3GSM news roundup

Here are some tidbits from 3GSM or the Mobile World Congress being held in Barcelona, 11-14 February:

• Google “is expected to produce a prototype mobile handset” at the show, according to The Times. But even if a physical phone doesn’t appear Google’s ‘Android’ open source Mobile Operating System platform will be floating around. Indeed, Korea’s Samsung Electronics hopes to have a phone based on Google’s Android mobile phone software platform by early next year, along with four or five WiMax phones.

• Sony Ericsson has announced a partnership with Microsoft to carry the Windows Mobile platfrom on some of its handsets sometime later this year.

• The major themes, according to 160 characters.org include mobile broadband and value added services, as well as mobile data and applications, advertising, screens, eyewear and accessories, machine to machine or M2M, mobile video and TV, mobile bar code standards, GPS and the environmental impact of all these discarded handsets.

• UK-based mobile music firm Omnifone tries to take on Apple’s iTunes and Nokia’s Ovi with it’s Comes With Music service with a handset loaded with its tethered download subscription-based MusicSation service.

• The GSM Association has launched the Mobile Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Content to prevent individuals or organisations from trying to use mobiles to consume or profit from child sexual abuse content. This is going to be a big issue as the mobile web heads towards true broadband.

• Meanwhile Nokia has launched a global mobile advertising network which includes over 70 top tier publishers and operators as well as all of the handset manufacturer’s media properties, using the platform from mobile ad firm Enpocket it acquired in October 2007. And O2 UK has launched a new mobile advertising service on its portal O2 Active, which includes both display advertising and ad-funded content models.

• Mobile Web blogger Rudy de Waele has a run-down of side events to the Mobile World Congress, including the Mobile Monday Peer Awards Barcelona, which has 25 nominees including: