This is a transformative period for directory assistance (DA) service providers and callers alike. Call volumes are skewing toward mobile devices and competitive threats exist in the form of mobile Internet search, downloadable mapping applications and free DA alternatives. These competitive challenges raise strategic and tactical questions for mobile carriers and their service providers (about pricing and content) in the near term. The findings of a new Local Mobile Search consumer survey, sponsored by V-Enable, present a snapshot of mobile DA usage and of an industry very much in transition.
Featured Research
Microsoft and Yahoo: Well-Positioned for Mobile Search
Microsoft is set to pay a hefty premium ($44.6 billion) to pre-empt others from acquiring Yahoo. While there are several areas of duplication and redundancy, a Yahoo subsidiary of Microsoft is well-positioned to take on Google and capture a significant share of local search and mobile commerce spending.
Packaging Conversational Access in 2008
In 2008, the CAT community will bring more products and services to market that integrate automated speech with wireless bandwidth and computer processing as a way to improve the user experience for search, navigation and entertainment. Instead of pushing the proverbial envelope of technology and capabilities, this trend will put an emphasis on packaging and promotion of available technology building blocks.
SoundAccess Marks Acxiom’s Entry into Voice Authentication
It is good news for the voice authentication community when a billion-dollar leader in the customer data integration industry adds voice biometrics to its product line. With Acxiom joining VoiceVerified to offer the SoundAccess caller authentication, a significant presence in data integration for financial services companies joins the voice authentication community.
Ford Sync: Automated Speech in the Driver’s Seat
The high profile advertising campaign for the SYNC is having its effect. For the first time in 12 months, Ford’s unit sales had a modest increase. More importantly, SYNC demonstrates that multivendor solutions (meaning Microsoft and Nuance) are more than viable in the automotive vertical.
Verizon Wireless Opens Up to Larger Possibilities
Mobile America will be subject to a “Coke-versus-Pepsi†like battle pitting a newly “open†Verizon Wireless against the locked-down AT&T Mobility/iPhone combo. Last week, Verizon Wireless reversed its hard-line stance against “open access†to its network. Creating terms for certifying third-party applications, devices and software amounts to a radical change in its business model. Or does it?
Securing the Future of Voice Biometrics
With more than 150 people in attendance at Voice Biometrics Conference London, Nov. 28-29, top vendors and implementers of voice biometric-based authentication and identification solutions defined future products, services and positioning. Recent security breaches militate toward broader deployment of voice biometrics, as does the growth of mobile commerce. Thus, the dialogue will continue between buyers, prospects and solutions providers.
Nortel’s Multivendor Survival Strategy: Courting Both IBM and Microsoft
Unified communications calls for traditional routing technology providers to integrate with the top providers of collaboration and Web-services middleware. Thus it is of necessity that Nortel (and its peers) continue to interoperate with both Microsoft and IBM, the leading purveyors of middleware and collaboration software.
Mobile Advertising Revenue Forecast: North America and Western Europe, 2007-2012
Mobile phones are poised to serve as a new, geo-targeted, highly social media that provide their owners with a means to find out the people, places and products of interest locally. In this document, Local Mobile Search provides planning assumptions to support business development and product definitions that are in line with reasonable revenue expectations.
Google’s Open Handset Alliance: Promoting Mobile Application Development
In a potentially industry-changing move, Google has announced an open-source mobile platform and an alliance of mobile industry heavyweights, including carriers and OEMs, that contributed to and are embracing the platform. The intention is to push cost, fragmentation and complexity out of developing for the mobile Internet and help create dramatically improved user experiences to drive mobile Internet adoption.