Motorola Mobility Stockholders Approve Merger with Google

Libertyville, IL -- Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MMI - News) ("Motorola Mobility") today announced that at the Company's Special Meeting of Stockholders held today, stockholders voted overwhelmingly to approve the proposed merger with Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG - News) ("Google").

Approximately 99 percent of the shares voting at today's Special Meeting of Stockholders voted in favor of the adoption of the merger agreement, which represented approximately 74 percent of Motorola Mobility's total outstanding shares of common stock as of the October 11, 2011 record date for the Special Meeting.

Sanjay Jha , chairman and CEO of Motorola Mobility, said, "We are pleased and gratified by the strong support we have received from our stockholders, with more than 99 percent of the voting shares voting in support of the transaction. We look forward to working with Google to realize the significant value this combination will bring to our stockholders and all the new opportunities it will provide our dedicated employees, customers, and partners."

As previously announced on August 15, 2011 , Motorola Mobility and Google entered into a definitive agreement for Google to acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of approximately $12.5 billion . The Company previously disclosed that it expected the merger to close by the end of 2011 or early 2012. While the Company continues to work to complete the transaction as expeditiously as possible, given the schedule of regulatory filings, it currently believes that the close is expected to occur in early 2012. It is important to note however, that the merger is subject to various closing conditions, and it is possible that the failure to timely meet such conditions or other factors outside of the Company's control could delay or prevent the Company from completing the merger altogether.

T-Mobile Unmasks Mystery Mobile Callers

T-Mobile, using technology from a company called Cequint, is offering a new Caller ID service that includes names—a mobile first in the United States.

            When someone you know calls your smartphone, a name, a number, and possibly a photo pops up on your display. The names of unknown callers have been a mobile mystery, but maybe not anymore.

          Today, T-Mobile is launching a caller ID feature that will reveal the city and state and even the name of the unknown caller, making it the first among the four major mobile carriers in the United States to offer the latter. (Verizon offered a city and state ID feature in 2008.) The company is charging an extra $3.99 per month for the optional "Name ID" service, which will also allow users to store the new name in their contacts list with a click.

            To provide the feature, T-Mobile partnered up with Seattle-based Cequint, which specializes in caller ID technology. It will be available on T-Mobile’s new Android-based Samsung Exhibit smartphones and expanded to other devices, including the myTouch 4G slide, later this month. It will become a standard feature offered for all T-Mobile phones in the future.

           "It's so simple—it's not sexy, it's not cool, it's not a videogame, but it could be one of the best additions to mobile," said Cequint CEO Rick Hennessey in a statement.

     And it means that landlines, already in declining use, lose one of their few remaining pieces of allure.

           If you’re wondering why naming ID hasn’t been available in the past, it’s not for lack of demand. A 2008 Forrester Research paper commissioned by VeriSign showed that 96 percent of survey respondents said they screen their calls, and 59 percent wanted caller IDs on their mobiles back then, although most wouldn’t pay more than $4 a month for it. But providing the service is technically complicated, so it seems that carriers wanted to make sure it was worth their while before they offered it.

          As CNN points out. there’s one stumbling block for T-Mobile’s big reveal. A key rival—Verizon Wireless—withholds the name of its subscribers, so a T-Mobile phone user who gets a call from a Verizon customer will still be in the dark.

FOREX Market Simplified & Amplified on Mobile

MarketSimplified Opens US Office

            MarketSimplified, a leading global provider of mobile platforms for the financial services sector, is pleased to announce that recent data demonstrates that FOREX traders are the fastest growing segment of the trading population using mobile applications. As part of its expansion in this sector, Market Simplified recently opened an office in the US, to be headed by David Waring, Managing Director, Business Development and Strategy.

               “With David joining the team, we will actively be looking to increase our client base and capabilities for FOREX trading firms in the US and globally,” said Venkat Rangan, Co-Founder & CEO of MarketSimplified. “FOREX is a rapidly growing segment of the mobile trading landscape. We recognize the importance of having a compelling user experience that will lead to more trades on mobile applications and we strive to bring this capability to our clients.”
               
            As a market segment, FOREX trades on the MarketSimplified platform grew 350% between Q1 2010 and Q1 2011, which was proceeded by a massive hike in trades of 1300% between 2009 and 2010. The number of FOREX traders grew 156% between 2009 and 2010 and comprise 35 % of the MarketSimplified universe of traders.

              “I am delighted to join the MarketSimplified team and to be expanding our North American client base, which already includes many of the top firms in the industry” said Mr. Waring. “The FOREX sector is strategically important to the firm, and we have a proven track record of developing the best custom labeled trading applications for firms that want to provide an optimal trading environment on any mobile device."

               Mr. Waring brings a wealth of experience to the firm including roles in management, sales, and business development with both institutional and retail FinTech firms as well as FOREX. Most recently he handled sales and implementation for bulge bracket banks and large hedge funds for Pivot Inc., a leading software provider for block equity and OTC derivative traders. Prior to this Mr. Waring was CEO at InformedTrades LLC, a social network for traders, and a Managing Director at FXCM, where he ran their business development and white label partnerships divisions.

Nokia C2-03 help

Will Nokia C2-03 help the firm recapture the mid-range market?

Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone brand that enjoys tremendous brand value in India, may finally be getting its act together in the mid-range.

The company today remains unassailable only in the low-range, and has seen its share of the market relentlessly chopped away in both the mid-range and the high-end of India's mobile phone market. The reason? Nokia failed to grasp the importance of touch early on and remained in denial of the importance of the feature even as Korean competitors like Samsung and LG brought out tens of mid and high end touch phones over the last two years.

From around 60% of the total phones sold in the country four years ago, Nokia's current market share is expected to be around 35%. It would be even lower if the value of the phones, instead of their number, is considered since a lot of Nokia's numbers come from the very low end of the market.

Nokia's last product that created excitement in the mid-tier market was the Xpressmusic series, now more than three years old.

Now, four months after the new chief Stephen Elop took over, Nokia seems to be a mood to fight back. Early today morning, the company unveiled three closely-related models belonging to the C2 series.

Going by the indicative price range of $100-115, they are likely to be priced between Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 when they are launched in two months.

The most notable factor, however, is not the price -- but the product themselves. Even as, for the past three years, Indian, Chinese and Korean brands have made merry in the mid-range market (Rs 3,500 to Rs 6,500) thanks to the absence of touch-enabled models from Nokia in this range, their merriment may be just about to come to an end.

All the three models are packed with features better than most, if not all of the models in this range offer in India today. The only big miss is 3G and video calling.

The C2-03, the base model expected to cost Rs 5,000, has a 2.6 inch touch-screen with a resolution of 240 pixels (width) and 320 pixels (height) -- bigger in size and similar in resolution to those on the high-end Nokia phones such as the E61, E62 and E72. They will support dual-SIMs, memory cards, bluetooth and the installation of third party applications.

A similarly configured model in the market today costs around Rs 5,500-7000.

Whether the new phones, built on the S40 platform, will help Nokia win back the mid-tier market or not is something to be seen in 3 months

Nokia’s new models out to regain market share

Nokia’s new models out

          STIFF competition in electronics gadgets has prompted mobile phone supplier Nokia to introduce new models in the mainstream and high-end market.Nikka Abes, Nokia Philippines corporate communications manager, said Nokia’s new phone models aim to regain market share.

         Abes said market studies by intelligence companies such as IDC and Gartner Inc. placed Nokia as still the leading brand in the global market.

However, the competition gained ground and caused their market share to shrink.

“According to IDC we still hold the major market share of 24.3 percent as of first quarter of this year while Gartner says we have 25 percent share which is still good for us. We are, however, determined to get back what’s rightfully ours by introducing more value-for-money product propositions, more features and technology-rich phones,” Abes said.

   Nokia recently launched two dual-SIM phone models – the C2-00 and the X1-01 with affordable prices between P1,900 and P3,000.

“In the high-end segment, we are also set to launch more models in the coming months like N8, C601, E7, E6 which is our touch screen, qwerty- type phone and the X7,” she said.

“We believe that with the launch of these new products we can really get back market share we’ve lost to competitor brands,” she said.Abes also cited market studies of ENS Philippines, which showed that eight out of ten Filipinos still use Nokia phones.She said this would mean that the Nokia brand was still considered top-of-mind and the most preferred brand in the Philippine market.

The challenge is to make the products more available to consumers.

“The reason why we launched a dual-SIM dual standby coverage phones and introduced them at very affordable prices is that we know that there are still households in the country today that only have one phone and many SIM cards. We’d like to tap that market as well,” she said.

She said the mainstream market had always been a strong one for Nokia and that the Finnish company gained ground in the high-end market with its executive business phones as well.

Classic Nokia models could inspire mobile trade ins

              Consumers could get cash for mobiles after deciding to ditch their current device in favour of a classic Nokia model.The Finnish brand hit the headlines last month when it confirmed the launch of the Nokia N9 handset, which follows on from last year's N8.

          Also released at the same time as the N9 were three more affordable mobiles, with the N9 itself said to be ideal for drivers and photography fans.

          Now, Jason, an author for Nokia Conversations, has taken the opportunity to update readers on his favourite Nokia handsets of all time.The expert named the Nokia N82 and E71 phones as two of his ultimate devices, before identifying the N8 as his favourite, citing its numerous features that never fail to excite him.

             Marko Ahtisaari, head of design at Nokia, said upon the release of the N9 that it is a mobile that is not only offering the latest technology but the very best in design too.

Nokia brings live concerts to mobiles

                Intense competition compels handset makers to invent applications, such as this real time interaction with artiste.Handset major Nokia, along with digital content provider Hungama.com, is readying a mobile application (app) that will bring music concerts to users’ mobile devices.Live concerts when streamed live to web-enabled devices like notebooks, netbooks or cellphones, are termed webcerts. Hungama.com has done about 15 such webcerts with artists like Vishal-Shekhar earlier this year.

              While Nokia did not give details about when the app would be released, Viral Oza, marketing director, confirmed: “We are working on an app called Nokia Smart Night that will be available for free on the Nokia app store for Symbian 3 (models such as E6, X7 and C6) and S60 (includes Nokia N95, N76 and E90 Communicator) platform users.”

              Older Nokia handsets that run on the S40 (including the C2 series) platform might have to wait. The company plans to first launch the app for smartphone users and later for its feature phone users.

                  The Nokia Smart Night app will come pre-loaded with webcerts from Hungama.com and have one live artist every month, to begin with. "We have an understanding with Nokia for the first six months. After that, we would be happy to evaluate other vendors or modes of distributing our webcert property," says Neeraj Roy, managing director and CEO of Hungama.com.

                Since it’s a ‘concert on web’, what about the quality of sound? Roy says: “We have a noiseless sound conversion technology at the back-end that ensures live performances will sound exactly as they need to on mobile or online. Also, the performances are recorded indoors, so we have control over the sound quality.”

             In India, where average mobile network connection speeds were at 61 kbps in 2011, how good would a live music-video app be? Roy counters: “Just as mobile voice service is a necessity for the 750 million mobile subscribers, we have seen mobile data, video and TV services fast becoming an essential part of consumers' life.” Roy’s company also runs www.artistaloud.com, a platform for independent artists to showcase their talent, and has been piloting the concept of webcerts with Indian music bands.

AHEAD
       Roy and Oza underscore that Nokia’s app, to soon launch with the live webcert of Shankar Mahadevan, is built to allow users to interact with the artist in real time and even request favourite songs while the concert is live. Roy details, “The video app is designed to allow users to socialise with friends and artists during the webcert. This feature is what will set the app apart from video streaming apps found today.”

                   Experts note that intense competition is compelling handset makers to enhance the application ecosystem and invent products. Probably a reason for Nokia, with 49 per cent of the handset market (Deloitte data), to turn to apps like Smart Night to engage discerning users. “In the smartphone market, applications will be a key differentiating factor,” claims Frost & Sullivan’s latest report, titled ‘The mobile handset and smartphone market in India’. It adds, “For the mobile handset market, the rural market offers exciting prospects due to its significant uptake of feature phones. The rural and semi-rural markets accounted for 65 per cent of sales for most Indian manufacturers in FY2010.”

              A survey conducted by Mig33, a mobile social entertainment service with a little over 40 million registered users, also underlines the need to engage the tier-II and tier-III city user base. “Since internet access in tier II & III towns is restricted to mobile and cyber cafes, more than 50 per cent users spend over 30 minutes using the internet on mobile,” states the report.

                Earlier, music composer duo Vishal & Shekhar had partnered Hungama and Airtel for a live mobile music concert played live on mobile and internet. The digital concert clocked a little over 50,000 viewers online from across the globe and 100,000 listeners on the mobile platform