Exercise 25-part4

4. According to Nokia: The Nokia One Mobile Connectivity Service provides easy and secure access to email, calendar, directory and more from a mobile phone, PDA, PC or fixed-line phone -take your corporate applications mobile. Why is a company like Nokia - http://www.nokia.com/ - described as having end-to-end expertise? According to Takeshi Natsuno, media director of Gateway Business Department, NNT mobile Communications Network, Inc (NTT DoCoMo) of Japan: The mobile phone will be an electronic wallet.

Nokia is an end to end expertise because it fulfulls five key steps to create competitiveness through end-to-end innovation(Nokiasiemensnetworks, 2008). :

1. Do the research - First, it' s essential to have a broadunderstanding of end-user needs, as well as market behavior and the challenges you face. Up-to-datemarket research from analysts around the world is one part of the jigsaw.A deeper insight comes from NokiaSiemens Networks' own research and global experience of markets, as well as our close cooperation with Nokia and Siemens and their understanding of end-user behavior.We discuss your needs and aims with you and combine all these elements to paint an accurate picture of your subscribers' needs and the business environment you face.

2. Identify the opportunities for innovation - Innovation can encompass new business models, new revenues and new technologies, which all come together to deliver an exceptional end-user experience. Identifying the opportunities for innovation takes an analysis of the research data, using your own market and business knowledge combined with our expert consulting capability and global experience. The opportunities will vary depending on your preferred business model, homemarket and target user segments. Listening to you, we help to identify opportunities early, while the marketis ripe for development and your competitors are still playing catch-up.

3. Specify the solutions - Services innovation depends on the whole end-to-end chain, encompassing technology aspects like the end-user device, access network and backhaul, core infrastructure, applications, management and operations, as well as striking the appropriate partnership deals with other playersin the ecosystem. It's essential to take into account all these aspects when creating solutions customized to your needs. As a leading solutions provider in mobile and fixed environments, we have the capability and resources to help you establish clear business goals and provide every link in the chain. You remain free to choose the services and solutions you want,whether devices, network design, infrastructure elements including thirdparty products, applications, network operations, managed services, or acomplete package.

4.Implement your plans - Having established the right solution, it needs to be implemented quickly and efficiently while retaining simplicity and quality, including proper interoperability.Our Solutioneers use proven processes to ensure an end-to-end focus when developing and delivering your solution. We can integrate entire systems or selected components to tailor solutions to your needs. Launching new services, rolling out infrastructure and improving business processes becomes efficient and fast. Project management, services and marketing support, network operation and competence transferhelp make it all happen.
We can also be a strategic partner in the marketing of your servicelaunch, providing practical
co-marketing support to gain maximum revenues and profits.

5. Evolve your services portfolio - Markets move fast and it's vital to evolve services quickly to stayahead. Constant research is needed to predict changing user behavior and find new ways to improve theunderlying technology. This is an ongoing process, including planning roadmaps and lifecycle management for services, devices and networks. We constantly update our research to stay ahead of markettrends. Such intelligence is central to our dialog with you, helping to guide continuous solution development and process improvement, and leverage technology developments to enhance existing services and create new ones.Our commitment to R&D is fundamental in creating theinnovation you need to meet yourevolving requirements. This starts right back up the supply chain, withour close co-operative working relationships with early suppliers,such as chip manufacturers.

References:
Nokiasiemensnetworks (2008). "End-to-end expertise - our offering". Received 11th May, 2009 from URL - http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/cn/Insight/end-to-end/end-to-end-expertise.htm?languagecode=en

Exercise 25-part3

3. Visit the W3C website and find the status of the VoiceXML project. When do you think it will affect business on the web and what will its impact be?

W3 (2008) states that the Voice Browser Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0. This document specifies VoiceXML 3.0, a modular XML language for creating interactive media dialogs that feature synthesized speech, recognition of spoken and DTMF key input, telephony, mixed initiative conversations, and recording and presentation of a variety of media formats including digitized audio, and digitized video. The primary goal of this version is to bring the advantages of Web-based development and content delivery to interactive voice response applications.

When gauging VoiceXML server performance, Cisco (2009) states that the key aspects to consider are:
• Network bandwidth between Web application server and the VoiceGateway and QOS.
• Performance on the VoiceXML Server - CVP Bill of Materials (BOM) requires the MCS-7845 as a VoiceXML server. Adequate performanceis required on the server side to respond to VoiceXML over HTTP requests.
• Use of pre-recorded Audio vs. Text to Speech - Good Voice User Interface applications tend to use pre-recorded audio files wherever possible.Recorded audio sounds much better than TTS. Pre-recorded Audio file quality needs to be designedsuch that it does not impact download time and browser interpretation. Make recordings in 8-bit Mulaw 8Khz format.
• Audio File Caching - Make sure the Voice gateway is set to cache Audio content prevents delays in having to downloadfiles from the media source.Refer to the Section titled Gateway Prompt Caching Considerations for more details on PromptManagement on Supported Gateways
• Use of Grammars - A voice application, like any user-centric application, is prone to certain problems that might onlybe discovered through formal usability testing, or observation of the application in use. Poor speech recognition accuracy is one type of problem common to voice applications, and a problem mostoften caused by poor grammar implementation. When users mispronounce words or say things that the grammar designer does not expect, the recognizer cannot match their input against the grammar.Poorly designed grammars containing many difficult-to-distinguish entries also results in manymisrecognized inputs leading to decreased performance on the VoiceXML server.Grammar tuning is the process of improving recognition accuracy by modifying a grammar basedon an analysis of its performance.

Hence, in order to implement the VoiceXML on their web, business needs focus on above points.
Otherwise, poor performance with VoiceXML will result in negative response.

References:
W3 (2008). " W3C Home Page News Archive". Received 10th May, 2009 from URL -http://www.w3.org/News/2008

Cisco (2009). "Design Implications for VoiceXML Server". Received 10th May, 2009 from URL -Design Implications for VoiceXML Server

Exercise 25-part2

2. Visit an airline Web site and search for information on WAP or SMS access to booking airline services. Do the same for WAP or SMS services in banking. How do both industries compare?

I visit an airline web site named Northwest Airlines (http://www.nwa.com/)

And I study their work flow of booking airline services used WAP in the following:

Step 1.) Passenger checks in online and opts for mobile boarding pass.


Step 2. ) NWA's check-in system transmits the relevant data - barcode number, mobile phone number, handset make and model and dynamice text underneath (seat number, flight destination to Mobiqa (mobiqa 2009) which is a travel web agent in XML format. Mobiqa's API is available on request.


Step 3.) Mobiqa send out the mobile tickets either by WAP push, Email (link html attachment) pr MMS to the customer's mobile phone.

Step 4.) Passengers take their monile phone and it is scanned at security and the boarding gate.


Step 5.) Scanner used were Desko GRSK 500 either containing or linking to the original ticketing platform that sold the ticket in the first place to compete validation.

Generally, there are little different of using WAP service beween booking airline services and mobile banking, for example

a.) Your cellphone when using WAP banking service that must have got the Security certificate before doing any operation.

b.) Your bank account must be linked with your phone card number.

References:

Mobiqa (2009). "Products". Received 10th May, 2009 from URL - http://www.mobiqa.com/airlines/products.html

Exercise 25-part1

Exercise 25: M-commerce and the e-wallet: Innovation and mobile devices

Explore ONE of the problems associated with mobile technology or their supplier, from 1 to 4 below:

1. What is meant by a location based service?

Wikipedia (2009) states that A location-based service (LBS) is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device. LBS services can be used in a variety of contexts, such as health, work, personal life, etc. LBS services include services to identify a location of a person or object, such as discovering the nearest banking cash machine or the whereabouts of a friend or employee. LBS services include parcel tracking and vehicle tracking services. LBS can include mobile commerce when taking the form of coupons or advertising directed at customers based on their current location.

References:
Wikipedia (2009). "Location based service". Received 10th May, 2009 from URL -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location_based_service.