Telephony Online

The Symbian Foundation announced its spin-off from Nokia as a non-profit organization at CTIA Wireless, complete with a new logo, a beta Web site and ambitious aims. At an open forum event at the show, Foundation members, journalists and analysts discussed the future of Symbian’s open-source mobile operating system. The common trend that emerged was a concern that its ties to Nokia were still too strong. more

Verizon announced at CTIA that it is opening its own Mobile Web Games and Apps Store, what it called ‘another easy and fun way for consumers to access the games and applications’ it offers. The portal will feature the tools and titles Verizon already makes available on many of its handsets. Customers with Get It Now-capable phones can use the mobile Web to browse and search the storefront on either a WAP or HTML handset. more

Vodafone Spain this week introduced a new music strategy built around data plans that include unlimited access to mobile music for 12 Euros, or about $16, per month. The logic behind the relatively inexpensive unlimited plan is that if Vodafone can accelerate data penetration, it’ll make more money than from a pay-per-song model, according to RealNetworks chairman and CEO Rob Glaser. more

Mobile technology and content provider Didmo is branching out from its traditional focus, mobile games and advertising, to launch Magmito, a user-generated mobile content service enabling consumers and enterprises to publish and share their life’s events on mobile devices. The free service lets users form invitations, albums or events on their PC by selecting a template, customizing it with information and photos and sending it to as many mobile devices as they like. more

As Nokia prepares to officially open its unified application storefront to consumers, the handset maker is stressing that Ovi Store is not about cashing in on the app store craze, it’s the culmination of Nokia’s year-long plans to solve the problem of discoverability and disparate processes across its handsets. more

Microsoft has used to CTIA this week to expand on its Windows Marketplace for Mobile strategy and its Windows 6.5 upgrades, but entertainment and devices president Robbie Bach used his keynote today to outline how it all fits together. Enabling the connected experience is an important goal for the software maker, invested heavily in IPTV through its Mediaroom middleware, wireless through Windows Mobile and, increasingly, netbooks on the PC side. more

As Yahoo reorganizes its business with a new CEO and talks of a Microsoft acquisition still in the air, the software company today brought its mobile strategy to the forefront. Yahoo Mobile, its open, personal mobile portal to the Internet, now has a place in Apple’s iPhone app store and on 300 handsets via the mobile Web. The company also used CTIA to preview a Yahoo Messenger app for the iPhone, which will bring the online chatting service to the handset. more

Research In Motion today opened the doors to its long-awaited BlackBerry App World, the hardware maker’s effort to stay on par with Apple and others and to woo third-party developers with its well-established business users and rapidly growing consumer base. Co-CEO and president Mike Lazaridis officially unveiled BlackBerry’s app strategy at his keynote today, just one day after Microsoft offered more details on its version, Windows Marketplace for Mobile. more

T-Mobile’s expanding 3G network, which today covers 130 cities, will cover 100 more, doubling its reach to 207 million consumers, by the year’s end, said Robert Dotson, CEO of T-Mobile USA. In his keynote presentation kicking off CTIA today, Dotson reiterated T-Mobile’s commitment to its 3G rollout, as well as advanced high-speed services, HSPA+ and long-term evolution. more

Mobile devices could be used for voting in the United States by 2016 – and not just for American Idol, but in government elections. Internet infrastructure vendor VeriSign today released its top five predictions for the

messaging and mobile media markets, including an increase of messaging in the government, enterprise and charitable organizations. In the next few years, the company forecasts that: more