**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA – “Any piece of content should be playable within five seconds.” That’s the goal Spotify is after with its hugely popular music service that barely anyone outside of Europe has ever heard of, CEO and Founder Daniel Ek said during a keynote.

In his elevator pitch, Ek described Spotify as an iTunes-like experience that allows users to access all of the world’s music.

The two-tiered platform is broken up into a free, ad-supported model and a premium model that allows users to access and cache their entire music library on their mobile device. Based on the latest exchange rates, the premium service costs $13.60 in Spain, France, Sweden, Norway and Finland; and $15.68 in the United Kingdom. For that price, users can download as many songs as they want every month. Read the full story

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA – As BBC’s director of future media and technology announced the broadcaster’s latest plans for the mobile platform he did, frankly, what more media outlets should do: took the industry to task for its increasingly fragmented approach to content.

“We find it rather strange that the burden falls on us to reformat and repurpose our programming and content for every other platform and every device that comes out every six months,” Erik Huggers said in a brief keynote at Mobile World Congress. “Is it really necessary for us to have that fragmented of a market? Do we really all need our own app store?” Read the full story

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA – In India today there are 500 million wireless subscribers spanning across 14 operators. Bharti Airtel, the third largest single-country operator in the world, controls a 30% market share with more than 120 million of those customers and 1.9 million retail locations.

The company’s CEO Sanjay Kapoor took his turn on the keynote stage this morning to offer examples of the carrier’s push into mobile content and explain how a penny-per-minute model and ARPU of $2 to $3 is rapidly changing the carrier’s user base.

With 560 million youths, 700 million people living rural areas and 70% of the population not having a bank account, Kapoor and his team are vying to leverage every partnership and asset possible to differentiate the operator’s services offering and continue to deliver incredible growth numbers. Read the full story

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA – For Nick Rhodes, the keyboardist in Duran Duran, technology has never been an afterthought, but rather something he’s tried to leverage every step of the way in the band’s 29-year career.

Whether its music videos, live show experiences or interactive engagement with fans, Rhodes has consistently tried to stay ahead of the curve, he said at a series of mini keynotes on mobile entertainment.

“When we’re making a new product, we first obviously create the songs and think about what visually we’re going to do, but then, you know, how do you get it out to people,” he said. Read the full story

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA – As the second day of Mobile World Congress came to a close, the chairman and CEO of the seemingly dark horse not-so-long ago, Google, presented his thesis for why he thinks the ecosystem supporting mobility is coalescing around a point that will be “fundamental to human existence.”

Eric Schmidt outlined three factors – computing, connectivity and the cloud – that will be paramount to delivering a richer, more dynamic and personally fulfilling experience on mobile.

“It’s like magic. All of a sudden there are things you can do that you never thought were possible,” he said. Read the full story

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA – At Mobile World Congress today, Microsoft finally offered an entirely new look and feel for its mobile operating system in Windows Phone 7 Series.

Presented as a complete reboot with no obvious remnants from the existing Windows Mobile operating systems (except for that “Start” button), Microsoft has finally delivered what almost every other competitor has already done to varying degrees of success: an answer to Apple’s iPhone.

When Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer took the stage this morning, his near-feverish excitement almost matched some of those who regularly clapped and yelped gleefully in the standing-room-only crowd. Read the full story

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA – Two heavyweights in their own right, Nokia and Intel this morning announced plans to merge their Linux-based software platforms for next-generation devices.

MeeGo, which merges Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo platforms, the software is intended to support multiple hardware types across a host of market segments, ranging from mobile computers, netbooks and tablets to next-generation smartphones, connected TVs and in-vehicle systems.

The goal is to allow developers to write an application once and have it work immediately on a variety of devices and platforms and then sell through Nokia’s Ovi Store and Intel’s AppUp Center. Read the full story

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA – Nokia Siemens Networks took the opportunity at Mobile World Congress this morning to put its relatively new CEO Rajeev Suri in front of press and analysts to give an update on its latest customer wins and strategy.

Repeating a regular theme at this year’s event, Suri wasted no time in admitting the tough year NSN went through in 2009. And yet, like any top executive worth his or her salary, Suri spun that the company’s disappointing fourth-quarter results into good news and optimism for the road ahead.

“We are relentlessly driving growth,” Suri said. “We brought our break-even point much lower than in the past” and are “continuing to optimize our cost structure.” Read the full story