According to estimates by Merrill Lynch, the number of mobile device users worldwide will reach nearly four billion by 2010, compared to 2.7 billion users in 2006. The number of mobile users utilizing mobile internet will grow at an even higher rate. Last year, there were 221 million such users globally, and by 2010, there will be 814 million.
Mobile internet is a megatrend, so it is logical that T-Mobile, as stated by its CEO Hamid Akhavan at the press conference held this morning at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, has no intention of missing this trend. Following the Web’n’walk service, which currently has 1.1 million users in the T-Mobile network (in 11 countries where T-Mobile operates, T-Mobile is increasingly shifting from the traditional role of a mobile phone, used only for calls and SMS messages, to a mobile phone as a personal pocket network.
– Internet in your pocket will be more widespread than we could have believed just recently – says Akhavan. T-Mobile is thus paving the way for a new category of devices from the personal digital assistant (PDA) group called Ameo. Equipped with the latest version of the Windows Mobile operating system 5.0, T-Mobile’s Ameo combines Office applications, multimedia, and entertainment content. Ameo will initially be available to users in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom starting in early March, and Maja Weber, Director of Corporate Communications at T-Mobile Croatia, believes that Ameo could arrive in Croatia in a few months.
The device itself features a five-inch TFT display with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels and operates on all networks. Its capacity is eight gigabytes. Ameo represents the continuation of the successful collaboration between T-Mobile and HTC, the leading global manufacturer of devices with Microsoft Windows Mobile software.
