CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2008® Opens With A Look Into The Future Of Wireless Networks
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2008® opened today with more than 15,000 attendees and 250 exhibitors highlighting the many ways mobile technology is being deployed for improved business, entertainment and communication. Today's keynote program featured carrier CEOs Lowell McAdam from Verizon Wireless, Robert Dotson from T-Mobile USA and Dan Hesse from Sprint Nextel participating in a panel discussing their plans for opening their respective networks to different devices and applications.
CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent asked the carrier CEOs to discuss their respective views on balancing network openness with the need to ensure a superior subscriber experience. The participants agreed that openness is no longer a concept but a market reality, and discussed their respective plans to implement the technologies and business practices necessary to make possible greater interoperability in the future. Largent later moderated a discussion focused on the evolution of the mobile space as the industry looks toward its 25th anniversary next month. Industry luminaries Craig McCaw, chairman of Clearwire, and John Stanton, founder of Trilogy Partnership, took the audience on a nostalgic trip down memory lane as they laid out the common characteristics of the first cellular subscribers and today's mobile broadband users.
Marco Boerries, executive vice president for Connected Life, Yahoo! Inc., also took to the keynote stage to discuss new offerings, including OneConnect, a "socially connected address book" handset application that consolidates social networking, SMS and IM activities. OneConnect is now available in the iPhone application store and is expected to support other handset models in the coming months. Boerries also announced expanded capabilities for Yahoo!'s Blueprint mobile development platform, including the ability to build applications for Java, Windows Mobile and Symbian devices, and mobile web sites.
"The industry is no longer simply talking about wireless technologies, we're talking about how we use mobile applications every day," said Robert Mesirow, CTIA vice president and show director. "From carrier CEOs to innovative mobile application developers, the buzz at this show is all about the ways wireless drives business innovation and gives us more freedom."
Upcoming Keynotes
The keynote stage will feature Jim Balsille, co-CEO of Research in Motion and Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe on Day 2, Thursday, Sept. 11. Day Three, Sept. 12, will feature Tripp Hawkins, CEO of Digital Chocolate and founder of Electronic Arts. In this special keynote session titled "What Teens Want", Hawkins will moderate a live youth focus group of San Francisco students, ages 13-18, who will be asked about their attitudes, preferences and behaviors when it comes to how they use wireless, and discuss the results of a national survey of teens conducted by CTIA-The Wireless Association and Harris Interactive.
CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment takes place this week at Moscone West September 10 – 12.
About CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2008®
CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2008, the largest wireless data event in the industry, truly embodies the ever-changing, dynamic and innovative world of wireless data in enterprise and in entertainment. This is the one show that brings key audiences such as enterprise users, solution providers, content owners and mobile distributors together to form strategic partnerships, service industry needs and create new innovations in wireless data. For more news visit http://www.ctiashow.com.
CTIA-The Wireless Association® is the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry, representing carriers, manufacturers and wireless Internet providers. CTIA is also recognized as the premiere producer of two annual technology events representing the complete wireless, mobile and Internet industries: CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2008 takes place in San Francisco, September 10-12; CTIA WIRELESS 2009 takes place in Las Vegas, April 1-3. Visit www.ctia.org.
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