As more and more people become dependant on their mobile phones, mobile airtime is becoming more than a luxury item but rather a necessity of daily living.  This is especially true the mobile penetration rate continues to climb in developing countries in Africa, China and India.   This is phenomenon is opening up a niche market for airtime top up providers who can provide migrant workers the ability to top up airtime for their loved ones living cross borders.I was trying to search for information on which companies currently provide international airtime top ups. It was difficult to find which ...

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It looks like everyone is talking about Verizon Wireless's partnership with Danal to offer BilltoMobile to it's subscribers.  I think this is a great step forward and maybe in a year or so, we would have enough data to really understanding how the American market will adopt this alternative method of payment from Verizon.  Based on the descriptions of the BilltoMobile service, here are some points that really jump out at me: -Verizon's BilltoMobile can only be used to purchased digital content from participating e-tailers. -A comprehensive list of e-tailers that accept BilltoMobile is currently not yet available. -Purchases through BilltoMobile will be ...

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I finally caught up with responding to my emails that piled over the past two weeks while I was away attending the GSMA Mobile World Congress.  Overall, the conference was fulfilling as always and there was quite the turn out considering that most parts of the world is still recovering from the financial crisis in 2008-2009.   There were two major announcements that caught my attention last week.  The first was the unveiling Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 operating system, and the second was Samsung's new Bada Smartphone operating system.   The Windows Phone 7 OS was developed from scratch and is a total rewrite of Microsoft's Windows Mobile Smartphone OS.  Windows Phone ...

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The Mobile Money Canada event that was held earlier this week in Toronto went without a hitch.  I was lucky enough to be helping with general event preparations as well as contributing in panel discussions.  The event covered a variety of topics related to banking and financial services through speaker presentations and panel discussions.  The panel that I participated in focused on debating various aspects of a mobile banking solution that should be considered when implementing a mobile money initiative.  The intent is to share industry learning’s and specific pitfalls that may inhibit a successful mobile financial services initiative.  I felt we had good industry representation for the discussion.  Panelists ...

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Have you ever designed, developed and deployed an application, only to find that it doesn’t exactly meet your business needs?  Finding functional gaps in your application during the testing cycle can be expensive.  Furthermore, any solutions that are developed during this time are in jeopardy of being sub-optimal.  Gartner research indicates that up to 40% of defects can be uncovered and corrected during the business requirements gathering phase of a software development life cycle.  These defects can be attributed to inaccurate system specifications, duplicate requirements, and lack of subject matter expertise. Introducing software quality assurance practices and methodologies early in the project life cycle not only improves the quality of your ...

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Mobile application testing has always been challenging due to all the variants in mobile devices and OS platforms.  Mobile testing has gotten more efficient over the years as new mobile development platforms and middleware aim to reduce application complexity and standardize functionality into a “one size fits all” application.  In addition, as mobile emulators are now developed and made readily available to the application development community, testing accuracy has greatly improved.  Furthermore, with the introduction of new automated testing tools and hardware testing approaches, physical hardware testing can be accomplished without even the need for device procurement and account provisioning. Having said that, there are still a few areas where testing can ...

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