Kuneri bloggy

A positive news for Flash Lite community; and a great achievement of Instinct folks. Well done and good luck guys!

Wellington games company Instinct has signed a deal with a Japanese investor as part of a high-level business delegation to Japan and Hong Kong. The company will launch its Game Creator software in Japan later this year.

An agreement has been signed between Wellington web and mobile phone games company Instinct Entertainment and Tokyo-based investor Terrie Lloyd to develop Instinct’s games creation and e-commerce software for the Japanese market. Lloyd will take a strategic equity stake in the company and assist in localisation, marketing and distribution.

Read full story

Another great news from Kuneri. We are very proud to be globally recognized (once again) and take our place among 8 other most innovative companies in the world selected by Nokia with KuneriLite. See the complete press release by Nokia.

Nokia today announced the selection of nine additional mobile application developers from Asia, Europe and the Americas to expand its 2008 Forum Nokia Innovation Series program.  The program provides select small- and mid-sized developers with business and market support while showcasing their next generation mobile applications and services for consumer and business audiences worldwide.

The nine exceptional companies recognized today join an initial group of six North American and two European developers chosen in the third quarter of 2008 to participate in the Innovation Series Program. The latest program participants address a broad spectrum of applications, including mobile voice reminders, data protection and device security solutions, point-to-point travel navigation, Adobe® Flash® Lite(TM) mobile content for sales and marketing, and reward-based advertising over mobile devices.

Developers chosen to participate in the 2008 Forum Nokia Innovation Series program cleared multiple selection hurdles over the course of the past year as part of the Innovation Series selection process, which included internal Nokia reviews and the screening of application features and functionality by consumer focus groups around the world. Each participant in the 2008 Forum Nokia Innovation Series was required to demonstrate that their application or service provided specific benefits to Nokia mobile device users not otherwise available, and that a clear market demand existed for such a solution.

I came across to this: Unveiling the Japanese Mobile Market. It gives an overall picture of Japanese mobile market where mobile Internet usage is more popular than on the PC with reveled me some interesting details;

- Japanese mobile content market is 3.8 billion dollar, while the mobile commerce market is 6.6 billion.

- Japanese 3G connections can offer up to 7.2Mbps, while DoCoMo (biggest operator) is playing around with 1Gbps (4G).

- World’s first 3G connection is launched in Japan in 2001

- 90% of Japanese people have 3G or 3.5G devices, and older devices are not sold anymore.

- More than 80% of devices have Flash Lite player

Looks like Japan is an ideal condition as a mobile world. There are many things we can learn just looking and observing the market, although the culture is quite different than any other country in the world.

Today; I would like to make the introduction of a new innovation. I don’t use ‘innovation’ word to be cool or look corporate; I really mean it. I will try to make the value proposition in 3 short steps;

1. Flash Lite developers have to pack their content for distribution
2. Packaging is a hassle for developers on Windows, and impossible for Mac & Linux users
3. SWFPack is a novel online service offering a cross platform, zero-install and easy to use Web 2.0 solution.

Yes, yet another innovation from Kuneri (like KuneriLite and KISS60). No installation, no prerequisites, no Windows jail, no SDKs, no set up struggles, no waiting, no payment.. Give your SWF file, SWFPack prepares your SIS file in a second. Can not be simpler; can not be faster; can not be easier.

SWFPack is scheduled to be released on 23rd October if everything goes fine. We just wanted to give a short introduction with a little sneak peek. Please check out current features and screenshots below, and we will be very happy to receive your feelings and even early feature requests ;)

Highlights

• Cross Platform (Online; works on any modern browser)

• No installation

• Fast ( 1-2 seconds to compile )

• Easy (Web 2.0 UI)

• Cheap (Free, just sign up)

Features

• S60 3.x compatible SIS files (Cab, NFL WRT Widget support on the way)

• Works with Adobe Flash Lite Player 1.x, 2.x or 3.x

• Supports Flash Lite Developer Edition player

• Automatic signing of SIS with certification valid for next 15-years

• Supports Symbian Signed Certification: Open Signed, Certified Signed and Express Signed

• Full S60 compatible (functionality and user experience)

• Enhanced memory management

• Content protection: protects application from accidental deletion and malicious use

• Supports Flash Lite 2.x compatible only applications

• Automatic application launch at phone start-up (upcoming)

A good news for Flash Lite landscape (better for European and the best for Mobitween people); Mobitween acquired by Zed.

What this means? One single line tells a lot;

Zed says Java and Brew, on which most mobile games are built require significant resource to port each game or application to a growing number of mobile handsets, but that Flash Lite will become a prevailing technology platform for games for handheld devices as it has established itself as the defacto standard in the online world.

As the story told; one steps in others run. It’s not easy to sell Flash Lite business to investors; or to find investors who can see the potential (because there are no good metrics or success stories yet). But a big corporation in mobile content business taking the first step will make others decide easier. You know VCs have deep pockets and short arms.

Now let’s see how things proceed. Although amount was not disclosed; I expect to see Philippe in Carribeans for his next vacation ;)

Mobitween, Zed

Many of KuneriLite Commercial clients create cutting edge mobile solutions for theirselves or their valuable clients. Although we provide free support (said to be fantastic) on Kuneri Forums, they usually need an intensive care and confidentiality to make their projects a real success case.

Until August 2008, we used to provide direct support for many of our enterprise clients. Starting from August 2008, we no more take direct email support inquiries, but offering Exclusive Service Packages, which means unlimited support for a certain period of time, to our valuable clients. We have been glad to support you until now and we are happy to take our support further by offering an enterprise level service.

Looks like a great opportunity for European entrepreneurs for funding, networking even for challenging their business plans. It offers 50K Euro for 5 teams for 10% stake, which is definitely not bad if you are just a startup with a good idea, but (almost) no money.

Interesting statistics from M:Metrics . Although it mostly focuses on mobile games, it’s still possible to extract other interesting details about Flash Lite devices, US / Europe comparison and user demographics.

14 Million – Number of British people who browse, download or use a mobile application

Brits are clearly one of the most active mobile device users in Europe. Although the number looks quite optimistic, but can we use it on any generalization for Europe?

28% – 3G penetration in US and Europe (almost)

Having 3G doesn’t mean that you use it. Although US is very good at flat rate, European users still suffer from high price levels. Might this also mean that European users buy 3G in conscious?

5% – Europeans with flat rate data plan

Where, 15% for US. Might look like US is ahead, but considering the population (Europe is almost 2.5 times more crowded than US), it’s almost the same.

Would it be possible to say US people are much better consumers than Europeans? What I observed is Europeans are not very easy going to purchase something compared to US. Although these figures show US and Europe almost same for 3G and flat rate penetration, I am still not sure if it’s possible to do profitable data dependent business in Europe.

27% – European people with Flash Lite enabled handsets

Where this is 16% for US. This makes a clear distinction of Flash Lite penetration between Europe and US. With these figures Europe looks like a better place to do business on Flash Lite (if you are not in Japan). That’s no surprise considering in Europe Nokia and SE penetration is much better than US. However, is quantity give us a clue about quality? I have the impression that US market makes more money out of Flash Lite content than Europe, due these content is pushed by operators, rather than handset makers. This makes me think that even figures are low for US, US would still be much more convenient for paid content; where Europe would be perfect for advertising supported content services with Flash Lite.

I am little skeptic about the Flash Lite figures; due I am not sure if M:Metrics counted N70 within Flash Lite enabled handsets. Although it’s Flash Lite enabled, player doesn’t come out of the box, which takes N70 and similar popular handsets out of the picture. If N70 is in this 27%, reality would be much less, considering N70 is the still most popular handset in Europe.

Looking at the figures, market seems to improve. This is no surprise. Everyday more Flash Lite devices are shipped by Nokia or Sony Ericsson (or other S60 licensees). My missing piece is a raw model showing Flash Lite can make money outside of Japan.

These are my personal opinions after reading the article. Mark has much more optimistic approach to these figures. I might be missing some other important points, but would be happy to discuss more. I am always up to figure out and expose the real potential in markets.

Ugur.-

Here is a nice post from Bill;

Based on all of the positive feedback from my session I’m posting my presentation here for download (5 MB PDF). There’s some new information in my presentation that’s pertinent to Flash Lite developers and business decision makers. I’ll extract some of these details and make separate blog posts today/tomorrow.

Proud to see Aniway, another Finnish company mentioned among other cool Flash Lite companies around the world. Surely could be better if they marked on Finland instead of Sweden though:)

Here is the inspiring story of Moket. Amazing job that Dale has done, congratulations!

Dale Rankine, a business-savvy Australian and veteran interactive content developer, is a likely role model for mobile developers everywhere. In less than a year, his firm Moket has grown from a one-person development shop to an eight-person team that builds and deploys customized mobile applications.