I’ve just read a heart-wrenching story about a Somali man robbed of $200 then shot dead by his assailants, no doubt a common story in a country racked by over 19 years of anarchy. However, a new mobile money transfer and banking system being introduced by mobile operator Hormuud Telecom could have saved this one life and is set to save many others. Hormuud Telecom is the biggest network in Somalia with more than a million subscribers. It designed the software for its SAAD money transfer service, but was helped by neighbouring...

You know times are a’changing when the CEO of Microsoft announces that 90 per cent of his staff will be working on cloud platforms by next year. Steve Ballmer even went one step further when he said he was "betting the company" on the Windows Azure cloud platform. These are serious announcements and demonstrate how seriously he is taking threats from the likes of Amazon, Google and other cloud services vendors. Ballmer was presenting at the University of Washington's Computer Science and Engineering Department,...

The iPad is not the elusive “second side” of the telco business model.  Nevertheless the economics of the deal between Apple and at&t can be used as a primary example of the types of new business models that CFO’s of service providers need to consider experimenting with in order to replace the long, slow decline of their fixed-line businesses.  It also can serve as a model of how to work with other device manufacturers in the future.When the iPad was announced on January 27th of this year with a $30 USD per month pre-paid...

There can be little doubt that mobile advertising is one of the fastest growing markets in the mobile ecosystem. Google is going strongly after this market with its acquisition of Admob, and they are obviously the market leader in internet search-based advertising – so this is a natural progression for them. Other players are also making significant investment such as Apple, Microsoft and, more recently,Opera.But don’t expect the big internet players to have such a dominant position in the mobile advertising world. The mobile...

Hello everyone, I was training in New Jersey last week and on my way home I got caught up in the snowstorm that closed the airport. Overnight in the airport and another two nights in an hotel until I managed to get a rescheduled flight back home. The joys of travel! On the positive side, it gave me a chance to see first-hand how the airprort and the airline dealt with the situation and, as an exercise, to think about how it could have been improved if they had used the solution frameworks to organize themselves. Now...

Revenue is largely disconnected from the cost model. This was a recurring theme at this week’s Management World Middle East, held in Dubai. Mobile subscribers, in particular, had been encouraged to take up ‘all you can eat’ data plans in order to stimulate data traffic. Along comes the HSPA network with acceptable connection speeds, ‘dongles’ (USB modems), throw in the iPhone and bang, suddenly everyone wants to connect. The idea of being able to connect anywhere/anytime has caught on big with users many of which don’t...

I had the opportunity to return to one of my favorite cities this week – Melbourne, Australia.  And, to enjoy one of my favorite seafood treats – oysters, this time from Tasmania!  Traveling is hard on my old body, but, as you know, I like to eat.  Traveling around the world provides me with the opportunity to sample a glorious variety of, in this case, oysters. From oysters come pearls.  So, I would like to share a few pearls of knowledge (I won’t be bold enough to call them pearls of wisdom!) regarding the Business Process...

After a round of binge drinking it is normal procedure to go through a recovery phase of teetotaling, lots of rest and lots of vitamin supplements.The same process can be applied to attendees of the annual cellular bingefest held in Barcelona, otherwise known as the Mobile World Congress. But for many the overdose of hospitality, tapas, iPhone wannabes, bold keynotes, hype, self-adulation and inclement weather was followed by a week of stark reality and introspection. If the GSMA’s premier event is going to continue to...

Spent a very interesting week at Management World Africa this week in Johannesburg.  Travelling so far from home, I was looking forward to learning about the challenges of a communications market that must be very different from my day to day experience in Europe and the USA.  But, its a small, small world - and getting smaller!  I was surprised to find that the challenges and opportunities facing the African market are pretty similar to what i am hearing across the globe - saturating markets; a major need for efficiency...

I’m really going to try not to be cynical about goings on at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but it’s going to be hard. The GSMA's premier event seems to break some record or other every year.  Last year it was the number of PC thefts and pick-pocketings, which appear to have been kept in check this year. The one notable exception was Google boss, Eric Schmidt, who was reportedly ‘mugged’ by hostile questions after his keynote presentation.This year’s record, confirmed by almost every journalist present,...