Today’s mobile tech quiz question: How much does it cost to license a closed mobile OS? According to sources at Microsoft, it costs OEMs $15/device to use their new Windows Mobile 7 OS. This person does his/her best to explain that $15/device is much cheaper than Android open source model, but it sounds a little desperate. The bigger question is why publish this info. There are only a limited number of phone manufactures in the world. Why not talk directly to them about it? What is the point of sharing this info with the tech world? Strange marketing indeed! 

Read about a brilliant way to combine location-based apps and customer rewards and brand marketing. Yesterday, Loopt and Virgin America rewarded users who checked in at the SF or Cancun International Airports between the hours of 11AM to 3PM PST with 2 for 1 tickets to Cancun. The only problem was that I did not hear about it until it was far to late. Bummer!

More info from mobile developers on the ad revenues associated with iAds and AdMob.  All in all, the jury seems to be on the side of free apps. But will it last?

The SoC Summit started yesterday with a series of interesting talk, including one given by Geogad. The promise of SoC (System on Chip) is to continue to standardize electronics, this time at the level of large system blocks both on the chip and in the library and driver software. It will help build new powerhouse of tech and in addition to more powerful devices. Because of the advantages of SoC, the new devices will be built from reusable semiconductor blocks and software code that can lead to faster design and construction times for mobile devices.

SoC will result in better, more advanced devices with a faster time-to-mmarket. Mobile has gotten even more interesting.

In a few hours, the SoC Summit in Taipei, Taiwan will turn to the topic of combining Android will SoC (Systems on a Chip). The conference will be providing up-to-date info on this important area of device design. It will also give manufacturers a better understanding of where the mobile phone market is currently and will be heading in the next year. The one this that I expect this summit to highlight is how rapidly the mobile industry is changing and the growth opportunities that are available to all players in the industry.

Hope to see you at the SoC Summit!