Tom Dibble

Welcome, America! by Tom Dibble Welcome to the inaugural issue of what in our humble opinion will become North America's compulsory reading on what wireless is all about and what it's becoming before you guys and gals overtake us! Through the technological ages, the U.S. has always held the whip hand over Europe. That has now changed in one industry: wireless. For the first time in a while, Europeans have a massive head start on a number of different fronts. These range from carrier network technology standardization and WAP handset penetration to cultural acceptance. But it's not been an easy ride. Europe has been struggling for months now in a battle to win the consumer over to buying new WAP handsets and making them confident that WAP is actually worthwhile. Which i... (more)

When Is a Mobile Phone Not a Phone?

When it's a camera. SMS or text messaging has been one of the all-time great legacies in terms of consumer adoption of a new technology. With the advent of the first MMS (multimedia messaging) services launched recently in Europe, many are saying that MMS will follow the same trend. But will it? The mobile game has always been voice. Maximizing voice revenue has been a number one priority... (more)

New Handset Could Define 3G in Europe

3, the UK's 3G leader, has recently introduced a new member to the 3G-handset family ­ the Motorola A920. It's depicted as combining a videophone, games machine, MP3 player, and PDA-style organizer into one unit. Since 3 launched, the 3G operator has acquired about 155,000 subscribers. Recent studies have shown that many people may have resisted signing up because of the limited choice of... (more)

Euro Wireless

The mobile gaming industry is relatively embryonic. It's at an early stage of evolution where fundamental strategies for success are coarsely defined. Its clear dissimilarity from other rising markets is that it's a marriage of two extremely successful industries. Established digital games companies are increasingly recognizing the potential of mobile, and are making efforts to muscle in... (more)

All the Wireless Buzz from Europe

Nokia Game 2001: Gaming Experience or Marketing Effort? by Tom Dibble Wireless games are expected to generate revenues of $4.4 billion by 2006, a revised prediction after Ovum had questioned Datamonitor's initial prediction of a mobile games market worth over $16 billion. Datamonitor's earlier prediction, first revealed at ECTS 2000, was one of the catalysts of the hype surrounding the wir... (more)