The Key To Lockers
MOBILE content advocates are very fond of stating the overwhelmingly personal nature of the device. How many conference sessions have begun with the old chestnut about ‘wallet, keys, mobile’ as the three things everyone has with them at all times? Too many, that’s for sure. But it’s true, of course: we all feel naked without our mobiles. Which begs the question, how to protect the content stored on them in the event of the device being smashed to smitherines. Or worse still, stolen? Especially now that phones no longer store
just contacts and messages, but also rich media too and maybe even pics with sentimental value. The need to back-up has always been recognised by handset manufacturers, many of which typically offer PC software for sideloading information from a phone. But this presumes a
certain degree of technical nous in the user – and it’s not exactly a mobile-centric solution either.
This is why a number of companies have now emerged, offering a back-up solution that is performed over the air and from the handset. Arguably leading the pack is Portugal’s MobiComp. Its MobileKeeper Backup and Restore product has been adopted by a bunch of operators including Vodafone, Optimus, TMN and various carriers in the Middle East, with Syria’s Syriatel and Saudi Arabia’s Aljawal among the recent takers. It’s also been re-sold by direct-to-consumer companies such as RemoteXT in the UK and Mobilporten in Norway.
The solution automatically backs up all types of mobile data encompassing contacts, calendars, text messages, photos, videos, music, bookmarks, ringtones and applications. The back-up takes place over the air, and it can even be set up to do so automatically in the background (with Symbian-based devices only right now) at certain times of day or after specified amounts of new data have been added.
Mobicomp sells MobileKeeper as a white-label product, with which it says operators can increase subscriber ARPU and customer loyalty. Typically, consumers pay around one-to-two Euros a month for access. As Jameel Al Molhem, general manager of Aljawal, says: “It not only gives users confidence to start using more advanced mobile data services, but it’s also offering a solution that is network-based, which is critical to any operator.”
Although Mobicomp is making the running in this sector, many others are active. In the US, the beleaguered content aggregator Oasys has launched Virtual Locker, while various operators have made own-brand products available. Verizon’s Backup Assistant costs $1.99 per month, for example.
In the UK, Mobyko offers a D2C service that’s free but offers downloads and texts for a £24.99 a month premium. Retail giant Carphone Warehouse has also entered the market, launching MyMobileMemory as part of its MyMobileServices family. And Ireland’s NewBay is currently powering O2 UK’s ‘My bluebook’ service, which allows users to store content by sending a message to shortcode 40202. Interestingly, My Bluebook also offers a sharing and community function, which reflects the eagerness of providers to evolve these lockers from simple back-up services to something far stickier that embraces social networking.
This is clearly on the agenda for MobiComp too. As a complement to its core locker product it now offers ‘Share it’, which lets people publish content to blogs and social networking sites. Then there’s ‘Discover it’, which merges the locker service with MobiComp’s Active mTicker application. This pushes information to subscribers via an always-on, scrolling ‘ticker’ that runs along the bottom of the screen when the deviceis in idle mode. Carlos Oliveira (pictured), CEO of MobiComp, says: “The idea is to make available the contents of a user’s locker directly to a community of friends using a ticker application. The good thing about this is the ease of discovery; you’re only one click away from the content.
We’re aiming it at the enterprise market too.” If phones are now digital repositories, where should we back up all our stuff? A number of ‘content locker’ specialists think they can help. Tim Greeninvestigates… to lockers
Providers of lockers are evolving them into something far stickier that embraces social mobile networking.