Press Release: Morodo and Palm Tree Technology Announce a Strategic Alliance to Secure Users Mobile Top Ups

LONDON – Morodo Limited today announced that it has partnered with UK based Palm Tree Technologies to implement the privacy enhancing technologies to protect their global mobile users when they use their comprehensive line of low cost telecommunication services. These solutions are offered worldwide in both emerging and developed markets. The company offers services that include low cost mobile phone solutions and VoIP all integrated into a single product offering.

Morodo Managing Director, Andrew Reid, said, “MO-Call user base is growing rapidly this partnership reinforces our commitment to deliver brand innovation to our mobile community. Implementing and deploying privacy enhancing technology will build user confidence and trust in our services. This initiative will build customer loyalty in some of the world’s most competitive mobile marketplaces.”

Key Points around this partnership

• Customers will benefit from a protected environment on their mobile devices.

• Both companies will focus on building trust around the new mobile medium.

• Palm Tree Technology PLC is the leading pioneer in bringing privacy enhancing technology to the mobile transactions space.

Palm Tree Technology CEO Ross Macdonald quoted: “Implementing LiveEnsure™ into Morodo services will provide safe and secure mobile authentication for their users when they top up and use their phones. Their users will rest assured that they can use the broad spectrum of Morodo services safely and without fear of fraud or Identity theft .”

MO-Call enables low-cost and free calling and SMS direct from a mobile phone or computer. MO-Call works through a browser or plug-in software applications that can be downloaded from the MO-Call website www.mo-call.com

About Palm Tree Technology

Founded in 2004 Palm Tree Technology is a UK PLC Technology company with innovative IP and global reach, markets and partners. The company’s products include ID InsureTM an identity authentication application that secures users, devices, sites, and sessions on client and host platforms. LiveEnsureTM is the authentication self-service (SaaS) variant of ID InsureTM for small and mid-sized websites; an online user authentication plugin that is a new breed of privacy enhancing technology that enables secure online transactions.

www.liveensure.com

For further information, contact:

Palm Tree Technology PLC:

Louise Robertson

Marketing and Corporate Communications,

louise@palmtreetechnology.com

Mobile Operators Giving Up Voice?

We were interested to read Scandinavian Analyst Company, Northstream, had to say about the future of voice for traditional Mobile Network Operators.

I’m sure you’ve all heard, or read, of the coming 4G networks, the next generation of data connectivity from mobile devices. Northstream has tested the world’s first true 4G network offering from TeliaSonera and not found it wanting.

For customers in Stockholm, Sweden, TeliaSonera provide access to the kind of high-speed network that puts your fixed broadband to shame, for the kind of price that your Mobile Operator sells a few hundred minutes of national calls.

Why is this important?

As Northstream has it, this is put up or shut up time for the Mobile Network Operators. The technology used in TeliaSonera’s 4G network is known as Long Term Evolution (LTE), a perfect bearer for standard SIP VoIP; as of yet, the Operator’s own plans for Voice Over LTE have yet to reach consensus on standard or implementation. As Northstream state:

“..operators do not possess the working culture and skills required to be service innovators or even full-service providers of digital services and content: The level and speed of innovation originating from online service providers is too massive for operators to offer serious competition on the service level, even in markets where operators continue to dominate mobile service delivery.”

There we have it, in short the Mobile Network really is a bitpipe. We’re not ones to crow, but we could point out that we told you so back in 2006. This is the most exciting time to be offering alternative voice and messaging services, not only is the hype-cycle climbing the curve of mass adoption, the technology is also shifting in our favour.

MO-Call teams with Ukash to connect the unbanked.

LONDON – Morodo Limited today announced that it has partnered with Ukash to provide a new payment option for customers of its well-known MO-Call voice and SMS service. MO-Call customers may now use Ukash vouchers to buy airtime credit at the MO-Call website from their mobile phone or computer.

Morodo Managing Director, Andrew Reid, said. “Working with Ukash allows us to connect the unbanked to low-cost calls and SMS. MO-Call offers the best value in communication from just about any mobile, anywhere in the world. Perhaps the most frequently asked question of our customer services team is ‘How can I pay if I don’t own a credit or debit card?’ We’re very pleased that Ukash provides us with a simple answer to that question. MO-Call is now equally accessible to everyone.”

Paul Coxhill, Marketing Director, Ukash, said: “Ukash provides everyone – from the hundreds of thousands of unbanked consumers to those who are wary of using credit cards on the Internet – with a way to make simple and secure payments online using cash. The partnership with MO-Call is another step toward our goal of allowing everyone, anywhere in the world to benefit from using cash to shop, pay and play online.”

MO-Call enables low-cost and free calling and SMS direct from a mobile phone or computer. MO-Call works through a browser or plug-in software applications that can be downloaded from the MO-Call website http://www.mo-call.com

Bit Torrent and Open Government

Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that the UK Government has got a few things wrong in its short history of using and legislating the Internet.

Let me nail my colours to the mast and say that I am a huge fan of Cory Doctorow’s philosophy:

“As a practical matter, we live in the 21st century and anything anybody wants to copy they will be able to copy. If you are building a business model that says that people can only copy things with your permission, your business is going to fail because whether or not you like it, people will be able to copy your product without your permission. The question is: what are you going to do about that? Are you going call them thieves or are you going to find a way to make money from them?”

I truly believe that there are new business models waiting to be discovered, tried, tested and executed. I’m not just talking about Kevin Kelly’s Truefans or Rupert Murdoch’s Paywall, P2P is perhaps one of the best marketing tools that has ever existed (next to the immortal words Free Beer). The best way to monetise P2P file-sharing is not through litigation.

Today, whilst reading Nextweb’s piece on the UK Government releasing 10GB of public-spending information via Bit Torrent, I actually felt a little proud of the Men-from-the-Ministry for embracing the 21^st Century.

Dare I say it, I even felt hopeful. This is what Open Government should be. Fingers-crossed eh?

Image: P2P Foundation

The Mobile VoIP Model is Changing and it’s “Good For Business”

This week, not one, but two, heavyweight analysts have published reports that indicate the growing strength of Mobile VoIP. The first is from Juniper, and the second from Ovum. For the uninitiated, here are several of the salient points as we see them.

Mobile VoIP customers make more calls. It seems so obvious one wonders why the Mobile Network Operators took so long to do the math. Interrogating our database of heavy-use MO-Callers, we know that people who want to save money on calls do so because they make a lot of calls.

Mobile VoIP customers are “sticky” and less likely to churn away to alternative services. Again, seemingly obvious but give the people what they want and they’re happy, try and ban or block the services they want to use and hey presto, they move away.

Mobile VoIP and VoIP will not be free forever – this is not a race to zero. Frankly, we were unsuprised that Skype announced that they would begin charging for 3G Mobile VoIP calls in the New Year. The Telecoms Industry is struggling to find new data tariffing models to support the build and maintenance of high speed networks, everyone is making every attempt to sweat monetization at every point of the value chain.

So what does all this mean for Morodo? Well, we’re pleased to tell you that it’s all good news for us. Why?

Mobile VoIP is an offer that has yet to reach mass-adoption in any market. The more people putting Mobile VoIP in the press, on blogs, on TV, radio etc the better for Morodo.

Mobile Network Operators get Mobile VoIP and their interested. Regular readers of the Morodo blog will know that we presented MO-Call at the Beijing Global Mobile Internet Conference. We were very pleased at the number of approaches from Operators, most of whom just ‘got’ the business model right away.

Morodo’s network and apps sweat every network technology. Honestly, we read a lot about 3G, 4G, LTE, WiMax, EVDO, HSDPA etc. etc. ad infinitum. These are meaningless terms and acronyms to the consumer,  they don’t care about the technology that provides the service, they just care that it works. Well, Morodo works on just about any network bearer you care to mention.

Pricing is not a zero sum game. We have always sought to keep our pricing as transparent and simple as possible. It’s what customers want. In the new era of unmetered charging (flat rate per month fees for usage) we know that we’ll have a lot flexibility to offer the market what it wants. And we know the value of giving the customers exactly what they want.

GMIC Beijing – into the Dragon’s Den

Beijing’s annual Global Mobile Internet Conference was better attended than most GSM Mobile World Congress conference halls.

For two days, the great and good of the Chinese Mobile Internet regaled us with valuable advice, canny predictions and wonderful insight. As a cross-cultural affair for networking and business learning I cannot recommend this event highly enough, definitely one for your 2011 diary and beyond.

Morodo was on the shortlist of the Innovation competition for start-ups. I really enjoyed presenting MO-Call to the massed attendees and a stiff panel of experts. Thank you to the Dragons, Joe Jasin, Victor Tong, William Wang and Wang Ye, for the excellent advice and feedback.

Thank you also to Benjamin Joffe and Barrett Parkman, founders of the Great Wall Club, organisers of the event. Now I’m looking forward to catching up with all the new people we met.

Image: Duncan Leung

Press Release: MO-Call for the iPhone now works on 3G networks

LONDON – Morodo Limited today announced the release of a new version of its iPhone app that supports cheap calls and SMS via both WiFi and 3G networks. The new iPhone app is free and available now for installation or upgrade from iTunes.

Morodo Managing Director, Andrew Reid, said. “This is the first of many MO-Call apps that will allow customers to make MO-Calls over the 3G network. What’s more, the app offers both cheap calls and low rate SMS. If your Mobile Network Operator’s iPhone bill is too expensive – well – now there’s an app for that!”

“It seemed like all of customers were asking us for a MO-Call app that used 3G as well as WiFi, it’s great that the iPhone app has been released first. It works on any iPhone or iPod touch running software version 3.0 or above and it even works on the iPad. We’ll be launching MO-Call 3G apps for other devices soon..” Added Chief Technical Officer, James Barnes.

MO-Call enables low-cost and free calling and SMS direct from a mobile phone or computer. Offering seamless connection of low-cost and free calls, MO-Call provides savings of up to 90% over Traditional mobile and Fixed Line networks. MO-Call works through a browser or plug-in software applications that can be downloaded, free of charge, from the MO-Call website www.mo-call.com