The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
Commenting on the proposed Microsoft Yahoo! merger, Ovum analyst John Delaney said: "So far, the Internet portal players have failed to achieve a convincing level of scale or momentum with their forays onto the small screen. Nor have any of the mobile operators achieved de facto dominance with their portal brands. When it comes to Internet services on mobile phones, everything is still to play for in a potential market measured in billions of people."
Nor would a merged Yahoo!/Microsoft be starting from scratch. According to Delaney, "Microsoft and Yahoo have a track record of co-operation with the mobile operators in developing mobile Internet services, with numerous partnerships in place for several years for mobile access to their email and Messenger services. Yahoo is also building a set of partnerships with operators in the embryonic area of mobile advertising, including AT&T in the US, and Vodafone & T-Mobile in the UK."
Google and Android will have a very long way to go to catch up. And there is no doubt that the percentage of Internet access undertaken from mobile devices will grow rapidly in coming years as mobile broadband speeds get faster, as costs fall and as a host of specific devices and applications emerge.
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
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