A new study released yesterday says half a billion people around the world are expected to tune in to mobile TV by 2013—a market that is estimated at, oh, $50 billion or so.

But the study’s author told me that in the United States, where Qualcomm’s MediaFlo is the leading technology, the growth of mobile TV is expected to remain sluggish. Among other things, American consumers don’t yet see the value in paying more to be able to tune into TV on the go. “The US hasn’t really latched on to the value of mobile TV so far because it’s constantly seen as an add-on from this a la carte menu of cellular services,” says Jeff Orr, a senior analyst for mobile content with New York-based ABI Research. Orr is the author of ABI’s study, “The Mobile TV Market,” a 72-page market analysis that reviews the key technologies, services, network infrastructure, content, and other elements of the global business.

MediaFlo provides mobile TV service for Verizon Wireless and AT&T cellular networks in the United States. Qualcomm has spent hundreds of millions of dollars expanding its network, which uses the 700 MHz spectrum, and MediaFlo had planned to launch its service in perhaps as many as 12 new cities the day after analog TV broadcasters switched to digital technology on Feb. 17th.

Some analog broadcasters still plan to vacate the 700 MHz spectrum, also known as Channel 55, even though Congress recently approved a four-month delay in …Next Page »

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A private software company that arose following the implosion of San Diego’s scandal-ridden Peregrine Systems says its business is booming despite the recession, because its innovative model for offering Software as a Service can help customers shave their IT costs.

Service-now.com was founded in 2003 to meet the same business needs served by Peregrine, which was once one of San Diego’s hottest technology companies. Service-now’s software, like Peregrine’s, helps big companies keep track of their assets, such as computers, software licenses and other IT resources. Privately held Service-now also offers a set of applications that helps IT organizations operate more efficiently by automating processes and helps system administrators manage their help desk operations.

But where Peregrine’s enterprise software had to be installed on a customer’s computer network, Service-now runs the software on its own network, and serves its customers’ needs by offering its Software as a Service. Chief Executive Fred Luddy says recurring revenue is now approaching $20 million per year, and he expects the company to start booking a profit by May or June. “This economy has played very well into our hands,” the Service-now CEO told me. “When things are going well the status quo is seldom questioned.”

By moving to the Web and doing away with management fees, Service-now is able to undercut competitors like BMC and Hewlett-Packard by 20 percent or more, Luddy says. In the current economic climate, those savings have opened doors for Service-now at big companies that might not have shown …Next Page »

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Bill Weihl, Google’s green energy czar, says the computer you’re likely using now is a bit like a toaster. It takes in energy and produces heat. A typical network server is more energy-efficient, but Weihl says it’s usually loaded with cheap parts and still wastes a third of the power it consumes, which emanates as heat. That’s not really hot enough to toast bread, and probably not enough to bring a teapot to boil. But a key issue for the industry is that it takes as much electricity to cool a typical data center as it takes to run the servers inside it.

So it was no minor accomplishment for Google to recently cut its energy use roughly in half, which is what Weihl told a conference in San Diego yesterday afternoon. You could even say it makes Google a green giant in the Valley (ho, ho, ho). It’s also worth noting that Weihl says engineers at the Mountain View, CA, technology colossus achieved the reduction by rejecting industry “best practices” and designing their own servers and data centers.

The two-day symposium on “Greening the Internet Economy” in itself represents a growing recognition by the ICT industry (Information and Communications Technology) that the computer and everything it’s connected to consumes enormous amounts of power. Also noteworthy is the fact that the California Public Utilities Commission co-sponsored the conference with U.C. San Diego, because of the role the agency has played in recent years in promoting renewable energy and curbing global warming. Weihl, a former computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former CTO of Akamai Technologies, got top billing as keynote speaker on the opening day.

Weihl says Google has committed itself to being carbon neutral by reducing power use, relying on renewable energy and investing in projects that cut greenhouse gas emissions. It’s seen by many as a noble goal, but going green also impacts Google’s bottom line. For the past seven years, Google has been designing its own servers because it saves money over the long run. Weihl says the company spends between $20 and $100 more for each server it buys, depending on size. But he says the extra cost pays for itself in reduced energy costs within six to 12 months.

The Internet search engine giant also designs and builds its own data centers, using evaporative cooling to keep its systems running. Citing figures from the Environmental Protection Agency, Weihl says the typical enterprise data center has a power usage effectiveness, or PUE, of 2. That means a facility consumes twice as much power as the computer equipment inside it. Weihl says Google has reduced its PUE to 1.2.

“Overall, through the efficiency work that we’ve done by …Next Page »

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San Diego’s MP3.com founder Michael Robertson says the iPod is dying and in a few years, “it will be just a footnote in history.”

Robertson recently predicted the passing of the enormously successful Apple music player in a provocative blog entry that argues mobile phones are destined to become the next-generation music player. He also uses the occasion to announce the launch of a new Internet site that delivers free digital music to cell phones.

Robertson created his latest venture, TuneRoom, as part of his MP3tunes organization, which operates both sideload.com and MP3tunes.com. TuneRoom allows users to search for music tracks and send them wirelessly to their mobile phone. Users can browse music files from a PC or Mac and send them to their cell phone, or use the mobile phone’s browser to visit TuneRoom and load the songs directly onto their phone. Robertson says the site has more than 150,000 songs available for free, and he believes he is onto something big.

“I have a decent track record predicting music trends,” he says.

But let’s not write the iPod’s obituary just yet. Robertson’s blog offers readers a chance to agree or disagree with his pronouncements. So far more than 530 people have voted on his views about dying iPods and next-generation music players—and 86 percent have disagreed with him.

Xconomy asked Robertson to explain why he thinks the iPod is dying and what need TuneRoom is addressing that the iPod lacks. He replied in an email: “The big limitation with iPod is NO WIRELESS DELIVERY. You want new music? Go cable it up to your PC. That’s bothersome and people always forget to do it. With tuneroom (and with a MP3tunes locker) I can send any song directly to my phone. I can go to any computer in the world and send music to my phone. No cables required. No special software required. No itunes limitations.”

It’s worth noting that while he takes aim at the iPod, Robertson does not address, or even mention, the Apple iPhone, iPod touch, or the iPhone WiFi Music Store, which offers wireless music downloads for both devices.

So how exactly is the iPod dying if it’s also evolving to include next-generation capabilities for wireless downloading? Perhaps Robertson, who founded MP3.com and triggered a battle with the recording industry, is just reprising his role as a serial provocateur.

As it turns out, TuneRoom uses sideload, Web-based software that is the subject of a copyright lawsuit filed in late 2007 by major record label EMI. The complaint alleges that Robertson’s MP3tunes—and its sideload Web site—infringe on its copyrighted music by operating an integrated online music service—and that MP3tunes lacks EMI’s authorization to do that.

Asked about that cloud hanging overhead, Robertson called the case “nonsense” and explained that “Sideload is simply a search engine and search engines are protected” by federal law.

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