it plans to launch Firefox OS devices in all the countries where it operates.

6:55 pm: Q and A time.

Asked how Firefox OS will stand out from Android and iOS devices, Kovacs said that they can deliver mid- to high-end smartphone performance for the price of a high-end feature phone.

In terms of the United States, Kovacs said the company has plans for its home market. “We have partners lined up,” he said. “It’s not the first launch country,” he added, saying devices are likely in the U.S. next year.

Notably, Sprint — which is listed as a partner — didn’t speak at the event, which just wrapped up.

What to Expect When You Are Expecting a Lot of News Out of Barcelona

Ina Fried and Bonnie Cha — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:00:04 +0000

Mobile World Congress doesn’t really get going until the weekend.

But here at AllThingsD we want you to have a pretty good idea what to expect even before things kick off in Barcelona. We’ve been noodling around to find out what all the big companies have planned for next week. And, as we noted yesterday, plenty of companies aren’t waiting to spill the beans.

So here’s a company-by-company look at what to expect. And this is just the start of our Mobile World Congress reporting. Ina Fried and Bonnie Cha will be in Espana to put things into context and dig around for more dirt.

Apple

As usual, the Cupertino-based company will be the talk of the town and yet nowhere to be found.

AT&T

AT&T is using the stage in Barcelona to talk about its progress in moving mobile beyond the phone. On the business side, Ma Bell now has a half-billion-dollar business helping companies add mobile products such as rugged devices and embedded cellular technology. At the show, AT&T is working with OnAsset to embed cellular modules for high-value package tracking.

Google

Google never made any huge announcements at Mobile World Congress, but its circus-like booth was always a big attraction. Alas, there will be no free smoothies, trips down the slide or pin-trading this year.

HTC

The Taiwanese phone maker made its big news earlier this week in New York, but is expected to have its usual presence at the show, though it won’t have a huge news conference.

Immersion

The haptics company is showing off new ways of adding touch feedback into mobile devices, including the ability for phone makers to more deeply integrate feel into their user interface.

Intel

Intel is showing off its dual-core processor, and is also expected to announce some new phone designs and tout its work in emerging markets.

LG

Similar to last year, LG is making a slew of announcements just ahead of the show. Over the past couple of weeks, the Korean manufacturer has debuted the LG Optimus G Pro, Optimus L Series II, Optimus F5 and Optimus F7. Still, the company might have a thing or two left up its sleeve. A press conference is scheduled for Monday morning.

Motorola

Mobile World Congress has never been a big show for Motorola, and that’s not going to change this year. So, for those of you who were hoping for your first sighting of the Google-Motorola X Phone, sorry to disappoint.

Nokia

With its flagship Lumia 920 still in the process of being introduced around the world, expect Nokia to concentrate its efforts around expanding its Windows Phone lineup to better combat the threat of low-end Android. That also means beefing up the company’s Asha mobile phone business, which has been seeking to evolve from feature phone to an entry-level smartphone. The Finnish phone maker has a press conference set for Monday morning.

Nvidia

The chipmaker plans to show off the Phoenix, a reference-design phone built around the Tegra 4i, the company’s first processor with LTE capabilities built in.

Orange

France Telecom’s wireless unit is debuting several new devices under its own brand, including the Lumo — the first Orange-branded LTE phone — and the San Remo, a large-screen 4.7-inch smartphone. A third phone, the Orange Nivo, targets younger buyers and first-time smartphone buyers.

Qualcomm

The Snapdragon 800 chip was announced at CES in January, but Qualcomm will use Mobile World Congress to show off some previously undisclosed abilities of the chip, including always-on voice control and even faster device charging.

Samsung

Samsung used to put on over-the-top press conferences at Mobile World Congress (think aerial acrobats and dance troupes). But the company started to scale back last year, preferring instead to launch flagship products like the Samsung Galaxy S III on its own. The case will be the same for the much-anticipated Galaxy S IV, but it’s rumored that Samsung will unveil the Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet in Barcelona.

Sony

Sony introduced its latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z, at CES in January, so the chances of seeing another high-end handset are slim. That said, the company does have an event planned for Monday morning. It’s quite possible that Sony may use that time to reveal additional markets and availability for the Xperia Tablet Z, which has currently only been announced for Japan.

Visa

Visa is announcing a new “Visa Ready” program on Friday, designed to turn potential technology rivals into partners. The program will see Visa certify payment hardware and NFC devices to work with Visa’s infrastructure. Expect more specific partner announcements in Barcelona.

Big Blue Makes a Big Bet on Enterprise Mobility

Arik Hesseldahl — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 02:06:42 +0000

You know this whole idea about smartphones and tablets at the office might be going places when you see IBM showing interest in it.

Big Blue took a serious plunge into the mobile business today by teaming up with AT&T, launching new services for its clients and making it easier for its customers to develop software for mobile platforms. The initiative has been dubbed MobileFirst, and brings what IBM does best, including analytics, application development and cloud services, into a batch of services that make it easier for customers manage and secure the devices that employees use on the job, and to more easily develop applications they use to reach out to their own customers.

It’s a strong signal about IBM’s priorities going forward that, among other things, could indicate a preference for making acquisitions of companies in the mobile space in the future: It has already bought 10 mobile companies in the last four years. Prior strategic bets like this include Web commerce and data analytics. It’s also something IBM has been quietly doing for some time: It said it has already helped 1,000 companies get their mobile act together.

As for AT&T, the two are now partners on the mobile software development front. AT&T uses IBM’s Worklight mobile application development platform — Worklight was one of those 10 mobile acquisitions — to access AT&T APIs in the cloud, speeding up development of apps. Expect IBM to say more about this at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.

Mobile World Congress: The Event You Don't Want to Miss -- Or Launch a Product At

Ina Fried and Bonnie Cha — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 23:12:03 +0000

There’s no question that Mobile World Congress is the biggest show in wireless and growing bigger every year.

But, as often happens as trade shows grow, that also means it is harder and harder to be heard through the noise, prompting many companies to avoid making their biggest announcements during the event. Between that and the expense, lots of companies are looking for other venues for their product launches.

HTC, for example, chose to launch its new One phone earlier this week in New York. Samsung hasn’t said when it will launch its next Galaxy S IV (though it’s rumored to be in March) but it for sure won’t come in Barcelona.

For its part, HTC said it will have a roughly similar presence in Barcelona. It will still have a big booth and approximately the same number of people attending the show, said Americas head Mike Woodward. However, it wanted its HTC One not to be just one of many products lost in the crush of news.

Google, meanwhile, is scaling back its massive booth presence, which in past years featured a giant slide, pin giveaways and a rotating sushi bar of Android devices. Also, for the first time in three years, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, will not deliver a keynote address at the show.

Similarly, Microsoft, which had previously used Mobile World Congress to unveil major products like Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7, does not have a major press conference planned.

Even many companies that are debuting products at the event are making announcements ahead of time. The major cellphone chip makers have all recently unveiled new products they will demo in Barcelona.

The strategy isn’t totally new. Last year, for example, LG seemed to announce a new phone each day ahead of the show — a practice the company is continuing this year. In the past couple of weeks, LG has already revealed the Optimus G Pro and Optimus L Series II.

But that’s not to say there won’t be tons of new products. Nokia, LG and Sony all have media events and are expected to launch new hardware.

Mobile World Congress remains a key place to see and be seen, especially for companies that are trying to make the case they are serious about mobile — chipmakers like Broadcom and Intel and device makers such as Huawei and ZTE.

The show officially kicks off on Monday, Feb. 25, and both of us will be there to report on all the action, so stay tuned for more.

HTC Plans February 19 Product Launch in New York

Ina Fried — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:37:23 +0000

Clearly looking to get out ahead of the Mobile World Congress crush, phone maker HTC has scheduled a Feb. 19 product launch in New York. The Taiwanese company didn’t really provide anything else in terms of details.

Key U.S. Cellphone Trade Group Will Move Main Show to Fall in 2014, Discontinue Second Event

Ina Fried — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 10:00:18 +0000

Aiming to get out from under the shadow of Mobile World Congress, the main U.S. wireless trade group plans to move its main show to September.

By changing the timing, the CTIA hopes to become a key event for launching wireless devices that will hit the market in the second half of the year.

In recent years, the event has struggled to avoid being an afterthought to the rival Mobile World Congress, which is held before the spring CTIA show and attracts a larger and more global audience.

CTIA officials had already aimed to create distance from the Barcelona show by moving their event from March to May, but the hope is that a fall show will offer further separation.

“The wireless industry is evolving rapidly and there is a need to have a show that centers on the entire global mobile ecosystem in a way that hasn’t existed among the current shows, which is why CTIA 2014 will be unique,” CTIA show director Rob Mesirow said in a statement. “In addition, the timing of the 2014 show will deliver the perfect stage for companies to debut mobile consumer products and services for the annual holiday buying season.”

With the change, CTIA is also doing away with a fall show that had focused in recent years on business use of cellphones, but was not seen as a major event for new products.

The move won’t start until 2014, with the group going ahead with plans this year for a spring show in Las Vegas, and a fall show in San Jose. The first of the shows under the new format, slated for Sept. 9 to Sept. 11, 2014, will be held in Las Vegas.

While it remains to be seen how well the new event does financially and from a prestige point of view, the changes garnered praise from a number of key players, including Sprint and Ericsson.

“CTIA’s decision to consolidate the wireless shows is exactly what the industry needed,” said Angel Ruiz, CEO of Ericsson Inc., said in a statement. “CTIA 2014 takes the best from the specialized shows while bringing all of the right people together at the same time and place so everyone’s time can be optimized.”

Interview: CTIA Boss Steve Largent Aims To Keep Conference From Being Lost in the Shuffle

Ina Fried — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:45:53 +0000

While the U.S. mobile industry is thriving, its annual trade show has struggled to stand out.

Coming on the heels of both January’s Consumer Electronics Show and February’s Mobile World Congress, the CTIA event in March had become something of a rehash of products announced at those earlier events.

In response, the show’s producers have pushed this year’s event back to May, a move aimed at creating some separation from the other conferences.

“We were told by a lot of people ‘I’m out of breath,’” CTIA chief Steve Largent told AllThingsD. “We heard that. We listened.”

This year’s event takes place next week in New Orleans, at the end of that city’s popular jazz festival.

By changing the timing, CTIA is also hoping that some companies may be ready to announce products due to ship by the back-to-school shopping season.

“I would say the verdict is not in yet but all the indications are it is a good move,” Largent said.

It seems some companies aren’t waiting for CTIA to make announcements.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, for example, is announcing news at its own developer conference this week, while Samsung is using a May 3 event in London to announce its next flagship Galaxy device.

Some device makers and carriers have said to expect noteworthy announcements at the show, while others are planning just meetings and social gatherings at the event.

As for formal events, the highlight is likely to be a panel on Tuesday afternoon featuring top executives from the four major U.S. carriers. CNBC’s Jim Cramer is set to moderate that. The conference wraps up on Thursday with a speech from former President Bill Clinton.

Last year’s show, in Orlando, was dominated by the news announced on the eve of the event that AT&T was planning to buy T-Mobile in a blockbuster $39 billion deal.

Companies Let Workers Bring Their Own Devices, but at What Cost? (Video)

Ina Fried — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:30:24 +0000

The trend of workers being able to use their own phones and computers for business-related tasks is undeniable.

And it brings with it a lot of benefits.

“Organizations that have embraced (bring-your-own-device programs) have reported improved productivity and employee retention, enhanced mobility, a more flexible work environment and improved IT value to the business,” PricewaterhouseCoopers notes in a recent paper.

Plus, of course, it can save companies a boatload of money.

The question, then, is if and how businesses try to secure the corporate data that is inevitably finding its way onto these devices.

That was the topic of a panel I moderated at the Bubble Over Barcelona event held last week, just outside the grounds of Mobile World Congress. Folks from Lookout Mobile Security, Box, Enterproid and Appcelerator debated the pros and cons associated with this new era of mobility.

Most of the panel and audience felt that added security was a small price to pay for the added productivity that companies get with us strapped to our smartphones.

Extra thanks to Enterproid’s Alexander Trewby for being a good sport as the audience and I grilled him on some of his less-than-popular opinions, such as the notion that businesses shouldn’t have to pay for personal phone calls or home broadband.

It was a lively discussion. And, while I can’t promise you cava or tapas, there is a YouTube video of the panel:

Tablets That Have a Certain Feel to Them

Ina Fried — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:13:48 +0000

Given that most Android tablets look the same, a couple of companies are showing technologies in Barcelona that make sure they don’t feel the same.

One of those companies is a Finnish start-up called Senseg. Its technology, which it says is just now ready to go into products, lets you rub your hand over a flat glass tablet screen and feel texture that is eerily like a real world object. Touch a picture of kitchen tiles, for example and it feels smooth until the bump where the grout is.

A different approach is offered up by Immersion, a longtime player in this field, which is showing off a new generation of electronics that open the door to far more realistic sensations than the current vibrations or simple touch feedback from a virtual keyboard.

Haptics — or the technology that enables adding a sense of feel to electronics — has been around for a while. Immersion, for example, demoed how a phone or tablet could gain a better sense of feel back at our D7 conference in 2009.

Early devices just rumbled or vibrated at certain times. Touch feedback has already made its way in more limited uses, with the most common being virtual keyboards that offer a physical sensation when a key is pressed.

But the field has continued to evolve. Some of the technology just on the horizon reproduces the way things feel much more authentically.

At its booth this year, Immersion was showing a phone with digital maracas that feel like you’re actually rattling rice. Then there’s the roller coaster video that gives you both the click-click-click as you climb and the “whoosh” as the descent begins. Yet another demo app adds to any music playback a bass track you can feel.

Both Immersion and Senseg also demonstrated haptics used another way — as a physical cue to something in a long list of data. Imagine, for example, scrolling though email and feeling a physical bump when you get to a message from your spouse or boss.

Similarly, varying amounts of touch feedback can be used to indicate the popularity or rank of something. Immersion had a demo app, for example, where users could flip through a set of images and feel increased touch sensation when they scrolled to a photo with lots of comments.

The technologies from Immersion and Senseg have some similarities, but work in different ways. Immersion’s technology uses a rectangular bar-like component called a piezo module, that physically vibrates the device in varying locations and frequencies. Senseg, meanwhile, uses the combination of a custom chip and a special screen coating to create an electric field on the front of the display.

Senseg’s approach requires developers to explicitly write their software to use the technology, meaning it could be most attractive to device makers that want to add a feel to their user interface skin. Immersion, meanwhile, has programming interfaces that developers can use, but also has a mechanism to add haptic feedback even to apps that were not designed for it.

The two technologies are also at different stages. Senseg is just now looking to sign its first customers, while Immersion says its newer technology is already in a tablet from Pantech and will come soon to other tablets. Phones should also get the new touch tech, once the piezo modules are reduced a bit in size.

[ See post to watch video ]

A Lytro in Hand Helps Bring Mobile World Congress Into Focus

Ina Fried — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:00:49 +0000

While the first Lytro cameras are just now making their way to customers, AllThingsD has spent the past two weeks putting the device to work.

The light field camera has been our quiet companion at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and, before that, on a reporting trip to Finland. We’ve been writing about the camera since the technology was first unveiled last fall and even managed to take a few pictures at CES.

But having the Lytro and its living pictures full-time has provided a unique way to tell the story of the world’s biggest cellphone conference.

For those who need a quick primer, Lytro’s camera uses a new type of imaging that offers a number of advantages, including the ability to refocus pictures after they are taken, to shoot without focusing first and to take images in very low-light conditions without the need for a flash. (For more, check out Walt Mossberg’s review of Lytro’s camera.)

We’ve been stealthily trying to capture as many scenes from Barcelona as possible, all while being surrounded by a million tech enthusiasts, bloggers and journalists.

We managed to pull it out briefly at Microsoft’s Windows 8 launch as well as at a number of other press conferences and booths. Only a few times did we get caught by people who actually knew what we were carrying.

Anyway, below are some of the highlights. I also had the camera in hand during last week’s visit to Finland, including shots at Nokia and Rovio. But I’ll save those for tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are some of the shots from Barcelona. Remember to click around the Lytro pictures to change the focus. All of these have some fun variability.

The first shot is one of Sony’s new Xperias. Click on the phone screen to bring that into focus.

The HTC One (click on different parts of the screen)

Intel’s mobile coming-out party

Ericsson’s booth

The scene at Wednesday’s Windows 8 preview event

The view from Hotel Miramar, site of the Windows 8 event (try clicking on the wine glass)

Coming Soon: Phones That Learn to Rest When You Do

Ina Fried — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:50:52 +0000

Even though many of us feel as though we are on our phones 24 hours a day, the fact is we aren’t.

Yet, in many cases, our phones keep working even when they’re sitting in a pocket, stuffed in a bag or resting on a table.

With battery life increasingly precious, phone and device makers are taking a number of steps to reduce the waste.

Qualcomm has an initiative, dubbed Consia, that monitors a user’s activities and learns when and where Wi-Fi is available, when the busy times are and when it’s bedtime. After a couple of weeks, the phone can decide when to connect and disconnect and when to fetch information in the background.

“People’s patterns are very different, but individually our behaviors are very predictable,” Qualcomm’s Rob Chandhok said in an interview at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday.

To protect privacy, the information is stored securely on the device and all the calculations are done locally.

Qualcomm is not alone in looking to find ways to help smartphone owners go longer between charges.

Chip companies such as Nvidia and ARM are switching from multiple fast cores to fewer or lower-power engines. Motorola’s phones suggest “smart actions” to reduce battery use, and more power-saving techniques are on their way.

ARM has an initiative called “Big, Little” that encourages its chipmaker licensees to pair a low-power A7 core with a high-power A15 engine, allowing the mobile operating system to shuttle between them as needed.

“The concept really is getting the right size processor to do the right job,” ARM’s Jeff Chu told AllThingsD. “Most of the time you are doing things that don’t need all that performance.”

Switching to the “little” core can reduce energy use as much as 70 percent, Chu said.

Phones with ARM’s new design, though, aren’t expected to start showing up until next year at the earliest.

Nvidia is taking a somewhat similar approach with its quad-core Tegra 3 processor. The chip actually has five cores — the four main ones and a fifth that can be used in place of the other four when less horsepower is needed.

Here’s Qualcomm’s video about Consia:

View More Qualcomm Videos