Up to now, the major mobile telephone operators in Spain had opposed the entrance of MVNOs. Nevertheless, the entrance of companies like El Corte Inglés and Carrefour in the mobile market could benefit the established operators. Customers also win, because mobile telephony could become just another product available on supermarket shelves.

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Title: Las TIC en los hogares españoles, IX Oleada (ICTs in Spanish Households, Ninth Edition) (3rd quarter of 2005)
Source: Red.es Telecommunications and Information Society Observatory
Date: February 13, 2006
Abstract: For the first time ever, there are now more homes with three ICT services (mobile telephony, land lines and Internet) than with two. Furthermore, in households with three or four ICT services, spending has increased by three euros, up to €94.20 and €98.40, respectively. These are some of the conclusions to come from the ninth edition of the study published quarterly by Red.es, a public entity whose objective is the development of telecommunications and the information society in Spain.
The report shows that 31.2% of Spanish households have access to the Web, a service in which each household invests an average of €21.70. Moreover, Internet is the leading service in terms of customer satisfaction with regards to usefulness and price.
Most Internet users sign on at home (66.5%), while 43% connect in their place of work. The study also reveals that there are an increasing number of users connecting via laptop computers (15.8%). Meanwhile, other devices for connecting to the Web such as mobile telephones or PDAs are still a minority, used by just 1.7% and 0.6%, respectively, of those polled.
Mobile telephones are in 83.5% of all households, a market penetration level practically identical to that of land lines, which are at 84.3%. The study carried out by the group of experts also shows that mobile telephone services are the least valued. In fact, 53.7% of customers feel that the price they pay does not match the service they receive.

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Title: CIO Spending in 2006
Source: The McKinsey Quarterly
Date: February 2006
Abstract: According to a study by McKinsey Quarterly, US senior IT executives foresee a slight rise in their investment in technology for this year, an increase that will be accompanied by a reduction in operating costs. The areas most affected will be hardware, enterprise-resource-planning systems and security.
The bulk of the spending in terms of ERP will consist of adding onto systems already in place in order to improve productivity in operating processes.
In terms of hardware, CIOs are looking to replace old servers with cheaper alternatives, include VoIP telephony to combine data and voice networks, and improve mobile-networking capabilities to handle more data.
CIOs do not gloss over the issue of security and will therefore allocate part of the budget to monitoring and prevention systems that assist technology departments in cleaning up and repairing systems following intrusions.

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Companies are starting to discover the potential of mobile phones as marketing tools, although according to Forrester widespread use will not occur for another two or three years. One of the most worrying aspects for consumers and operators is the mobile channel being used as a means of propagating spam. With a view to putting a stop to this process, 15 of the leading mobile telephone operators—including Telefónica and Vodafone—have signed the Mobile Spam Code of Practice.
The stage chosen for publicly announcing the agreement was the 3GSM congress, where there was also an announcement regarding the launch of Virgin Mobile TV, the first national television network for mobile phones in the European Union. The new channel, a product of the partnership between British Telecom, Microsoft and Virgin Mobile, will offer its services in exclusively the United Kingdom starting the end of this year and, at the moment, the service will be available to a limited number of users. In Spain, people will have to wait until at least 2007 until regulations are put in place.
The 3GSM also provided a space for manufacturers to unveil their most eye-catching gadgets. This is the case with Motorola, who brought a model of sunglasses with hands-free and Bluetooth features incorporated, and with LG, who presented a device whose design is modeled after a car.

Articles in BBC News and The Register
Report in Forrester
Press Release in GSM World

David versus Goliath, Europe against the United States…Quaero against Google? In direct competition with the American search engine, Europe’s Quaero (“I seek” in Latin) had planned to index four billion pages by now. The figure represents exactly half as many as Google has, but it is only the beginning of the project being carried out by France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and supported by major companies including France Télécom, Bertelsmann and Thomson. The objective: to reach eight billion pages by the end of summer.
At the same time, the French editors’ association Syndicat National de l’Edition is considering the possibility of suing Google for having digitized numerous works belonging to the union that have been provided by the University of Michigan. Meanwhile, the European Digital Library—the direct answer to Google Print—continues to move forward and in fact plans to offer its first works this year. If the six EU leaders who launched the project in April 2005 coordinate well, “Europeans will have the best chances in the current race to offer quality content online,” stated the French minister of culture, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, at the presentation of the preliminary  works. Will this indeed be the case?

Article in Technology Review
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Computer manufacturer Dell is finalizing a deal with Google that would entail the preinstallation of Google Pack—a bundle of applications that includes Google Desktop—in its PCs. The leader of the search engines also has deals with Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Apple Computer and Toshiba to distribute the Google Toolbar in their new computers. Additionally, the company founded by Page and Brin is trying to help Firefox to become over the medium or long term the web browser preferred by computer manufacturers, to the detriment of Internet Explorer.
With all of these moves, Google is working towards the goal of its perennial rival Microsoft losing its stronghold on desktop software and in so doing gain ground in the so-called “toolbar war.”
AOL and Yahoo do not want to be left out of the battle and are trying to close similar deals with other manufacturers. AOL, for instance, will be offering its instant messaging, toolbar, browser and a special version of its website in Sony Vaio laptop computers.

Articles in News.com and Forbes

Por Cristina Puig, asistente del e-business Center PwC&IESE
Los blogs corporativos facilitan que las empresas establezcan una comunicación directa con los clientes, alejada de los formalismos y la rigidez de otros canales. Además, la interactividad que ofrecen los blogs los convierte en una poderosa herramienta de marketing boca-oreja.

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Enterprises like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and El Corte Inglés advertise on the Internet. On March 29, their experiences and those of industry experts will help us to shatter the myths that circulate around the low effectiveness of interactive advertising.

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The Barcelona Digital Foundation is hosting the fourth edition of the IGC Digital Innovation Awards, a contest that fosters research and innovation in new technologies.
This year’s contest will consist of three categories: R&D projects from large companies, R&D projects from small companies and entrepreneurs, and university and institutional projects. The period for submitting nominations ends March 17.

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