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By Jo Best, 12 February 2007 08:40

COMMENT

Mid-February sees one of the most significant events in the mobile industry calendar. It's a crass, expensive party and everyone has an invite - alas, it's not my birthday (also coming up this week, all presents gratefully received) but the annual 3GSM shindig.

Last year, the event relocated from its spiritual home of Cannes to another sunny waterfront town, Barcelona - a move ostensibly prompted by the desire to cram ever more shiny-suited telecoms execs into a conference hall.

And with every company worth its salt, and a good few who aren't, exhibiting at the show, said vendors are always trying to get more eyeballs in an overflowing market. After straining the creative thinking of their marketing departments, they usually opt for getting girls to wander around in tight, plasticy costumes.

And how can you beat that? Well, in Microsoft's case, the answer is don't even bother.

The Redmond behemoth had been scheduled to launch the latest iteration of its mobile operating system at 3GSM in one of a thousand press conferences scheduled for one day. Late last week, it decided not to bother fighting for attention at the show and spilled its guts to the journalists, telling them to write about it whenever they see fit.

LG launched its latest phone too last week by throwing a party with David Blaine to heighten its profile ahead of 3GSM. A curious decision - I never saw the device or the magician.

O2 also came up with a slightly similar plan: briefing journos about the latest tweaks to its roaming scheme and then demanding they don't write about it until the start of the conference, to ensure the press has time to write it up and then get it lost in the crowd of a million and one other press announcements.

Others, of course, are keeping their cards very close to their chests. So what can we expect from this year's show?

A Motorola Q for Europe, I'd reckon. It's a cute device and will doubtless prove popular with those who want a business phone that won't look hideously out of place on a pub table.

Vodafone has also just officially announced its play for Indian operator Essar, and the world's biggest operators are thought to be clubbing together to create a mobile search engine: an announcement likely to be as significant as their decision to announce IM interoperability last year. We've not stopped talking about that, eh?

Tomorrow, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, RIM and Yahoo! among others will all be showcasing their latest wares and we'll be bringing you the news as it breaks.

In the meantime, I'll be trying to juggle a laptop, a smart phone, a phone phone and a Nokia internet tablet - and asking what happened to the golden age of convergence the mobile industry promised?