Sandra Sieber, IESE professor
The GSMA Mobile World Congress will highlight the innovations achieved in wireless communications while underscoring the slow-down that might stem from current economic conditions.

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The list of companies providing free online storage is shrinking due to the lack of profitability and now, with the market entrance of Microsoft and possibly Google, that trend will continue.

The idea of being able to store content and backup copies remotely and then access that data from anywhere on the Internet has led to a swarm of products, not to mention the online backup solutions aimed at the corporate world. There are multimedia editing applications that include content storage, while some simply utilize email services to send and store their files on the Internet. Additionally, there are unofficial applications that turn the space offered by Google's Gmail into a virtual hard disk (VHD). There are also specialized services created by such companies as FreeDrive and Box.net that allow users to drag files from their desktop, send them to the server and indicate whether they are for personal use, sharing with specific friends or publishing. Other options include those reviewed this month in Consumer magazine, including Windows Live Mesh, which is free but available only to Windows users.

Just in case the economic crisis, lack of a clear business model and competition facing Microsoft (which offers 5 GB for free, vs. the 1-2 GB generally offered by its rivals) were not enough to put the small suppliers out of commission, they soon may have to take on the mighty Google as well. According to the blog google.dirson, the yet-unpublished Google Web Drive could be a step toward a "Google Client" that would allow us to install a shortcut on our PC or mobile device that would give direct access to a hard drive where would store our files. Baquia explains that this would let users store personal data on Google's servers instead of on their computer hard drives, thus giving them access to that data from any device with an Internet connection. Clearly, if Google officially decides to jump into this market, its offering of free storage will compare favorably.

Articles in Google.dirson.com, Consumer Eroski (spanish) and Baquia (spanish)

"Appearing on page 10 of Google search results is useless; you have to be on page 1." This was a quote published in the newspaper La Vanguardia from Ouali Benmeziane, organizer of Search Congress Barcelona. The problem is that even if the majority of businesses have a website, their potential customers do not always find it. In fact, sometimes, for apparently inexplicable reasons, what they find are the competition's websites. Since a website that gets few visits is as good as nonexistent, the companies and organizations that maintain sites need them to be highly ranked in the search engines. The mission of filling that need is given to specialized webmasters known as search engine optimizers (SEO). Their role is a controversial one, however, earning a negative image in the eyes of some since it means interfering with what users are actually searching for. Nevertheless, demand for SEOs is on the rise, as witnessed by the recent emergence of courses, masters programs, the abundance of specialized online forums and the aforementioned Search Congress Barcelona, held January 28-31 of this year. It also involves search engine marketing (SEM) professionals, including sales reps who offer their services, and agents for the three main search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Live.

Articles in La Vanguardia (spanish), Google.dirson.com and Consumer Eroski (spanish)

Study: Survey of German banks and insurance companies
Date: December 2008
Source: ARIS Umfrageforschung, Hamburg/Software AG
Abstract: The current financial uncertainty, successive changes in national regulations, consolidation of the global market, the resultant integration processes of IT resources, improved individual risk-management policies... In the financial services industry, as companies across the board are having to face up to these challenges, the ones whose structures are flexible enough will be able to adapt more easily, undertake less-traumatic mergers and, consequently, benefit from their pertinent savings and business opportunities. This according to the authors of the study commissioned by the German supplier Software AG, which was based on surveys of banking and insurance companies in Germany.

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The Catalan Association of Telecommunications Engineers (ACET) and the Official Association of Telecommunications Engineers of Catalonia (COTEC) are organizing the 14th edition of La Nit de les Telecomunicacions [Telecommunications Night] under the theme of "La Nit y el juego de la innovación" ["The Night and the Game of Innovation"]. The event will be taking place on Wednesday, March 4, 2009, at "L'Auditori" in Barcelona, starting at 19:00.

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