O2 and Orange make advanced moves in mobile land grab

NEWS O2, fresh from announcing a tie-up with Intel, has today unveiled a trial of video services over mobiles that will exploit its relationships with Arsenal football club and the England rugby team. Meanwhile, rival Orange has said it will work with PDA and communicator specialist Handspring on the development of future smart phones. These types of moves are common in the mobile world, though they are now against a backdrop where experts are trying to predict which type of services will prove most lucrative. New research from Strand Consult today puts figures on the top 10 services in Europe by 2005. The Danish research house calculates these will be: Games and mobile entertainment - E3.2bn News and sport - E2.9bn Adult entertainment - E2.7bn Contests, competitions and lottery - E2.48bn Community, chat and dating - E2.3bn Mail and webmail - E1.7bn Other types of services - E1.6bn Directory and location-based services - E1.5bn TV voting, TV integration - E1.3bn Video on demand, audio on demand and video clips - E1.28bn O2 will trial services such as news and sport clips, including interviews with Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger - courtesy of Sky - with 350 customers using Nokia 7650, Nokia 3650 and O2 xda devices. Orange said it will customise Handspring applications and user interfaces in expectation of end user demand for smart phones growing strongly.