All about mobile marketing, campaigns, applications and mobile gaming in Australia and Asia Pacific region

Here is your five minute update on all things mobile this week.

Mobile World Congress is midway through in Barcelona and already there has been some major industry news.

Microsoft is back as a serious mobile contender with the release of Windows Phone 7 Series – which has reportedly, drastically improved integration between the operating system and HD video, Bing, Zune and Xbox live. With gaming being such a make or break feature of hardware devices, the Xbox integration is the fix Microsoft needed to be taken seriously again.

Next – A serious posse of global telcos – including AT&T, China Mobile, NTT Docomo, SingTel and Vodafone, representing three billion mobile customers – have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to create an alternative open applicationd platform to rival Apple iPhone OS and Google Android. Currently titled Wholesale Applications Community we can expect more detail in the coming weeks. Handset manufacturers LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have also giving initial public support for the initiative – however there is no clear idea on how the alliance will work, who will lead it, and if too many cooks will spoil its broth.

Sportswear company PUMA have collaborated with french manufacturer Sagem to make a unique sports-featured solar powered mobile phone. Whilst light on hardware power and features, it makes it up with strong personality in its bespoke operating system. See the video below for a preview.

Back in Australia, Telstra has continued to invest capital and development in the highly profitable wireless internet market. This week they announced they would be doubling the speed of its Next G HSPA+ network to maximum theoretical speeds of 42 Mbps. The wireless broadband market is booming in Australia with some analysts are predicting the market size to double in size from its current 2.9 million customers by 2014.

The L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival (LMFF) in March has been preceeded with a feature packed iPhone application – currently featued on top of the Australian iTunes store. The app is produced by Melbourne-based Mobile Muse and includes features such as event program, designers features and an intuitive directory to connect you with them, galleries and behind the scenes short-form video content. The app appears to be aimed mainly at the fashion trade, but it really is gorgeously designed in mainly black and white. Download it for free here – iTunes link.

Finally – in the blow-our-own trumpet category – Mojo (my employer) scored #8 overall in the Campaign Brief/Banner Blog Australian/NZ Hot Cold agency list. Digital agency Soap scored best overall, while NZ agency AIM Proximity was the highest ranked full-service (digital and non-digital) agency, the same category that Mojo fits into.

I am sure there is heaps more that will come out of the World Mobile Congress this week, so I will follow up on these next week. Also – I will do a feature on the LMFF app after the event in Melbourne next month so I can properly road test some of the features.

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