Mobile phone giants to court the web

BBC news article

[Marketing Guy]

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

BBC reports that Tmobile are expanding their mobile web offering by sending users directly to Google to surf the web (as oppose to the current ringfenced offering).

Vodaphone intend to offer subscribers wider access with a partnership with MSN, also encompassing the messenger service.

The deal aims to bring together the more than 165 MSN Messenger users with nearly 155 million Vodafone customers around the world.

It is also intended to provide a new source of revenue, with people being charged to IM from a mobile to a PC and vice versa.

"People are willing to pay for messaging in the context of SMS so that is no reason why they would not pay for it in IM," said Mr Delaney.

Not so sure people will be willing to start handing over credit card details for MSN messenger or indeed pay to do something they have been doing (via the web) for free for years.

All the same, interesting news.

MG

[Brett_Tabke]

I think it is very significant news that was over looked by the big news outlets. This is the start of the next real battle. Those who control the handheld, control the future of - well - umm - everything as we know it electronically.

[maximillianos]

I've had my tmobile sidekick for almost a year now, and it came with google as the default homepage back then. Which I thought was cool. It is a great market to get into. I surf the web on my device constantly...

[vitaplease]

[webmasterworld.com...] :)

[SlyOldDog]

My handheld is back on the shelf. Virtually useless for web browsing

[David Bowley]

Great to see people taking the wireless world more seriously, mine isn't locked away at the moment as it's great for web browsing - just a little on the slow side.

[Brett_Tabke]

> [webmasterworld.com...]

<-- runs and looks at the recommend-a-post reports. Nope, no report ;)

Thanks vita.

[MetricsGuru]

I've also got the Sidekick II color and Google has been the home page of my browser for a while.

BTW, I'm posting to this thead using ny Sidekick.

[bppilot]

I use Google on the BlackBerry 7100t - I use their screen formatted for handhelds which works great - search results are easy to use and no advertising clutter...

[SlyOldDog]

Since we're comparing gadgets, I got myself the HP6340 GSM/WIFI/Bluetooth.

When I saw it in the shop I just had to have it. After all -I'd be able to skypeout from the airport where they have free wifi so I could bin my mobile and say bye to expensive international calls. Right? Wrong.

It's a heap of s**t. A constant high pitched whine disturbs the audio on calls. It's shape makes it feel ridiculous holding against your ear and the processor is too slow to run VOIP like skype.

Add to that that it freezes up and the wifi is counter-intuitive even for someone like me to set up...it's basically put me off handhelds for ever.

I would NEVER recommend a machine like that to my mother!

[maximillianos]

If anyone likes to do remote server administration... one other cool feature of the sidekick II... it has an add-on (for $9.99) SSH client... very cool and works well.

[Kirby]

Still sold on my Treo and getting ready to upgrade to the 650. With Cingular, Verizon or Sprint, I can access the net anywhere they have coverage, so I'm not limited to finding a wifi hotspot. With Snappermail, I can get all my pop3 accounts. I can set the default browser page to anything I want, including Google, so Im not sure what the fuss is about with Tmobile. What am I missing here?

[walkman]

Treo rules!
I have the 600 one and it's great. Don't use the web that much on Treo, for obvious reasons, but if needed you can find what you want. I use Avantgo though...download all the news in 2-3 minutes and check them whenever you want. They're perfectly formatted for the screen

[andye]

If anyone likes to do remote server administration... one other cool feature of the sidekick II... it has an add-on (for $9.99) SSH client... very cool and works well.

I have a SonyEricsson P900, for emergency sysadmin stuff it runs the Symbian version of PuTTY (a free SSH client) rather well.

Only problem is the absence of control keys. If anyone knows how to simulate them in the bash shell, I'd be grateful for the info...

Best, a.

[Sanenet]

Over here we're stuck with Telefonica E-mocion which uses TerraLycos info to populate it's GPRS & G3 content (which then pulls search results from Google).

Does that count?

[aleksl]

TMobile should expand their network first, the worst coverage of them all IMHO. My cellphone doesn't work pretty much anywhere away from large cities and major highways - where I have access to payphones anyway.