Carphone shares rise after Vodafone takeover rumours

admin — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:35:55 +0000

Shares in Carphone Warehouse have soared after rumours of takeover bids from Vodafone and Best Buy. Carphone share prices leapt by 17.5 pence this morning as the rumours hit London’s Stock Exchange. However, both Vodafone and Best Buy have been linked with potential bids before.

Juniper Research principle analyst Dr Windsor Holden is sceptical of the rumours, saying: “We shouldn’t dismiss either bid out of hand, but these rumours come at a quiet time of year.

“I would say a potential Vodafone takeover is more feasible and would create considerable restructuring of Carphone. Ultimately it would probably lead to large-scale closure of Carphone’s UK retail outlets and rival operators would be forced to review their relationship with the group.

“A bid from Best Buy is feasible, as it already has a small shareholding in Carphone Warehouse and could be interested in establishing a strong European presence. But I would say the chances of either group launching a bid is only 50/50.”

How Mobile Game Developers Avoid The Carrier’s Deck In Japan, use Flash Lite

admin — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:35:28 +0000

Via MocoNews, at the Game Developer Conference, David Collier from Pikkle explained how to use Flash Lite to monetize without the need to be on operator’s deck.

“He said by using Flash, the developers won’t have to tweak an application for every phone because it runs in the browser which are fairly standard. And because it’s not an application, it also means that developers can avoid the carrier’s deck as being the main point of distribution.”Here more infos on David’s session.

SilverLight on Nokia

admin — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:31:53 +0000

Unless you’ve been away from the internet over the past 24 hours then you’ve seen news and commentary about Silverlight coming to Nokia devices.

With this announcement it validates what we’ve been doing for the past five years - leveraging our client run-time (Flash Player) for non-PC devices, primarily mobile phones. With Microsoft now porting Silverlight to a mobile phone manufacturer, it may be seen as an acknowledgment that having a consistent run-time across devices and platforms is key for developers and brand owners moving forward.

For media owners, large companies and developers being able to reuse assets and code originally created for the web for mobile devices saves time and allows them to maintain the branding and appearance of their content. This is true today with Flash web developers creating Flash Lite experiences and with the recent launch of AIR, these same developers can extend similar experiences to the desktop space on both Windows and Mac today and Linux later this year.

We have developed a strategic and productive relationship with Nokia over the past several years and this relationship will continue. Adobe and Nokia have worked closely together to deliver Flash Lite pre-installed on more than 70 Nokia mobile handsets including all S60 devices, most Series 40 devices and their N800 and N810 internet tablet devices. These are devices today that have Flash Lite pre-installed and can accept developer content - today.

If you take a step back and look at what our partners (Nokia, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, others) have done with Flash Lite, over 450 million Flash enabled handsets and devices have shipped worldwide and we are on-track to see 1 billion devices with Flash by 2010. This is done by our partners pre-installing Flash Lite on the devices so when consumers get their handsets, our technology is already there.

So if you’re a Flash Lite developer or considering Flash you may be asking yourself “what does this mean for Flash Lite?” Short answer - not much. Until Microsoft and Nokia can provide more details around Silverlight then your guess is as good as mine. What’s important for Flash Lite developers to know is you can continue to create content for Nokia, Sony Ericsson and other devices and distribute it to consumers, whether it’s just for awareness or to monetize. Regarding Flash Lite - the tools, content emulation, community support, devices and distribution options are all available - today.

If you’re a mobile developer or business decision maker considering any technology for mobile development then there are questions that you should have:

What’s the addressable market supporting the technology
What’s the designer/developer workflow
What tools do I need
Can I leverage my skills or do I need to learn new ones
How do I distribute my content
Is the content inside/outside the mobile browser
What’s the developer community like
Can I reuse assets from the web
Can this technology allow me to have a multi-screen experience

On a side note I’m here in Las Vegas and will be attending the Microsoft MIX08 conference over the next three days. A few months ago I registered for the conference assuming Microsoft would have some announcements and it looks like I guessed right. Silverlight on Nokia is one of them and starting tomorrow I’m sure there will be other announcements.

Obviously this is a great topic for discussion so please leave comments.

flash lite, flex

Carphone shares rise after Vodafone takeover rumours

How Mobile Game Developers Avoid The Carrier’s Deck In Japan, use Flash Lite

SilverLight on Nokia