Struggling wireless provider Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) has raised cash to beef up its network with new, faster technology.

Bellevue, WA-based Clearwire says it netted $715.5 million in stock sales Tuesday—$384.1 million in public share sales and another $331.4 million in a separate, private transaction with Sprint, its majority shareholder and customer.

It’s another big step in the rebuilding process that Clearwire CEO Erik Prusch has been quarterbacking since he took over the company in August from interim CEO John Stanton (previously, Prusch had served as CFO).

In a statement, Prusch said the infusion of cash “will enable us to continue delivering 4G mobile broadband service to meet the rapidly growing demand in the industry. We remain ideally and uniquely positioned to serve both wholesale and retail customers well into the future.”

Sprint’s participation in the stock sale is part of a $1.6 billion financing lifeline announced earlier this month, which allowed Clearwire to make a debt payment that it had considered skipping or paying late.

Clearwire was an early entrant in building fourth-generation, or 4G, networks in the U.S. But it based that network around a technology called WiMax, and the industry is now moving toward a faster technology known as Long-Term Evolution, or LTE. Clearwire has said previously that it could need around $600 million to build LTE capacity.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Remember when Sprint (NYSE: S) said it would buy more stock if Clearwire made an offering sometime in the future? Well, the bill’s about to come due: Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) says it plans to sell $300 million in Class A common shares. The sale’s underwriters also will get a 30-day option to buy up to $45 million more in Class A shares.

Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire said the stock sale will help finance its planned construction of a fourth-generation (or 4G) network based on technology known as long-term evolution, or LTE. Clearwire’s existing network is based around a different kind of technology, known as WiMAX, which is being passed by as LTE becomes standard in the industry.

Clearwire has previously announced plans to build an LTE network along its WiMAX offering, but needed about $600 million to pay for the project. Majority shareholder Sprint cut a financing deal with Clearwire last week to provide up to $1.6 billion, allowing Clearwire to make a debt payment that it had considered skipping.

That lifeline from Sprint included a commitment for Sprint to purchase stock based on its existing 49.6 percent voting interest in Clearwire. Sprint will be buying Class B common shares, Clearwire said in Monday’s announcement. The previously announced deal with Sprint also included a pre-payment of up to $350 over two years for capacity on Clearwire’s LTE network, if Clearwire hits milestones for building the network by June 2013.

J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch, and Jefferies & Company will be the joint book-running managers, Clearwire said.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Years ago, Bellevue, WA-based Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) placed a big bet. It thought that an Intel-backed wireless technology called WiMax would become the foundation of the “4G” broadband data networks that will eventually take the place of today’s 3G networks. It bet wrong—a rival technology called long-term evolution (LTE), backed by Verizon, AT&T, and other carriers, is winning the 4G battle in North America. But quarterly earnings results from Clearwire today show that the company is gradually bouncing back from its mistake.

Clearwire said that despite the spread of LTE, it has grown the subscriber base for its WiMax-based network to 9.54 million, an increase of 6.73 million over the figures from one year ago. Clearwire added 1.89 million of those subscribers in the third quarter. Revenues for the quarter totaled $332.2 million, a 13 percent increase over second-quarter 2011 revenues of $293.7 and a 134 percent increase over third-quarter 2010 revenues of $142.2 million.

Of course, the company is still hemorrhaging cash—just not quite as fast. After accounting for interest, taxes, deductions, and amortization, third-quarter losses at the company totaled $46.4 million, compared to second-quarter losses of $108.5 million.

The numbers were pretty much in line with financial figures that Clearwire pre-reported back on October 13. That disclosure was intended to stem a stock slide prompted by remarks by Sprint CEO Dan Hesse indicating that Sprint wouldn’t be leaning on Clearwire to build out its own national 4G network. The tactic seemed to help; after hitting an all-time low of $1.28 per share on October 10, Clearwire’s share price rebounded a bit, closing today (before the release of the third-quarter data) at $2.02.

Clearwire is now scrambling to switch over to LTE technology, arguing that it’s still got one big advantage—a fast, all-Internet based backend network. ”Today Clearwire is the only operational 4G wholesale business combining an all-IP network, substantial spectrum resources, and a technology roadmap to serve the growing demand for mobile broadband,” Clearwire president and CEO Erik Prusch said in a statement today. “We believe Clearwire’s deep spectrum resources are capable of meeting the urban demand that will likely strain the lower-capacity LTE deployments planned by other wireless operators.”

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share:          

One thing you can say about having Sprint as a majority investor: It’s not boring.

Shares of Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) bounced up today after the third-quarter earnings report from Sprint (NYSE: S), particularly CEO Dan Hesse’s comments about a possible deal for Clearwire’s as-yet-unbuilt long-term evolution network.

As quoted by Forbes’ Eric Savitz, Hesse said that Sprint has “signed a nonbinding cooperation agreement with Clearwire, to work together on the technical specifications of the Clearwire LTE network and to ensure a superb customer experience for Sprint customers on the Clearwire LTE network.” That kind of agreement is needed to pave the way for any broader deal to buy LTE service from Clearwire, Hesse added.

As Bloomberg reports, any Sprint deal to use Clearwire’s LTE network wouldn’t be in the picture until 2013. Clearwire still needs to actually build an LTE-based network—its fourth-generation infrastructure is currently based on a different kind of technology, called WiMax. It could cost Clearwire around $900 million to make the switch, but Sprint apparently isn’t ponying up cash for that effort yet.

This may all sound like pretty minor stuff, given all the tentative deals and possible partnerships and no commitments of money. But given Clearwire’s money-losing financial performance and the recent buffeting it’s taken on Wall Street, any appearance of a lifeline from its patrons at Sprint makes for big news.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that another round of Sprint statements sent Clearwire stock tanking. At that time, Sprint was rolling out its own Clearwire-free plans for an LTE 4G network, and Hesse pointedly said that he had nothing to announce beyond 2012 regarding Clearwire. Pressed by investors in that previous call, Hesse basically said that a bankruptcy by Clearwire wouldn’t be that bad.

Clearwire responded to that beating by pre-reporting some selected third-quarter financial numbers, showing record quarterly revenues and subscriber additions, along with a narrowing loss. Clearwire is scheduled to release its full third-quarter earnings report next Wednesday after the market closes.

Comments (2) | Reprints | Share:          

Sprint (NYSE: S) is unveiling a new plan to upgrade its national wireless network today, and Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire is not part of the picture. That’s sent shares of Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) into a nosedive, losing a third of their value in afternoon trading.

It had previously seemed that Sprint, as the majority shareholder, might have to play a key role in helping Clearwire remake its own network. Clearwire is a wholesale provider, but its early fourth-generation (or 4G) network is based on a kind of wireless technology called WiMax—and WiMax is quickly being displaced as long-term evolution, or LTE, becomes the industry standard.

Clearwire has said it needs close to $1 billion for its network upgrade—some $600 million to add LTE, with another $300 million or so to finish work on its existing WiMax infrastructure. But today, Sprint announced a $5 billion plan to upgrade its own network. And an investment in boosting Clearwire wasn’t part of the plan.

Even before today, Sprint had been sending increasing public signals that Clearwire is basically on its own. And the company hammered home the point even further today: As the Puget Sound Business Journal reports, Sprint said it wouldn’t offer Clearwire-compatible phones after next year, and CEO Dan Hesse said Sprint had “nothing beyond 2012 to announce” about network arrangements with Clearwire.

There’s also this Associated Press report on the analyst and investor meeting, which includes this key scene of Hesse basically pooh-poohing Clearwire’s situation:

“In a testy exchange with Sprint executives, a member of the audience at the investor meeting questioned why Sprint would risk forcing Clearwire to seek bankruptcy protection when it owns 54 percent of the company, and could lose its share of Clearwire’s spectrum in a bankruptcy case.

Sprint executives didn’t directly address that possibility, but Hesse noted that no bankruptcy case involving a wireless company has resulted in a disruption of service.”

Clearwire’s response was similar to the notes it’s sounded recently: Despite all the turmoil, it has lots of spectrum, and “Sprint remains dependent on Clearwire for 4G” today.

“As demand for mobile data increases, Clearwire remains the only viable 4G wholesaler with an operating 4G network, substantial spectrum resources, and a global technology road map to serve this growing market,” the company said in a statement.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Continuing its strategy to cut costs, Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) today said that about 700 customer service workers in Las Vegas and Milton, FL, will now be employed by TeleTech, which already had been performing some work for Clearwire. Some 180 workers in both cities will remain on the Clearwire payroll.
The Pensacola News Journal reports that about 370 of Clearwire’s roughly 500 workers in the Florida office will now work for TeleTech, with the balance remaining Clearwire employees. That also means the company is repaying some $2 million in incentive payments from the governor’s office, which the News Journal says Clearwire “received in anticipation of an expansion that will not happen.”
This follows the Kirkland, WA-based wireless network operator’s recent announcement that it would hand over day-to-day network operations to Ericsson, which performs the same function for majority shareholder Sprint (NASDAQ: S). (h/t Geekwire.)

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

After maturing into a steady software company with a mammoth organizational chart, Microsoft is the source of plenty of eye-rolling in the world of tech upstarts—hometown fans included. But every so often, you see a glimpse of what the Redmond, WA-based tech titan could do if its energy was directed just right.

We’ve certainly seen that kind of promise with Microsoft’s big acquisition of Skype, and at the Microsoft NERD center in Cambridge, MA, folks were treated to a fascinating look at the future from Qi Lu, the company’s head of online services. As Xconomy’s Greg Huang details in this report, Lu’s talk touched on several areas—deals, social, mobile—where Microsoft wants to dominate. Also check out the transcript of our exclusive interview with Lu.

The rest of the past week’s tech news:

—Back out west, Microsoft scored a little coup right in Google’s back yard by landing a multimillion-dollar contract to handle cloud e-mail services for San Francisco’s city and county government. It’s not a big moneymaker for someone the size of Microsoft, but getting the city hall crowd in America’s tech capital to pick your service over the hometown offering is a big PR win.

—Google came north to do a little shopping, acquiring consumer electronics shopping startup Sparkbuy for undisclosed terms. Sparkbuy had barely taken the covers off its service, which used online travel-inspired customization tools to help shoppers find laptops and TVs—making this look pretty clearly like a talent acquisition. The Sparkbuy team will be joining Google’s Kirkland, WA office.

—Speaking of talent, we had two more entrants in what might be this year’s overarching story in tech: The lack of qualified hires to fuel growth. I’ve covered this story a few times already with reports on the overall job climate and individual California companies making aggressive hiring moves, but there’s more ground to cover. In this week’s roundup, we have a sharp analysis from guest columnist Ed Lazowska and a study from job-search site Dice, which took a national look at which states have big shortages of tech talent.

—Xconomy had another great event here in Seattle, bringing together leaders in the cleantech sector to talk about the future of alternative fuels in the U.S. The speakers on our main panel all have deep experience in the science and business of trying to disrupt oil’s dominance as the world’s primary fuel, and sparked some really interesting conversations. Also—a photo gallery!

—Clearwire (NASDAQ:CLWR) took another step away from its original business plan, handing over management of its 4G wireless network to Ericsson—the company that also manages the network of Sprint (NASDAQ:S), Clearwire’s majority shareholder. There’s been an enormous amount of change at the Kirkland, WA-based company in just the past six months or so. It’ll be really interesting to see what interim CEO John Stanton and crew have in store for the rest of 2011.

—Zaarly is technically based in San Francisco, but has strong Seattle connections: co-founder Eric Koester is based here. So naturally, Zaarly picked Seattle as one of the original cities for the crowd-buying service’s kickoff.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Wireless network provider Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) continues taking significant steps to remake itself. Today, the Kirkland, WA-based company announced it is handing over day-to-day management of its fourth-generation (4G) network to Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC). The move means that about 700 Clearwire employees will work for Ericsson, “in locations around the United States before mid-year 2011,” the companies said in a news release. Financial terms of the seven-year partnership were not disclosed.

This looks like another sign of Sprint, Clearwire’s majority shareholder, exerting stronger influence over company direction and strategy—Ericsson has a similar management deal with Sprint (NYSE: S) dating to 2009, the press release said. Clearwire cut staff late last year as part of a restructuring plan, and announced at the end of 2010 that founder Craig McCaw was out as chairman.

In March, the company announced that another Northwest wireless pioneer, John Stanton, was taking over as interim CEO after three top officers left Clearwire. And last month, Clearwire and Sprint announced they had settled a lingering dispute over wholesale pricing in a $1 billion deal. At the time, Stanton said that deal would allow Clearwire to operate efficiently for the next two years while planning for growth.

Clearwire’s current 4G network is built around a technology called WiMax, but the company has said it is open to adopting a different kind of technology, called Long-Term Evolution or LTE, that is more widely used by other wireless companies. At the time of the Sprint wholesale deal, Stanton was quoted as saying that Clearwire would, however, need more money to expand to LTE. Clearwire’s current investors also include Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Intel

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

As we dive into a new week in Seattle, Amazon Web Services‘ big cloud computing crash is still reverberating. The server-farm failure took out countless small sites and apps that rely on Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) market-leading service, and the company got low marks for its communication while attempting to fix the problem over several days. I talked to a cloud-computing expert and an entrepreneur about one interesting element of the outage: Why some big-name companies, with enough resources to protect themselves, were still taken down by Amazon’s problems. It was also fun to see Seattle startup BigDoor quoted in a New York Times story on the Amazon outage.

Elsewhere in Seattle-area tech and innovation news:

—Zillow had been making public overtures toward an initial public stock offering in the past few months, and made good on those hints by filing paperwork for an IPO—the first by a Seattle-area tech company since mid-2010. I talked to investors and entrepreneurs in the region to see what they made of the move and of some of the idiosyncracies in Zillow’s preliminary pitch. There’s a long way to go before any Zillow stock actually hits Wall Street, but early stage tech folks were feeling pretty bullish about what the filing means for the near future and a warming investment market. Just a few days later, RFID maker Impinj filed its own papers for an IPO—at up to $100 million, it’s nearly twice the size of Zillow’s target. PopCap Games also has targeted this fall as its preferred time to go public.

—I took a closer look at some of the inventions being cooked up over at Intellectual Ventures, the Bellevue, WA-based invention and patent company started by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold. Plenty of people already know about IV’s TerraPower nuclear reactor, Photonic Fence mosquito-killing lasers, and of course the cookbook on steroids, Modernist Cuisine. But in this tour of Intellectual Ventures Lab, we got up close with some under-the-radar projects—ones that haven’t generated big headlines (yet), but are still showing huge potential. Two of the projects are in the arena of global health, a topic that Intellectual Ventures investor Bill Gates knows well—lab head honcho Geoff Deane says Gates’ ideas on major problems inform some of the projects.

—Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) made sweeping changes to its pay system, including a bigger bonus budget and shifting more money into cash rather than stock. This was a clear response to all the Silicon Valley companies moving into the Seattle area with the express intent of hiring engineers and other tech talent— Google, Facebook, Salesforce.com, Zynga, Twitter, and others have branch offices or … Next Page »

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share:          

Troubled 4G wireless network operator Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) had some positive news today, reporting that it and majority shareholder Sprint had resolved a dispute over wholesale pricing. Sprint (NYSE: S) will pay at least $1 billion over the next two years for use of Clearwire’s service, the companies said in a joint statement.

Interim Chief Executive John Stanton told the Wall Street Journal that the cash allows Clearwire to “operate efficiently over the next couple of years” and plan for expansion. Stanton took over the CEO’s job last month, after Bill Morrow and two other top officers left the Kirkland, WA-based company. Clearwire said at that time that it believed an agreement with Sprint was imminent. Clearwire founder and longtime wireless leader Craig McCaw resigned as chairman a few months back, and late last year Clearwire reported that it was cutting 15 percent of its workforce.

The deal announced today gives Clearwire $300 million this year, $550 million next year, and a $175 million prepayment to allow Sprint continued access to Clearwire’s 4G services. The two companies also said they have an agreement for Sprint phones that operate both on Sprint’s 3G network and Clearwire’s 4G system.

Stanton also declined to comment when asked by the WSJ whether Clearwire was discussing a possible takeover by Sprint, and said Clearwire would need more money if it decides to expand its 4G network to include a second type of technology, known as Long-Term Evololution or LTE. He did say Clearwire’s current investors, which also include Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Intel, may be interested in helping.

Clearwire’s current network is based on a technology called WiMax, but the company has tested LTE systems, and said it is “technology agnostic.” LTE is more widely used by other wireless companies.

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share:          

The sale of Bellevue, WA-based T-Mobile USA to AT&T for $39 billion shook up the mobile world this weekend, both nationally and in the Seattle area. It’s unclear what the practical effects will be for T-Mobile employees in the Puget Sound region, and we might not know for some time: The companies say the acquisition process could take about a year.

T-Mobile’s sale does, however, clearly mark the end of another major era in the region’s longstanding leadership in the wireless field. Check out this really interesting interview that Xconomy’s Greg Huang did with venture capitalist Tom Huseby in 2008 for a sense of the history at play. Basically: AT&T’s wireless business came of age with the 1994 acquisition of Seattle’s pioneering McCaw Cellular. And McCaw veteran John Stanton started VoiceStream, which was purchased by T-Mobile in 2001.

As Huseby noted in that Xconomy interview, “Every time someone was bought, they actually didn’t move people out of Seattle. People would move here, and it just kept growing … We have more concentration of carrier presence here than anywhere else in the country. It’s unbelievable.”

That’s not the situation today. AT&T’s headquarters are in Dallas and will undoubtedly stay there. In Sunday’s press release, AT&T did say that “the combined company will continue to have a strong employee and operations base in the Seattle area.” An AT&T spokesman told The Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley that “any reduction we anticipate will come through natural attrition.” GeekWire also got ahold of the memo sent to T-Mobile employees, in which CEO and President Philipp Humm said that “AT&T’s leadership has said keeping [T-Mobile's] talented people through this transition is one of their top priorities.”

Meanwhile, AT&T President Ralph De La Vega tells Mobilized that the tie-up will improve the network, won’t be a distraction for customers, and should have a good chance at getting federal approval. Washington, D.C.’s The Hill interviewed AT&T policy executive Jim Cicconi, who indicated that one element of the regulatory case will be that consolidation in mobile was inevitable.

And finally, The Seattle Times’ Jon Talton saw no positives for the Seattle area in the T-Mobile news. I found particularly compelling Talton’s emphasis on the effect that losing a major standalone tech company will have on the entrepreneurship landscape in the region. Therefore, his take gets the last word:

“I believe there’s nothing like a major headquarters for well-paying jobs, civic stewardship, attracting talent and capital, and fostering executive talent that leaves the mother ship to start new enterprises. Back-office towns always languish.”

Comments (3) | Reprints | Share:          

Competition in the crowded daily-deals market got a little more pugnacious recently with an acquisition by group discount site BuyWithMe. The Boston- and New York-based company purchased LocalTwist, boosting BuyWithMe in San Diego and putting the company in a new market—Seattle.

The latter city, of course, is the home base of competitor Tippr, the Martin Tobias-led company that is currently suing BuyWithMe in federal and state court over two different issues. As my colleague Greg Huang notes, it’s all part of the “life-and-death struggle for third place” in daily deals.

Other stories that made the rounds at Xconomy in the past week or so:

—Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) had another confrontation with state government over the company’s extreme aversion to being deputized as a sales-tax collector. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law that state’s version of an “Amazon law,” trying to make the sales in Illinois subject to sales tax by targeting Amazon’s marketing tie-ins with affiliate websites.

With a steady drumbeat of regulation attempts happening in the states, I took a look at why these efforts are really a side issue in making a big national policy change. Long story short: More aggressive state regulations aren’t likely to make Amazon heel, but they could serve as another prod for Congress to finally act on a broader solution.

—Kirkland, WA-based wireless provider Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) saw more top names hit the bricks, just a few months after founder and local wireless legend Craig McCaw left his post as chairman of the board. Chief Executive Bill Morrow, Chief Information Officer Kevin Hart, and Chief Commercial Officer Mike Sievert are out in the latest shake-up. As The Wall Street Journal’s Russell Garland noted, Sievert’s last public words on Clearwire’s behalf were very likely at our big Mobile Madness event, where he sounded optimistic: “We lack for nothing except cash.”

New board Chairman John Stanton, another titan of the Seattle-area wireless landscape, was immediately tapped as interim CEO while the board searches for a long-term replacement. Asked whether he’d take over as CEO permanently, Stanton gave The Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley an unequivocal no. Clearwire also said that it believes a resolution is near in a dispute over wholesale pricing with majority owner Sprint (NYSE: S).

—The center of gravity in the tech world shifted temporarily to some college town in Texas for the interactive portion of South by Southwest. Plenty of well-known names from the Seattle tech scene were … Next Page »

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share:          

Leadership shake-ups continue at Clearwire: the Kirkland, WA-based company said Thursday that CEO Bill Morrow and two other top officers are out.

Board chairman John Stanton, one of Washington state’s wireless pioneers, is now interim chief executive. Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) said Morrow is stepping down for personal reasons, and also is leaving as a director of the company’s board. Board-member Dennis Hersch will lead the committee charged with hiring a new CEO.

The change comes just a few months after Clearwire founder and longtime wireless leader Craig McCaw resigned as chairman. The company operates a WiMax 4G wireless network.

Clearwire also said Thursday that it believes an agreement is “imminent” to resolve wholesale pricing disputes with Sprint (NYSE: S), which is Clearwire’s majority shareholder. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse was quoted yesterday as saying that Clearwire would be part of “every option” for Sprint’s future.

Also leaving are Clearwire’s chief commercial officer, Mike Sievert, and its chief information officer, Kevin Hart. The company’s statement said the pair were going to “pursue other opportunities.”

Erik Prusch moves from chief financial officer to a new chief operations job, handling day-to-day responsibilities. Hope Cochran will be the new CFO, moving up from treasurer.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Hope you all had a fine Mardi Gras. Now it’s time to get down to business. Mobile business.

Yes, Mobile Madness 2011 is happening this afternoon, over at Microsoft NERD in Kendall Square (the program starts at 1:00 pm). We’ve helped assemble some of the top names in the mobile industry from New England and beyond, so bring your tough questions (we’ve got ours here and here, from emcee Wade Roush), and let’s have it.

We’re looking forward to a provocative, entertaining, and (we’re happy to say) unpredictable afternoon. Who knows, maybe 4G is just a big myth, our phones are making us dumber instead of smarter, and mobile commerce and enterprise apps are still stuck in 2005 (like my BlackBerry). Perhaps Stephen Wolfram will prove that the universe is actually an iPhone app (or is it Android?). And during the “location smackdown,” we might all discover that our lives are just an elaborate SCVNGR challenge, being orchestrated by Seth Priebatsch from his bunker on Second Street.

But seriously, mobile is everywhere. It has become a redundant term. And a lot of that actually comes from Boston companies. Ted Morgan from Skyhook Wireless (who’s part of the location smackdown) recently reminded me that the iPhone’s original location-finding technology, voice recognition system, and ad-serving platform all came from Boston-area teams. What’s more, at least five of the biggest mobile acquisitions of the past few years were from Boston—m-Qube, Quattro Wireless, Third Screen Media, Airvana, and Starent Networks.

“We’re living through one of the most explosive times in the tech industry,” Morgan says. “There’s a huge platform war going on for the mobile platform. Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google are looking to carve up the world.”

Help us get the Mobile Madness conversation going on Twitter using the hashtag #xmobmad. See you at NERD!

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

We’re coming off a fantastic health IT event last night at Microsoft New England Research & Development Center (more on that soon), but I wanted to take a minute to give our readers an update on Mobile Madness 2011, our next forum, which is just under a month away. It’s Xconomy’s third annual mobile event, and it’s happening on the afternoon of March 9, also at NERD (agenda here).

Stephen Wolfram, the distinguished scientist, author, and creator of Mathematica, A New Kind of Science, and Wolfram Alpha, has agreed to give a keynote presentation. You might wonder why Wolfram is speaking at a mobile conference. Well, it turns out that mobile computing is a big focus at Wolfram Research, the scientific software firm he founded in 1987 (he’s still CEO).

You’ll have to tune in on March 9, but I think Wolfram will touch on themes of information discovery, knowledge computing, and enterprise applications—all centered around his intellectual curiosity for mobile interfaces. (In an interview just over a year ago, he told me about the new kinds of computing he’s been doing on his iPhone, and the fact that “if you showed it to a technical person from years ago, they would think it’s a bizarre, impossible object.”)

The full agenda and speaker list for Mobile Madness is here. My colleague Wade Roush is making a triumphant return to Boston to emcee the event (unfortunately he’s going back to San Francisco afterward). Wade will kick things off by leading a panel on the future of 4G, which will be followed by moderated chats on mobile interfaces (how your phone is making you smarter), mobile payments and commerce, enterprise apps, and, lastly, the no-holds-barred “location smackdown”—a free-for-all discussion about the future of location-based apps and platforms—refereed by John Landry, in a reprise of his role from last year’s smackdown segment.

And a bonus feature: We will have not one, but two mobile startups coming out of stealth at the event. These companies and founders, who shall remain nameless until the big day, will give “burst” presentations to introduce their new businesses.

You can get more information and registration details on Mobile Madness 2011 here. Tickets have been going fast, but we hope to see you all on March 9.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

I just got a new BlackBerry smartphone last weekend, which makes me a mobile expert—for circa 2005-2006 maybe. Luckily for you (and me), there’s a big event coming up called Mobile Madness, which will tell you all you need to know about the industry in 2011 and beyond.

Xconomy’s third annual mobile conference, Mobile Madness 2011, is happening on the afternoon of March 9 at Microsoft N.E.R.D. in Cambridge, MA. This year’s theme is “getting down to business.” We want to delve into what the real, important business questions are for mobile startups and big companies; which kinds of money-making strategies are working (and which aren’t); and how consumer behaviors and expectations are evolving in the age of ubiquitous smartphones and tablets. All that and more, across the sectors of mobile payments, mobile interfaces, location-based services, enterprise apps, and 4G wireless infrastructure.

To that end, we are convening some of the top names in mobile and wireless computing from the Boston area, as well as our other hubs, for a series of interactive panels and chats. We’re excited to announce a few additions to the speaker lineup today. The group includes:

—Michael Sievert, chief commercial officer at Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR), the wireless broadband provider (and developer of WiMax).

—Mark Lowenstein, managing director of Mobile Ecosystem, a Brookline, MA-based wireless/mobile consulting and advisory services firm. (You can read his top five wireless trends to watch in 2011 here.)

—Andrew Paradise, founder and CEO of AisleBuyer, a Boston-based mobile checkout company.

—Drew Volpe, co-founder and CTO of Locately, a Boston-based location analytics startup.

—Meredith Flynn-Ripley, CEO of MediaFriends, the Boston-area mobile communications firm that makes HeyWire, a free text-messaging service.

These speakers join a distinguished cast of presenting companies that includes Qualcomm, Ruckus Wireless, Skyhook, SCVNGR, Swype, Vlingo, Where, Apperian, Fig Card, Ground Truth, Enterprise Mobile, and Ondeego. We’ll also have some prominent investors on hand who have skin in the mobile game, such as Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital Partners, Jamie Goldstein of North Bridge Venture Partners, John Landry from Lead Dog Ventures, and Rich Miner from Google Ventures. And we’ve got a couple of other surprises in store, just to spice things up…

My colleague Wade and I will be posting the detailed agenda pretty soon, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can register for the event here. We’re looking forward to seeing you on March 9.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

1) 4G. 4G services will become available on a near nationwide basis in 2011. At its best (and what is called “4G” gets murkier every day), 4G offers a true mobile broadband experience. In order to be successful, 4G operators must have a comprehensive go-to-market strategy, with compelling devices, exciting and differentiated applications, and innovative pricing models.

2) Re-Thinking the App Store. It’s great that there are 300,000 apps out there on iTunes, and 100,000 in the Android market. But with so many options out there — and not a lot of real businesses being built — there will be greater attention to search, discovery, context, and personalization to deliver a more effective and monetizable apps experience.

3) OS Consolidation. The new Windows Mobile 7 phones are pretty good. But can the market support another OS? Add to that the struggles of Symbian (Nokia) and WebOS (HP/Palm), and Blackberry’s declining share, and something is going to give. Look for something blockbuster involving Nokia, Microsoft, and possibly RIM.

4) Content Distribution Models. We are in the early innings of thinking about how print and broadcast content and programming are going to be effectively distributed digitally, and to our “multiple screens.” Next year will see the introduction of some innovative new business models, but also continued battles between content owners and emerging distribution networks.

5) Mobilization of the Enterprise. This is something that we have been talking about for years, and it has been happening in baby steps. But in 2011, we will see corporate IT make significant investments in mobile, driven by the availability of 4G, compelling new products such as smartphones and tablets, a more open and cost-effective application development framework, and a maturing ecosystem of companies to help firms mobilize.

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share:          

“Real” 4G Mobile broadband. Verizon recently launched its 4G LTE network (via laptop modem cards). The Verizon network speed dwarfs the “4G” networks being advertised by Sprint and T-Mobile. Verizon’s 4G will be users’ first taste of true mobile broadband and will further drive mobile data usage and the percentage of time users spend on the mobile Internet. The first 4G LTE handsets will be introduced mid-year and will be lighting fast compared to 3G models. Verizon’s 4G deployment combined with its rumored access to the iPhone market will place substantial pressure on AT&T to accelerate its 4G rollout with exciting new (likely Android-based) handsets.

Speech recognition. Voice input into mobile devices will start to become more mainstream. Companies like Audience are enabling the reduction of background noise on handsets, driving much greater speech recognition accuracy. At the same time, the Android platform has legions of end users effectively “training” Google’s speech recognition engines (in multiple languages) via Google’s voice search. Speech recognition quality will get better and better and voice input will start to feel more intuitive and efficient compared to touch screen typing

Solar industry progress. After a two-year drought of capital access and valuations challenges, a number of solar start-ups will have weathered the storm and start to show real progress on commercial deployments, manufacturing capacity and competitive costs per kilowatt hour. While it is unlikely this sector will be positioned to see new IPOs, a few early winners will emerge and bring new investor enthusiasm to the sector.

“See what I see”. Apple’s Facetime technology will expand its footprint and be enabled across multiple devices and beyond just WiFi. While video conversations will be common, the more mainstream use will be providing a video window to another person to “see what I see”- e.g., a concert, a document, a product, a meeting, etc. These video interactions will start to become commonplace.

Biotech M&A. Biotech sector deal making should heat up as the large pharma companies face increasing pressure to fill their R&D pipelines and mitigate the impact of drugs going off patent. While the IPO market for biotech may remain lukewarm, there should be more and more big deal making for attractive clinical programs as well as acquisitions by the large players.

[Editor's Note: This is part of a series of posts from Xconomists and other technology and life sciences leaders from around the U.S. who are weighing in with the top surprises they've seen in their respective fields in the past year, or the major things to watch for in 2011.]

Comments (11) | Reprints | Share:          

Wi-Fi: it’s the new utility, as crucial to many consumers and businesspeople as electricity and telephones. Wi-Fi chips are built into 800 million new laptops, mobile phones, tablet PCs, printers, video game controllers, and TV set-top boxes every year, and Wi-Fi networks blanket virtually every office, library, airport, hotel, café, and campus.

If only Wi-Fi were as dependable as most other utilities. Unfortunately, the more people who install access points in dense urban environments, the more interference arises between devices, slowing everyone’s connections. On top of that, Wi-Fi signals share the unlicensed 2.4-Gigahertz frequency band with Bluetooth, Zigbee, cordless phones, baby monitors, car alarms, ham radio, and even microwave ovens. (Yes, Wi-Fi devices use roughly the same wavelength as the radio pulses that, at much higher power, can bake a potato.) That’s why you might have a blazing-fast, 30-megabit-per-second Wi-Fi connection in one corner of your office, but lose it a minute later if you shift six feet to the left. Especially if someone is using the microwave at lunchtime.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that Wi-Fi signals, like cellular or FM signals, spread indiscriminately in all directions. That’s a feature, not necessarily a bug: your home or office Wi-Fi router doesn’t know where you are, so it has to send signals everywhere. But what if your router were smarter, and could use modern beam-forming technology to shoot a signal straight at your device—then make that beam follow you as you moved from your desk to your couch to your kitchen? In principle, signals from a dynamic, directional Wi-Fi antenna would have a greater range, and would be far less vulnerable to interference.

Well, it turns out this is an idea radio engineers have been thinking about for a while. And there’s a company in Sunnyvale, CA, called Ruckus Wireless that’s making it work so well that cellular carriers may soon start placing Ruckus Wi-Fi systems in public places, where they could help rescue strained 3G networks by taking on much of the data traffic now squeezing through the 3G channel. That’s called “offloading,” and it’s one of the ways harried operators—whose networks now support unanticipated numbers of 3G devices like iPhones, iPads, and Android phones—hope to survive the interim years before the arrival of true 4G technologies, which could offer Wi-Fi-like speeds across much greater distances.

PCCW, Hong Kong’s leading telecom company, has been installing Ruckus Wi-Fi routers in phone booths, which tend to be located in places where there are also lots of people using cell phones. “Pedestrian gathering places are good places to put Wi-Fi access points,” Ruckus CEO Selina Lo says. “PCCW told me that in peak areas, at peak times, they can see as much as 20 percent offload.” If AT&T were able to hand off that much of its 3G traffic to Wi-Fi, it might be able to mollify many of the iPhone owners who are eager to switch to Verizon, on the (iffy) assumption that the other carrier’s network will have more capacity.

Incubated six years ago in the offices of Sequoia Capital in Menlo Park, CA, Ruckus has collected $51 million in venture backing, from Sequoia as well as Firelake Capital, Focus Ventures, Investor AB, Motorola Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, and WK Technology Fund. It’s a scrappy and persistent company—the barking dog in its logo isn’t wholly whimsical—and it has reinvented its product line at least twice over the years to adapt to market trends. But the 278-employee startup, which flirted earlier this year with the idea of going public but put the idea on hold due to the sluggish economy, is now under pressure to find a major market for its smart Wi-Fi access points. So there’s a lot riding on the 3G offloading concept—an idea Ruckus adopted from one of its own customers in India, Mumbai-based Tikona Digital Networks (more on that below).

Lo argues that even after 4G technologies like Verizon’s LTE standard take hold, there will be a need for other shorter-range technologies to fill in the inevitable gaps in coverage. “Licensed spectrum is an expensive resource, so there is always going to be … Next Page »

Comments (4) | Reprints | Share:          

Verizon Wireless will be rolling out its 4G LTE network in 38 major metropolitan areas nationwide, including Seattle, by the end of the year, the company said today. The network will span from the Seattle waterfront to Issaquah, and Lynnwood to Fife. In addition to the nationwide network launch, Verizon will also be equipping 60 commercial airports across the country with 4G access, including both Sea-Tac and Boeing Field. Verizon says the new network will be significantly faster than its current 3G network.

Comments | Reprints | Share: