MoMoHu - Telco to Web by NSN

Damn, so many abbreviations, let me elaborate them.

Mobile Monday Hungary has had another round yesterday with Nokia Siemens Networks giving presentation about Telco to Web. The event was also hosted by NSN at a nice place at their premises.

After a brief introduction given by Robert Esik, there came the "real" presentation about the main topic presented by Said Berrahil. Said's presentation skills are really fascinating and it didn't take a minute to hear the first laughs from the audience. Funny, still serious, informative and thought-provoking. The whole presentation was built around the seven deadly sins, which the operators have committed so far. Don't take it that seriously, though: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride were all mentioned and with the obvious exception of lust some examples helped us understand what network operators did wrong.

Achievements were also mentioned, though! Since it's naturally not only bad things that operators have done so far. It's even more understandable that achievements were highlighted from a company whose main customers are the operators themselves, right? :) I found it a bit odd, though, that after talking so much about operators' business (don't forget that NSN is not an operator!) Said didn't talk too much about what they had been doing lately.

Finally there was a half an hour free Q&A session after the presentaion where people were really active to talk about the topic. I was surprised to see so many people (35-40) interested in such a not-so-popular topic and have heard lots of good and insightful comments.

Looking forward to the next event!

Tote

Mobile Monday Budapest - Great success!

We held the second Mobile Monday Budapest event yesterday evening. As I already wrote, the topic was mobile software development: Android and Symbian in particular. My colleague gave a great presentation on Android and I talked about Symbian. Unfortunately, the third presenter was not able to come, thus we didn't have a presentation about iPhone development. Nevertheless, we still tried to cover as wide range of platforms during the free Q&A session as possible.

There were something like 50 engineering-minded people (like us:), brave enough to ask smart questions, eager to learn from the others (not only from presenters) and willing to network. The event was sponsored by Forum Nokia (event site is available at bantora.com) and my employer, Agil Eight. Thanks for both!

I'm so happy that this habit slowly becomes a tradition - it's exactly this what we need in our small country. Looking forward to the upcoming MoMo Budapest even in April!

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Mobile Monday Budapest - Mobile Software Development

It's time for the 2^nd Mobile Monday Budapest event! This time the topic is mobile software development and we selected the three hottest platforms: iPhone, Android and Symbian. I wrote 'we', because I'm among the organizers as well as one of the presenters: my presentation will cover Symbian-based development.

Some information on the event:

Date: Feb 23, 2009

Time: 18:00 - 21:00

Venue: BUTE, Magyar Tudósok Körútja 2, Room 019

For more information, please refer to Nokia's new web service, Bantora, or Mobile Monday Hungary.

Everybody is welcome!

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Mobile Monday in Hungary

I don't know if you've ever heard of the event, Mobile Monday, but if you visit their site you can see that it's a global community of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influentials fostering cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends from global markets.

Now it has finally arrived to Budapest, Hungary! I attended the very first event last evening and I was surprised to see how many people are involved and interested in mobility in this small country! It wasn't a very long event and there were only two presentations, but hey, it's the first one, right?

Actually I was interested in Torsti Tenhunen's presentation (Mobile Media – connecting and consuming everywhere) and was also wondering how many people have ever heard of Ovi, for example. Not too much as I could see in the audience. There was a Q&A session at the end of the presentation and since the audience didn't dare to ask anything (including me ... sigh), some people were randomly picked up to ask questions. I was picked up, too, and managed to ask a tough question. At least, even the presenter admitted that it was tough.

What was my question? Well, relating to Ovi I always wondered what Nokia's view on entering a competition with such big names as Apple and Google who have already proven in (web) services. My question was something like "How does Nokia intend to compete with those popular services that people have already got used to (iTunes and Google's bunch of services) and in general how do they see their position in the new devices + services setup where manufacturers are rolling out their own services, too"? Well, I admit that it's not a question that's easy to answer. As I mentioned even the presenter admitted that. Of course. I like to ask tough questions. Anyone can ask easy questions, but not so many people can point out things that are behind a presentation. This was the first full presentation that I saw about Ovi (of course, I had already known a lot of things about it beforehand) and although it was a new concept to most people I wanted to know more.

To be honest, my question was only partially answered. Some marketing hype was included in the answer (we're good at services, people will buy the idea, because they're gonna be very good, we have our brand name, etc.) in addition to pointing out the fact that Nokia has nice programs for emerging markets (think of Nokia Life Tools). This argument is valid, indeed, I've even already discussed about it lately. On the other hand, my addition to this list would have been something like:

• the coverage of offerings these companies offer (including Nokia) varies and that gives users the freedom to pick up their choice of service provider,
• Nokia plans to set up its own MVNO in Japan (read about the consequences and how it's supposed to affect e.g. Ovi here).

Anyway, I'm happy to attend upcoming MoMo events in Budapest in the hope of stiring up the "local" water. With unpleasant questions if necessary. :)

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