When Google launched the Nexus One some time ago in the U.S.A; they had started by selling it directly online without a tie-up with any particular mobile service provider.

Shortly after launching the product, they started receiving a large number of complaints regarding the customer care and after-sales services, which were not geared for the sudden onslaught of queries that they received.

A desire to avoid any recurrence of such an event could be part of the reason they have decided to go through a service provider this time around.

In U.K; the Nexus One will be available through the high street Vodafone stores, online through the Vodafone store and on the phone through Vodafone’s sales phone line.

Google will continue to sell the phone directly online. However, it will remain priced in US$, will be shipped without a SIM card or 3-pin electrical plug and pay international shipping charges and VAT on importing, all of which could amount to an additional $144.55.

Vodafone will offer the phone free to users with a standard price plan of £35/month with a minimum 2-year contract, which is not a very good deal.

The phone is available directly from Google for £439.28 (including shipping, adapter and import VAT). Vodafone’s contract, on the other hand amounts to £840 in addition to the inconvenience of being tied in to one provider for two years.

Vodafone contract users might be thrilled to have this new handset added. However, many users will be put off by the idea of a long term network tie-in with Vodafone, and might instead choose one of the many other smartphones now available on the other networks.

Google Nexus One sold via Vodafone online store

The competitors of O2, Orange and Vodaphone, have lost no time in jumping into the fray, and both have now got permission to sell the iPhone in the U.K. in both the 3G and the more recent 3GS models.

Although neither of them has set any specific date from which they will sell the phones yet, Orange is expected to start selling the iPhone before the end of this year, while Vodaphone is likely to do so in the beginning of the next year.

While Vodaphone says that they will sell the iPhone mainly to their existing customers, O2 had used their exclusivity deal to attract a lot of new clients. In fact in February 2009 itself, O2 claimed to have sold over a million handsets, thus generating a lot of new clients for themselves, including luring away some of the customers from other networks.

O2 now has an exclusive deal to ell the Palm Pre which is a competitor of the iPhone. This handset will be available from October 16 onwards.

While neither Orange nor Vodaphone have yet specified the price a t which the iPhone handsets will be sold by them the competition between the three service providers is bound to prove beneficial for users.

Considering the fact that Vodafone already has a subscriber base of 289 million, which is spread out in different corners of the world, this new project will be a huge undertaking.

A series of new network APIs will provide access to the billing system as well as information about customer location.

There are 3 main services being provided:

1. Access to global customer base – this will allow developers to develop an application only once and it will be made to all Vodafone users all over the world.
2. Billing – New services will allow customers to pay for various services which they use through heir prepaid or postpaid mobile phone accounts, instead of having to use their credit cards, thus ensuring their safety.
3. Location – Developers will be provided with certain capabilities which will give them location awareness, thus allowing them to create more innovative services and applications. Vodafone will however, allow its customers to decide and control how their personal information is to be accessed and used.

This project was conceived following the formation of the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL), which Vodafone established with China Mobile and Softbank.

Following the continued fall in voice to voice and data transport revenues, there has been a lot of speculation regarding the future prospects of the mobile operators business. The introduction of these new services could well be seen as a step in the right direction to improve the revenue generating possibilities for mobile operators.

According to CEO of Vodafone, Vittorio Colao, this step could kill two birds with one stone, as it will allow third parties to develop attractive new services, while billing and supporting customers through their network capabilities all over the world. This will help operators to make more money, while providing users with new and innovative services that they want.

Vodafone will release these API’s through the JIL in summer.

Google continues to top the list, growing in value from $86 billion last year to $100 billion in 2009, which represents a growth of 16%. Google is followed by rival, Microsoft, which climbed up one position from last year with a current value of $76.2 billion – also up 8% over last year.

Yahoo! has fallen from number 62 last year to number 81 this year, and its value has also fallen, from $11.5 billion to $7.9 billion.

Other technology brands in the top 10 are IBM at number 4 with a value of $66.6 billion, Apple is at number 6 and is valued at $63.1 billion. China Mobile is placed at number 7, with a value of $61.2 billion, and Vodafone, which is a new entrant in the top 10 list, is at number 9, with a value of $53.7 billion.

Mobile operators have seen brand value rise, for the most part. O2 and AT&T have especially benefited from the launch of the iPhone, both seeing double-digit rises in brand value. The top 10 mobile operators by brand value are:

Among the non-technology-based companies, General Electric (GE) has taken quite a beating, as the brand’s value has fallen from the number two position last year, to number 8 this year.

Ten of the companies in the top 25 list are from the technology sector. Further down the list is Amazon at number 26, AT&T at number 28, Cisco at number 30 and eBay at number 54.

Quite surprisingly, the value of some of the brands has gone up substantially this year, in spite of the effects of the worldwide recession, which only goes to show that good companies can do well even in tough times.

In the UK, brand value for some of the brands in the list has fallen. Marks & Spencers, in particular, has seen a 48% fall in brand value over the past year.

The 10 most valuable brands in the UK are as follows:

Price plans for Vodafone mobile start at £25 per month. Users will be able to access up to 500MB per month, so long as they adhere to the ‘fair usage policy’, which means that teenagers who download too much music or video could get barred from using the service in the future.

In the past, Vodafone users had to buy their Internet access bundle separately for £7.5 per month, and they could only use a maximum of 120 MB per month. Mobile service provider O2 also provides similar services to its iPhone users, but Vodafone will be the first company to offer free Internet access to all users irrespective of the type of handset they use.

This move is expected to fetch them a larger share in the mobile market, which is already over-crowded. Vodafone’s head of mobile Internet and content services, Al Russell says, “Many people already have phones that can browse the internet, so they do not need to buy new ones.”

Until recently, mobile Internet access tariffs were steep and limits on the amount of data one could access made consumers vary of mobile Internet services. Most users are also not familiar with the usage of mobile phones to access the internet.

However, Russell says that the staff at Vodafone stores and their helplines will explain to their clients how their handsets can be easily used to access the Internet, and that now they would not have to worry about the costs either.

This announcement comes around the same time that Vodafone signed deals with Apple to sell iPhones in Australia, India, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Portugal, Czech Republic, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey.

The UK is an important advertising market, and most of the big mobile providers operate there. The initial testing of this project will therefore be carried out in the UK. The aim is to set up a television-style rating system for mobile ads. The working group will set out a range of metrics to decipher exactly who the mobile audience is and what their areas of interest are. The group will also collect and deliver information from the UK operators to analyze the feasibility of the measurement system.

Advertisers will benefit from this project as it will help in judging the effectiveness of mobile ads. So far the lack of availability of concrete data backing mobile advertising has been a major stumbling block, as advertisers obviously want to know whether or not their ads are reaching their target audience.

Providing good quality data has been difficult so far because mobile advertising is a relatively new field, and operators still do not know exactly what data is required by the channels and how the relevant data can be collected and disbursed while maintaining client confidentiality.

Information collected as a result of this initiative will have to be made available across different operators. The data may also need to be audited by a centralized body to ensure client privacy is not breached. The GSMA, which represents over 700 companies across 218 countries, is ideally placed to lead such a project and should be capable of uniting the normally rival organisations.

Rob Conway, CEO of GSMA says, “The working group and the GSMA facilitate crucial engagement between mobile operators, advertisers and agencies, to help ensure that mobile advertising realizes its full potential for the benefit of all players in the ecosystem.”

While most see this as a positive step forward for the mobile telecoms industry, Julien Theys at Screen Digest thinks this is a “defensive strategy” by the telecom companies to one-up Google.

According to eMarketer the mobile advertising industry will rise from $i.5 billion in 2006 to $12 billion by 2011. Phil Chapman, director of marketing T-mobile UK, says “The power of the mobile as a marketing tool can only be realized if advertisers can clearly see and understand the benefits compared to traditional media.”

Read the official press release by the GSMA