As Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) plays catch-up in the mobile phone space, it detailed plans for mobile applications today for Windows Phone 7 at its MIX developer conference in Las Vegas.

The big take-away message is that Microsoft is trying to make it easy, fast and cheap to make apps for the new mobile-phone platform. That will be key if Microsoft is going to be successful in luring developers away from more popular and proven platforms, like Apple’s iPhone, and increasingly, Google’s Android operating system. To show off its capabilities, Microsoft a dozen or so companies on stage to show off applications, just like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has done in the past at its events. Demonstrations were given by Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX), Associated Press, Seesmic, Foursquare, Shazam and others. The big surprise is that all developer tools will be available today ahead of its Windows Phone 7 launch later this year.

To make it easy, Microsoft said apps will be built in the full version of Silverlight (not a light phone edition), and all the tools will be free. Scott Guthrie, a Microsoft corporate VP, said: “You’ll be able to download Silverlight, install it, and build first application in 20 to 30 minutes end to end.” High-powered 3D and multi-player games will be built in Microsoft’s XNA Framework, which like the Silverlight versions, will be able to develop in the framework and then work across multiple platforms.

Developers will also have access to a number of built-in features in the phone, including the accelerometer, location-based services, push notifications, multitouch and camera and microphone support.

The Windows Phone developer tools are now available to be downloaded on the web, including Silverlight and XNA at developer.windowsphone.com.

The Marketplace: Microsoft also provided a brief demonstration of the Marketplace, in which these applications will be distributed and sold on the phone. The details weren’t given on revenue splits, or other policies. However, when demonstrating the Associated Press application, a Ford Taurus drove out on to the screen, indicating that there will be very rich advertising experiences, rather than typical banner ads. Guthrie also highlighted the ability in the Marketplace to offer both try and buy features, so that consumers can test out an app before buying it. For developers, it’s just one application—whereas in the iPhone environment, they typically have to release two versions: A free trial and a full paid version.

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Since Friday, over a dozen services have launched products or features centered around location, while Gowalla and Foursquare continue to battle it out in terms of who can garner the most check-ins during the festival, as well as who can report the largest numbers because of it.  If one thing’s certain, it’s that 2010 is quickly shaping up to be the “year of location,” with SXSW being the official starting line.

With nearly every attendee utilizing Gowalla and Foursquare to check-in at nearly every location possible around Austin, both companies are rallying to post the largest numbers in hopes of topping the other.  As TechCrunch points out though, the GPS check-in functionality of Gowalla, as opposed to Foursquare’s non-verification method, effects the numbers greatly.  Still, Foursquare and Gowalla are basically in a statistical dead heat when it comes to SXSW.

Gowalla and Foursquare aren’t the only ones in the spotlight, numerous other services are debuting their offerings when it comes to location, with the most notable in my opinion being the “check.in” service soon to launch by Brightkite.  Check.in is the first “unified check-in” app available, with support for Gowalla, Foursquare and Brightkite, providing a simple app that let’s users check-in to all their favorite services within the same interface.  A service of this nature was bound to launch eventually, and Brightkite was smart in being the first to market.

Today and tomorrow will be heavy on location-oriented news coming out of SXSW, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted.  You may remember three years ago when Twitter was the hot topic among early adopters at SXSW, so its likely a few new names will pop up that we’ll be hearing a lot more about in the near future.  Stay tuned, much more to come.

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Read the best recent blogging on mobile topics in this week’s edition of  The Carnival Of the Mobilists. Hosted by James Coops at Mobyaffiliates, the latest Carnival has items on location based services, mobile apps and appstores, mobile social network statistics, Seattle’s Mobile Breakfast Events, the Intel Atom Developer program, Skype, the iPad, Opera Mini and Ribbit Voicemail.

Thanks to James for including my review of Opera Mini 5 on Android.  This week’s Post of the Week competition ended in  tie. Congratulations to co-winners Tomi Ahonen for his brilliant expose of the “fools gold” of mobile apps and location based services and Terrence Eden for his in depth review of Ribbit.

Visit Carnival of the Mobilists 214 here.

 Wapreview.com Some rights reserved.

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The unofficial count of first day orders for the iPad presents an estimated 120,000 tablets were sold. And according to the information and sources cited in a multitude of media reports, that estimate could very well be a low-end conservative one.

A truly remarkable fact about the iPad’s pre-order explosion is that tens of thousands of consumers are purchasing a device that they have never before seen, touched, or experimented with in person. But if the tablet resonates with consumers as the iPhone has, it’s easy to understand why many industry analysts predict millions of iPads could be sold before the end of 2010.

With the iPad’s already established popularity will come an array of unique digital content offerings to the tablet, like the freshly announced Barnes & Noble e-book reader app. An application designed exclusively for the iPad, the e-reader app will provide access to the B&N eBookstore as well as any ebooks already located in the user’s digital library.

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After the merger between Orange and T-Mobile was approved, the UK mobile market is facing a paradigm shift, and it’s one in which MVNOs will play a central role in the battle to attract and retain the highest number of customers, in the most cost efficient manner.
Up to now, the English mobile market has been divided between the four main operators (Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone and O2), with a smaller share of the market going to the 3. In reality, the market has had four players that have battled over having the dominant market share - but without success. Almost everything has been tried, including acquiring shops, launching more shops, launching mobile phone models that one operator has had exclusive rights to market and sell etc. None of the above strategies, however, has resulted in any one of the four operators having a dominant share of the market.
Both Orange and T Mobile have admitted that in a market with decreasing prices and increasing costs of building and running future mobile networks, they need to have a market share of more than 25% to create a business large enough to give shareholders a sensible future return on their investments. The merger between Orange and T-Mobile in the UK proves that the price development on mobile broadband, combined with the general price development will be one of the driving forces behind the market consolidation we expect to sweep across Europe during the coming years.

Dangerous game
Future mobile operators need to focus on two things: reducing acquisition costs and being able to build and run a ‘factory’ large enough to ensure that they will have the most cost efficient factory for ‘manufacturing’ voice, SMS and data. Operators that believe that they can charge more for their services based on a premium brand are naive and are playing a dangerous game with their shareholders’ money. Telephony is becoming increasingly commoditised.
Strand Consult knows that the most successful European operators today are those with the most aggressive MVNO strategy, and we know that a number of mobile operators have used MVNOs in combination with effective cost-reducing programs to increase their profitability. One of the best examples is how Stan Miller from KPN Mobile international, together with his team at E-Plus in Germany, reduced the company’s mixed SAC (Sales Acquisition Cost) by 56% and increased its EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation) from 22% to 37% in just 12 months. Today, three years later, it has passed an EBITDA margin of 40% and Vodafone and T Mobile's margin in Germany has decreased from more than 40% to around 30%. You can read more about this here.
 
MVNO strategy
In the UK, there is no doubt that the changes in the market after the merger between Orange and T Mobile will result in all the other operators needing to examine how they can use MVNOs as an active part of their distribution strategy, and as an efficient tool to reduce their SAC. The big question is how each individual operator will implement its MVNO strategy, and the significance this will have on the UK market in the short, medium and long term.
In practice, we often see operators use one of two strategies; a segmentation strategy where they only sign deals with MVNOs doing business in market areas where the operator is not strongly represented (MVNOs as a supplement); or a strategy like E-Plus, where the operator welcomes everyone on its network and combines its MVNO strategy with a number of MVNEs (Mobile Virtual Network Enablers) as an efficient tool to quickly launch even more MVNOs.
We believe that the UK will experience an explosion in the number and types of MVNOs on the market, and we believe that the market will come under pressure from a combination of the existing large MVNOs (Virgin, Tesco, Lyca, Labara etc) and a number of new market players - a scenario we have already experienced in Denmark, Norway, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Simply put, the UK is the next battlefield, and the merger between Orange and T-Mobile is the fuse that will ignite competition and fuel the role of MVNOs in the future.
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