Welcome to christianborrman .com
Christian Borrman is a consultant focussing on taking new technology to market successfully.

He is a Director of Virtuser, Innovation Consultancy and an associate with PIPC and CVL, and has spoken at 3GSM, MVNO, FMC, Mobile Internet, and other major conferences, and has written for many technology publications, including a report on MVNOs published by Pyramid Research, which became a top 5 best seller. Previously he was a consultant at Mason Analysys, creating some of the first Virtual Internet Service Providers (VISP) and Mobile Virtual Networks (MVNOs) and well as working on the then kindling FMC projects around convergence.

A web resource on my corner of the technology industry, which covers:

• Mobile: Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) , Mobile Virtual Networks (MVNOs), Mobile On Device Portals (ODPs), Location Based Services (LBS) Mobile payments, Mobile marketing, Quadruple Play and Pay-TV. Have worked on some of the first and latest MVNOs, pioneered some of the first Fixed-Mobile Convergence trials and roll-outs, and most recently worked on pan african pay-TV, mobile payments and location based services, IPTV across eastern Europe, and Due Diligences in the SEO, Directory and broadcast space.
• Web: Directory Services, Content Management (CMS) across web and mobile, Web 2.0 e-commerce, e-ticketing, social networking and viral marketing, worked on e-commerce from the Dot.com boom, and now pushing the boundaries using peer recommendation, and customer contextual profiling to sell and market more effectively via the web and mobile web.
• Product Management & Product design: ever increasing Convergence of technologies is making the role of product management and product design more and more complex. Christian has product designed and project managed the design of mobile handsets, billing systems, computers, set top boxes, access points, mobile M2M devices, and other mobile module devices: integrating IT, mobile, wireless with custom software and often using cutting edge materials. Greatest achievements are a stunning carbon fibre and titanium PC and a converged MVNO with custom billing, access points, handsets all integrated into one solution which is still ahead of its time 4 years later!
• Going to market: Most start-ups and new technologies fail on two points: getting the product right and getting the product or service to the right market at the right time. This starts with due diligence and product definition and culminates with customer experience via en ever evolving product management and project management role. Christian has taken some great technologies from due diligence, to real world business and marketing models and strategies, right through to getting hands dirty and make sure it sells. It does not matter how good your product is, how much you are funded or how well your company is managed if your product does not sell!

My blogs, contributions and ramblings

Mobile Virtual Network Blog

The Mobile Virtual Network is still in its infancy; the truth is that SIMs and modules will be in more and more devices, and most will be owned or run by MVNOs. Read More

Fixed-Mobile Convergence

I started pushing convergence in 2000 and in 2001 put my money where my mouth was and started the first company that did convergence as we know it now... and the patents i took out are still to make me money, but its time will come! Read More

Mobile Killer Application

A fork of the On Device portal site, more

On Device Portal

On device portals can often achieve many of the goals that many companies first set out to achieve through an MVNO, most recently Disney and ESPN have given up the MVNO fight and gone the ODP route. Read More

Mobile Blog, moblog?

Not sure if it should be called a moblog, mobile weblog, mobiblog? But anyway, blogging from a mobile is actually quite easy: moblog but keeping up to it is more challenging.

Top Gadget

... Gadgets, trying to capture elements of digital living that make a difference, from a home network that let's you access and share your data securely, to ergonomic home computing to cameras to record it all. Very much still under construction! Read More

Recent articles

Nokia hardware MVNO

Reportedly Nokia is planning a Hardware MVNO in Japan, which would push the OVI portal services within this market. As correctly pointed out in this article, by Rethink wireless that Nokia has found it difficult to enter the Japanese market due to the operators' insistence on using i-mode type services, these services will not necessarily be a barrier to the success of a hardware and on device portal MVNO, read more Nokia Hardware MVNO

posted by Christian Borrman 19:26pm 24/11/08

Dell hardware MVNO

The MVNO has been and continues to be a slow beast. One MVNO model that is heavily overdue is the Dell MVNO, having already ventured into deals with carphone warehouse and Vodafone for laptops with mobile or fixed broadband, the onslaught of the new sub £300 laptops is making read more Dell hardware MVNO

Apple Global MVNO

Apple have pulled off the greatest MVNO model to date... read full article Apple MVNO

Mobile Applications & On Device Portals

The dust has now settled on the Carling Reading and Leeds music festivals, and the press coverage from Nokia's mobile festival guide is astounding, just by googling "mobile festival guide" you can get an idea. Moreover, the intelligence gathered, from what pages people see, where they decided to send to a friend, what handsets and what networks the core audience were on, are all vital Mobile CRM information for Nokia, arguably achieving ROI just on the customer insight alone... More on my mobile applications page

Future of Mobile Payments

I think there will always be a place for mobile operator based billing, and that these other methods will counterintuitively ensure premium mobile billing's survival; as other ways to pay with your mobile come to bear, they should force mobile operators to accept a more palatable sub-10% commission in order to compete a premium mobile payment. This will allow the other 95% of applications for premium SMS payment that have come and gone because of the silly 40-60% margin operators are still charging today, all come to the forefront and use premium mobile services for a large amount of ad-hoc, spontaneous micro payments and purchases... Continued on ecademy mobile applications forum

Mobile Outsourcing... what is so special about it?

I have tried outsourcing at least part of these developments on many occasions without success. The main problems are:

1) The relative infancy of mobile development; outsourcing in the web did not take place until the model was much more mature and even then it is best used for the plain old widget design; the cutting edge stuff needs to be specified and project managed internally, from my recent experience with social networking and our attempts to outsource the web development there.

2) The uncertainty and complexity, which means projects you spec internally for 20 man days, an outsourcing company will estimate 40 and even then add caveats. Basically there are so many unknowns on how the application will actually behave on each handset, memory issues, network operator quirks, etc.

3) The amount of very high-level problem solving required on a daily basis from people like myself. I am usually needed full time on a project - problem solving as you go along, requiring constant meetings and calls, which are easier and more productive if done after work or at lunch, than during office hours if you are outsourcing... Continued on ecademy mobile applications forum

Mobile Virtual Networks:

RE: Why Europe's Mobile Startups Sing

I was sent this email by a client, one of those nice comforting articles that make you feel you have made the right choice by doing many of the things that are in the article as they preach is right, with the added smugness of feeling you are doing something a little extra they have not twigged yet!

They are right in that one MVNO model is the low cost route, however there are more important keys I have seen, from behind the scenes, that have made or broke MVNOs in Europe... continued on mobilevirtualnetwork.co.uk

Blog

This will soon be the link to my blog, even if I have to update it from my mobile, in the meantime, my linkedin profile is here... and a list of other sites I have written in the meantime.

posted by Christian Borrman 10:47am 17/09/07

links
See "other sites in series" on left

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