According to a report by the Financial Times, Nokia are in advanced talks to sell off its luxury brand Vertu that offers customers expensive and limited edition handsets and exclusive services, to private equity group Permira.

Should the sale be completed, Nokia could make approximately $265 million dollars from the brand which aims “to dispose of non-core assets to help turnround its devices division”.

The article also reveals that EQT, the Northern European private equity group, has also been in talks about buying the company however sources close the to process say that not much progress has been made.

Nokia who recently launched its Lumia 610, the first NFC Windows Phone, recently reported a $1.8 billion loss in the first quarter of 2012.

After revealing the sales figures above and as the company focuses on driving sales of its Windows-based Lumia smartphone platform, chief executive Stephen Elop said that “There are things we’re doing today that we may have to stop”.

The sale of Vertu would be an appropriate one to Permira as it would add to the company’s portfolio of other existing luxury technology brands including Valentino and Hugo Boss.

Vertu is an independently managed UK-based subsidiary of Nokia that was launched in 1998 by the Finnish company in order to reach the growing demand of the wealthy for exclusive brands at the time. The phone’s high price tags of more than £200, 000 are due to their “precious metal components”.

Ad Dynamo has announced its entry into Brazil today.

“Brazil represents an enormous growth market in both online and mobile advertising, and we’re very pleased to be launching here with a relevant and established player such as Realmedia,” says Sean Riley, CEO of Ad Dynamo.

Though today is the official launch date, Ad Dynamo has been quietly building traction in Brazil over the past couple of months. The global contextual ad marketplace brings more choice to the market currently dominated by Google. Website owners who work with Ad Dynamo get paid faster than any other ad network can offer, and advertisers now have an additional avenue to reach their targeted audiences within Brazil.

Realmedia serves more than 3,4 Billion ads per month in Brazil and represents a very interesting proposition – this is a market where Ad Dynamo launches with real traction and critical mass.

Sean Riley, CEO Addynamo

Couple this with Ad Dynamo’s global publisher network of more than 26,000 websites, Brazilian advertisers have a compelling option to market their businesses both within Brazil and abroad.

Over the next month, Ad Dynamo will be launching a Brazilian Portuguese version of the site and introduce Brazilian Real support for both publishers and advertisers. In addition, Brazilian based publishers have the option to be paid in their local currency, the Ad Dynamo Debit Card is already available as an alternative form of receiving funds – publishers that qualify get their very own Visa card that is automatically topped up monthly with the revenue they earn by placing ads on their website.

According to Peter Gervai, Managing Director at Realmedia “Realmedia consolidated its story through the areas of technology and media in vertical sites. Our plans for the next year includes  expanding the range of products we offer to the market and increasing participation in various forms to meet the consumer at the right time. Partnering with Ad Dynamo is an important step on this path, especially because Ad Dynamo is as dynamic and agile as our market. “

South African banks and retailers are likely to be slow to adopt near-field communications (NFC) technology for mobile payments because of the high costs of installing point-of-sale terminals and other enabling infrastructure. That’s the word from Tim Walter, Executive Head of Marketing at Nashua Mobile, who says that there is little appetite among institutions to drive adoption of yet another new point-of-sale payment technology just as the end of their protracted rollout of the EMV credit card standard is in sight.

NFC is a short-range wireless technology that will eventually allow people to use their mobile phone as a wallet. It will enable consumers to make secure payments to compatible point of sale terminals or to another user’s smartphone. NFC has proven itself to be a viable technology in field trials in countries such as the US, and South African banks (like ABSA) are reportedly also trialling NFC. But, as yet, there are not enough NFC compatible handsets in the market, nor is there a compelling commercial model for the rollout of the technology in South Africa, says Walter. The only brand to actively deploy NFC on new handsets is RIM with their latest Blackberry devices.

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From today, Vodacom and Cell C will have the new, lower priced Nokia Lumia 710 phone available at R3999.

The new colorful device was designed to bring the Windows Phone smartphone experience to a new lower price point, without sacrifices. It combines the powerful social and Internet experience of Windows Phone with the ability to take pictures in almost any conditions and share with friends in seconds, as well as access to thousands of the most popular apps and exclusive Nokia services, like Nokia Drive.

Based on the Windows Phone 7.5 release, the Nokia Lumia 710 smartphone has a broad range of social-network focussed features:

• People Hub in Windows Phone displays all call, text, email and social network interactions with any individual contact in an integrated view, with the ability to group contacts and pin favourite groups and individuals to the start screen for live updates and easy access to the people who matter most.
• Faster, easier Web browsing experience with Internet Explorer 9 and one-touch Bing search.
• Nokia Drive delivers a full-fledged personal navigation device (PND) with free, turn-by-turn navigation and dedicated in-car-user-interface.
• Nokia Music introduces MixRadio, a free mobile music-streaming application that delivers 100s of channels of global and locally-relevant music. Also integrated in Nokia Music is Gigfinder, providing the ability to search for live local music events.
• With the 5MP camera, anyone can take pictures and share on social networks in seconds, even when the phone is locked.

The Nokia Lumia 710 can be personalised with a choice of white or black front finish and additional inter-changeable back coloured covers, very much like the covers from the Nokia 5110 days.

“We are very excited to be bringing the next device in the Lumia range to South Africa. The Lumia 710 offers the same functionality as the Lumia 800 at a lower price point, and is perfect for consumers that thrive on being socially connected. This again highlights Nokia’s commitment to delivering the latest smartphones with localized services to the South African market,” says Colin Baumgart, Nokia South Africa General Manager.

The Nokia Lumia 800 is still one of our favourite handsets, so we cannot wait to get our hands on the Lumia 710.

I have recently sat in meetings where the content specialist seems to believe that mobile content should be dumbed-down or at the very least shortened.

I’m not exactly sure where this idea has come from but I have a feeling that it has something to do with the size of the screen dictating the length of the content and/or the level of intelligence of the user. This is a massive assumption backed by very little research or understanding of the user, user experience with their mobile devices and any knowledge of the data and mobile operator relationship to the user.

Let’s break this down.

Handsets

For some odd reason the term “mobile” has become synonymous with the word “iPhone” and/or “smartphone” in recent months. This is a huge mistake when building for mobile.

The definition of a smart device needs to be broadened and we need to get a better understanding of what we’re dealing with.

Below is a graph which illustrates quite nicely which handset manufacturer controls the African market. The answer in short: Nokia.

The basic premise to remember here is that once a user has loaded up your piece of content, the chances are they won’t navigate away unless the receive a phone call. Why? Because most of the devices out in the market aren’t able to effectively multi-task. Even considering the iPhone should make you think about this: If you shift from the iPhone browser, to an app and then back to the browser, very often the page will force a reload and make the user not only lose their place on the page but have to reload the page and spend more of their airtime doing so. (more…)

We all love it when our cellphone contract runs out, and we can finally go upgrade our phone. But what exactly is the things to look out for when it comes to choosing a cellphone? And how do you navigate the seemingly endless contract choices out there?

Chris Radley, MD of Nashua Mobile, offered us some great tips about the questions to ask:

Choosing the right tariff plan - 

Getting a free phone on the incorrect tariff plan can end up costing you more over the lifetime of the contract than getting the right tariff plan and the selecting the phone that you want.

• Start out by asking your service provider to help you analyse your usage of your current package to see if it is the right one for your needs. You’re wasting money if you have too few or too many minutes, data megabytes and SMS messages included in your tariff plan. Many dealers can do it right on the spot, like Nashua Mobile.
• How many minutes do you use in an average month? If you have a lot of free minutes left each month-end, it might make sense to downgrade to a cheaper package.  But if you exceed your monthly free minute allowance every month by a significant amount, you might be wise to upgrade to a package with more free minutes. (more…)

BGR has reported that more information is beginning to surface about the new Samsung Galaxy SIII that is scheduled to be announced on the 3rd May.

A source has revealed that “there will be a huge international roll-out for the Galaxy S III” and that the company’s new flagship handset will be the official device of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London,  which explains why Samsung are unveiling the device in London with additional simultaneous launches across the globe including Dubai, Seoul and New York City.

Leaked details of the the new Samsung Galaxy SIII, the successor of the Galaxy SII, revealed back in February that specifications include: a 1.5GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor, 4.8-inch “full HD” 1080p resolution with 16:9 aspect ratio display, 4G LTE and will run on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

Consumers will be offered the device in both 16GB and 32GB storage options.

The site also reveals that the Samsung Galaxy S III will be available in two colour options with one in blue and black and the other in white.

Good news to all the Apple fans who have been holding out to get the new Retina display sporting iPad 3rd generation. In a few short weeks it will officially be available in SA.

On Friday, April 27, the new iPad will also become available in Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa, and Thailand.

However, be aware, that even though “the new iPad” will have 4G capable radios, it will only reach 3G speeds on South African networks. We recently posted our review of the “resolutionary” tablet, and we are still confident in recommending it as the best tablet on the market. The major upgrade is of course the incredible new high resolution display, which even in its 10 inch size, has a million more pixels than your large screen Full HD display TV! Magazines look especially good.

Apple is also marketing the older iPad 2 in a cheaper $399 model, but we do not know whether Core will be bringing in this more affordable model.

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