Israel : Beneath Wars and Beyond Technology

7.3 million people, 9.2 million mobile subs and a base of companies that helped to mould the industry we know today. What’s so special about Israel?

European football fans don’t think twice about seeing Israel compete in the Euro Championship qualifiers. It always has. Yet Syria doesn’t. Neither does Lebanon – and they’re both closer.

But then Israel is different. Politically, economically and culturally it behaves more like a European country than its close neighbours. And in mobile, it’s a genuine global powerhouse, home to some of the industry’s most innovative and influential companies.

Israel has produced game changing companies in Amdocs (billing), Comverse (networks), M-Systems (memory cards), Infogin (transcoding), Celltick (idle screen) and many more (see box). According to Invest In Israel, the country had 70 companies listed on the Nasdaq in 2006 – more than any other country apart from the US.

This from a 60 year-old country of 7.3 million people. So what is it about Israel that makes it such a force in mobile. The military is one factor. Israel’s brightest all get fast-tracked into the military’s technology operation when they do national service.

And this support is complemented by government initiatives such as the $400 million provided annually by the Chief Scientist’s Office. Indeed, in 2007, it’s estimated that 462 Israeli high-tech companies raised $1.76 billion from local and foreign VCs.

Such factors act as a cradle for a entrepreneurial spirit that is abundant in a population of immigrant Jewish Europeans, Americans and Russians. And, of course, success breeds success, so many of the people employed by Amdocs, Comverse and the rest go on to create their own start-ups. Meanwhile, the relatively small size of the domestic opportunity forces a global outlook on these nascent businesses.

Eyal Reshef, CEO of the Israel Mobile Association, certainly believes this. He says: “I recently met a German start-up and everything it did was focused on the German market. Israeli companies can’t do this, so they think big and global from the beginning.”

Having said that, the Israeli mobile market can be a fine test bed for interesting content ideas. It’s home to three evenly matched operators in Cellcom, Orange and Pelephone, each running different network types (TDMA, GSM and CDMA2000 respectively). However, 35 per cent of subscribers use 3G and 70 per cent are post-paid, which points to a population that’s affluent and open to rich mobile services.

This consumer advancement is why Cellcom is now embarking on a major initiative to prepare itself for a converged communications era. It’s working on various ideas to maximise its ‘three screen’ offer across web, mobile and TV, such as its video-on-demand joint venture with Blockbuster Digital. Adi Cohen, VP of marketing at Cellcom, says: “We’re fortunate to have a population that’s very advanced while being locally oriented.”

Mobile advertising is a particular focus for Cellcom, which launched a service called ‘Time Is Money’ in September that gives free minutes to consumers that watch ads on a PC. It also signed a deal with local specialist Media Layers to use the latter’s multi-channel SMART system to power ‘Time Is Money’ and to insert ads in real time into all its rich media content channels.

SMART enables Media Layers' partners and customers to centrally manage mobile advertising across all mobile service channels – WAP, messaging, video streaming, content downloads, Ringback Tone and more – and is a fine example of Israeli innovation, using predictive modelling tools to deliver ads in real time. This gives brands and operators the kind of targeting possibilities that are the holy grail of mobile advertising. It’s already being used by German content distributor Arvato Mobile.

Assaf Katan, VP of marketing and business development at Media Layers, says: “SMART can use hundreds of parameters to target ads according to user profile, usage history, content and live parameters. It can also use learning algorithms to fine tune the targeting of a campaign in real-time. This is what advertisers want, and the fact that it’s done in real time reduces the costs involved. In one project we used an operator’s existing database with our technology and increased reponse rates by three and a half times.”

The innovative spirit of the Israeli operators is unsurprising in a market with relatively small off-portal sector. Although the D2C space is promising enough for one of its protagonists Unicell to acquire rival TippCom for around $2 million last year, most observers give the on-portal market 98 per cent of all content revenues in Israel.

This at least makes the territory easy to manage for mobile entertainment publishers. In games, for example, Glu and Gameloft go direct into the carriers, while most of the rest work with local aggregator RayFusion, which says Israelis buy around 350,000 game downloads a month.

RayFusion was acquired in September by Connect2Media, the recently formed content publisher. Can the deal help RayFusion to forge operator deals beyond the Middle East and into EMEA, Asian and Latin America? Well, it wouldn’t be the first Israeli firm to do so.

Take InfoGin for example. The company has almost single-handedly changed the way operators approach the mobile internet by offering a transcoding solution called the Intelligent Mobile Platform.

Quite simply, the solution performs real time ‘web to mobile’ content adaptation, so that users can surf the regular web without being presented with pages that don’t work on the small screen.

The transcoding approach has captured the imagination of operators, many of which have used it as the basis of ad campaigns alerting their subscribers to the possibility of visiting sites such as YouTube from the handset. In September, Infogin closed a huge deal with Telefonica and now claims over 20 million people are served web pages from its platform globally on a daily basis.

Infogin is now firmly in the front ranks of Israeli companies on the world stage. Maybe, like memory specialist M-Systems (bought for $1.6 billion by SanDisk in 2006) it will become a target for acquisition. Maybe it will flourish independently. Either way, the innovation will continue because the entrepreneurial spirit is apparently hardwired into the Israeli DNA.

M-Systems itself is a case in point. Shortly after its purchase, founder Dov Moran launched a new company called Modu to develop the idea of a tiny mobile handset which slots inside other consumer devices to give them connectivity. Crazy idea. But then so was USB when Moran invented that; Modu was the undoubted hit of last year’s Mobile World Congress.

Israel facts & figures

- The subscriber base in Israel will increase from 9.18 million in 2008 to 9.70 million in 2010.
- In 2010, the average ARPU in Israel will be $40.52 per month, with Partner’s $45.83 ARPU the highest in the Middle East.
- As of September 2006, there were 70 Israeli companies on the US Nasdaq.
- In 2007, 462 Israeli high-tech companies raised $1.76 billion from local and foreign VCs.

Operator, Network type, Subs (millions)
Pelephone, CDMA2000 (UMTS from 2009), 2.5
Cellcom, TDMA/GSM/UMTS, 3.1
Orange (Partner), GSM/UMTS, 2.86
MIRS, iDEN ESMR, 0.41
Source: Invest In Israel

Israeli mobile content specialists

Company, Core business
Adamind, Inter-operability solutions
Amdocs, Billing
Amobee, Mobile ad platform
BeeContent, Content aggregation/D2C
CellAdmin, UGC
Celltick, Ticker-based information
Clip in Touch, Rich media messaging
Chooz, Original made-for-mobile IP
Comverse, Network services (messaging, ringbacks, avatars)
eBiz.mobility, Billing
Emblaze, Handsets
Emoze, Push-email
Hingi, Integrated broadcast/music downloads
Infogin, Web to mobile transcoding
Inner-Active, Embedded content ads
Logia, Content management
Media Layers, Mobile advertising
Mobilitec, Content delivery platform
Mobixell Networks, Content delivery systems
Modu, Devices
M-Systems, SIMs and storage
Nareos, P2P content services
Olista, Data services efficiency management
Pontis, Mobile personalisation platform
Pudding Media, Ad-funded content services
Radvision, Video services
Siano, Mobile TV chips
Spin3, Gambling
Targetise, Mobile search and discovery
Tippcom, Content aggregation/D2C
Trixcell, Mobile magic tricks
Unicell, Content aggregation/D2C
Unipier, Content management systems
Vollee, Mobile game developer
Vringo, Video ringbacks
Zlango, Messaging/graphics
777 mobile, Gambling

What about Mobile Content Business in UK?

When the Finnish-owned company Blyk hatched its plan to revolutionise the advertising business by offering consumers free calls and texts in return for accepting ads, it launched in the UK first.

When its compatriot Nokia announced that it was finally biting the bullet and launching fully-fledged games and music stores, it also got started in Britain. No one was surprised for a moment.

We all accept the notion that, in a market where the United States does not dominate, Britain is arguably the most advanced mobile territory in the Western world. Yes, the Spanish and the Italians might argue this – and in Zed, Buongiorno and Dada they have three of the world’s D2C giants – but the UK can probably boast more content developers, publishers, service providers and aggregators per capita than anywhere outside of Japan and Korea.

It’s been this way since the origins of the mobile entertainment business at the end of the 1990s. There was a flurry of activity in the UK at that point, as a nascent industry put down its roots.

1999 saw the formation of Bango and mBlox, each of which would go on to play a crucial part in the development of a content market outside of operator control: Bango by building a self-sustaining ecosystem enabling small vendors to build sites and monetise them, mBlox by pioneering a reverse-billed premium SMS system that would become the dominant payment mechanism for mobile content.

These two – and others like MX Telecom and WIN – created the right market conditions for local D2C brands like iTouch, PartyMob and MonsterMob to flourish. Indeed, by 2005, off-portal constituted 70 per cent of all data traffic (according to Vodafone). Although the subscription-led D2C market eventually came unstuck, it certainly played its part in ‘normalising’ SMS billing and wireless content.

While these channels were being built, many UK companies were developing products to fill them. Britain has always had a strong creative tradition – and this came to the fore again at the genesis of mobile content.

Not that we should overlook the contribution of the fifth operator, 3, which doesn’t even call itself a mobile network but a ‘mobile media’ company. Although 3 is international, its UK unit has been a genuine pioneer. It sold 20 million music videos in two years and introduced the idea of user-generated, user-rewarded video with SeeMeTV. The enthusiasm for mobile video has helped create conditions for producers such as Mobstar to flourish.

Finally, perhaps there’s something in the uniquely British paradox of individualism and propriety that makes the UK such fertile ground. The UK encourages entrepreneurialism but also has strong regulators; go ahead and do it, but be sensible, in other words.

Ofcourse, Business is combination of discipline,organization and opportunism and here's where UK people always have something to cheer about.

21

Professor to Student: Robinson Scholarship is going to go to someone who ...dazzles...who just jumps off the resume!!! You really need to explain what makes you special.What life experience separates you from the rest.



Now how to respond to this abstract question with some tangible sounding experience. This just reminded me of instances of interviews for today's corporate world where we are asked consistently to prove ourselves despite of having requisite skills which are protruding outwards to snatch the work as soon as possible. But I guess, thirst is not the only requirement for getting water nowadays, you have to justify the suffering !!!

Movie is best in terms of storyline, quite entertaining and keeping us engrossed to know whether our MIT student gets the money or not. The climax is well crafted to reality and serves to be a awe-striking answer to our dear Professor.

The other interesting thing was again showing the opportunity of earning real(not-easy) money in big place by employing extremely sharp mind. I was just wondering whether Counting-Cards was the only game that can be played by probability as shown in movie. I played Poker few days ago and didn't really figure out the way of employing probability. Though, there was a small window but not open gate like Counting-Cards. I wonder whether every mathematician from MIT would try this in Vegas. I guess I would.

Though there were some glitch around movie in terms of continuity in few scenes, I enjoyed it.Winner Winner Chicken Dinner !!!

Dont talk with Me

So Now you don't wanna
talk wid me,
Is this the price that I paid
For your walk wid me.

Moments back, You said
U wud be ma Friend,
But U dint Stay,
As I searched my own Land.

Saw the dreamz, When I
Closed my eyes with you,
But U left by,
B4 the wish turned true.

Out Of the dreamz unwayed,
I made a mistake,
But Isnt it the way,
The Humans break.

Thought you wud be there,
As real frenz stay,
But U dint care,
N U simply walkd away.

My Face became stone,
My tears were still,
U Knew I can't b lone,
But U Wished to kill.

Far now in fields green,
As you start to wonder,
About the time that been,
There will be no answer,
N There would be no "me" seen.

12 Queen Square

One evening in queen square,

Where people were rare

Where all the leaves were still,

Where there was no voice to kill

Sitting in front of me,

She was scribbling in bee

As she became thoughtful,

I became watchful

I started to stare,

What she could not glare

Her cheeks so rozy.

N her eyes so cozy.

One evening in queen square.

City of Angels

It was quite a usual night, during our(me and Ranga) final examinations, at Butlers Wharf. Interestingly, getting ready for dinner was first thing on mind and studying the last thing during those times. Delusioned completely with coursepacks that were required to study for exams, we were sure not to get beguiled by the talks mentioned in those pages. Reaffirming this stand were the movies that were part of our entertainment package during dinner. One such night we got in touch with "City of Angels", a movie which takes cinematic liberty of making the love story between angel(Nicholas Cage) and human(Meg Ryan) possible.

One thing I noted about this movie, how easily idealism can profuse in ideal conditions but when it comes to real world it just hits back. Meg Ryan, a doctor, suffers from lot of stress during her job while medicating and operating couple of patients, who subsequently die in front of her. She develops a feeling of guilt and helplessness at this situations. Her intentions are best but her actions are fruitless at times. Nicholas Cage sees all this happening develops sympathy for her and apparently falls in love with her. He wants to communicate some teachings to her about value of life to her so that she don't regret about her job. His feelings reach exorbitant levels and he empowers himself in varied ways. During their courtship, he let her know all the valuable things of having life and not regretting it, which eventually makes her less vulnerable to daily stress and strain for life. But soon she figures out that he is angel and not human and thus asks him not to meet. But who cares!!!. His love is so intense that it helps him to get a human form and he looses all his angel powers.

As soon as he takes the human form, he hits the ground, the ground of reality. The problem of not having money and no facility of transportation makes this angel look pale. He somehow manages to get in truck and meet his love. She becomes more than amused to see him in human form. However, they both get married and start seeing the dreams of living eternally ever after. Well, as the equation of nature has to be balanced, someone has to leave the planet. So the doctor dies in an accident and now he is alone. Angel now realizes the hard fact of being alone and moving on with other facts of life. This surrounds him for couple of days and he regrets being a human.

It just came to my mind that its always easy to suggest something ideal, being in ideal position, the position when you have all needed things around. Angel who advised Doctor to value life, suddenly forgot his own utopias in view of reality. Though he recovers fast, his intention(of being with love) and action(taking human form) suddenly become unmatched. His action result in loss of his love. But now feeling guilty is also not of any use, as the damage is already done. All caused in the heat of moment. But now the only way out is, move forward and enjoy the rest of time.

A saying goes "Good intentions are not good enough, they are ultimately measured by Actions"(sometimes even actions are not important, results take prime), but in certain window of moments, action can't synchronize with the intentions. A wave to achieve something, to know something and to feel something is often hyper-intensive to drive you to do unacceptable things. Feeling of guilt should be the consequence but not the end-result. Ultimately, being good at heart and bad at hand is better than being bad at heart and good at hand.

Finally this was the movie I saw that causes angel to be human as a result of love. Normally, its other way round ...Human becomes Angel

A Girl

Imagination....

Basking from the sun,
Shelter from the clouds,
Winds from the west,
Breeze from the south,

Those were the days,
N you were to bounce,
Angelic were the eyes,
N voice were to pounce,

As you took the shape,
N time went by,
Float in winds from the cape,
You forgot to cry,

As beauty took to reins,
Guys took for run,
Brains were never pains,
But Lucky feather was one,

Across the Thames,
He stood and he asked,
Thoughts lost the grip,
N you could not mask,

Moments went by,
N you were his life,
Joys caught him n thy,
Nature said Man n Wife

Life,Success and Love

We always try to grab three important things. In process we fall, we give up, we rise depending on how we want to end up

Oh life, I see you
looks long journey through,
Have n will come
the steps that I ll
rise n tumble from,
They say time is key
so I will hold on
till destiny bends on knee.

Oh success, I know you
changes with desires of few
for some its just a honey
for more than some, tis money
Neways, I ll taste both
As thatis my childhood oath

Oh Love, I feel you
always rules heart new,
Pain thy give,
becomes,
moments hard to live,
but still I dont stop
Nor do I learn from bad crop,
ask why n I hear
"thats how you are made dear".

Like earth fire n water
life, success n love matter,
Like Air is what u need in all
Knowledge is what sustains us in fall.
Though everything may pain
N Nothing may rain

see something,
know something,
feel something,

As Life aint motionless
and U gotta be ruthless,
else u will drown like pebble
n that will be the only fable.

Reasons

While wondering that why few bad things happen, I started on to search the reasons....n tried to explain one who can hear

Reasons for existence ceases to exist
Reasons for love don't,
I tried to find one
found me ended in the run.

D path I creped
thy may find you weeped ,
still travel it through
becos d reasons r pure n true.

I don't know why I loved you
whether your beautiful eyes beatified me thru,
whether your radiant smile paused me in a crew,
whether your presence filled me with dew,
whether your souls of dreams were bane for my ambitions that drew,
whether it was your voice that I searched in blue,
whether your "NO" caused me the pain that I longed to,
whether my tired heart sought the love in you,
whether so many reasons now caused me to love you,

As you reached d end
U will try to lend,
but thy will be late
N trust me it will be the only fate.

Here I m waiting you to smile
before u walk a bad mile,
I wanna embrace you
as I only love you,
till I lay in dust
N every bone may rust

Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory. Sounds an interesting topic. Well, I chose this topic as I have been experiencing the chaos all around and within me. The theory says that the "chaos" behaviour is exhibited by non-linear systems in intial conditions and finally this aberrations are settled down in deterministic future. The future patters always depended on intial conditions. I was wondering whether this theory is applicable to our lives. During intial stages of new phases of our lives, most of us undergo chaotic experiences and we shape ourselves a result of this experience in various ways. If we think, why we are now the way we are it is seemingly apparent that reasons can be traced down somewhere on the intial condition of some phase. There are some mathematical formulaes associated with this theory. I was wondering whether we can identify the chaotic variables in our lives and predict pattern, after all our lives are also non-linear with the deterministic future.