July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

I always get asked, “What was the big theme at MWC this year?”

It’s a hard question to answer, since there is so much going on. But there is one way to gauge it, by looking at who is exhibiting, how big the space is that they rented, and where the are booths in relation to each other.

This is not a perfect analysis, because some companies choose not to attend (Apple being the prime example). But there is a message even in absence. Two years ago, Nokia decided not to have a booth, but Samsung took its spot and then a year later overtook its market share.

At this point, you probably know more about the specific news coming out of Barcelona than I do. From the ground, there’s no way to keep track of all the press releases and keynotes. Every once and while someone mentions some tidbit. And I start every meeting by asking each company what they are announcing at the show. But that’s just a small sliver of the data flow.

Its hard to keep up because this show is crowded. Its a giant space, but at times the walkways are complete gridlock. First conclusion: This is a healthy industry.

The big handset vendor booths are crowded. Samsung’s sprawling expense feels like a high end department store, there’s so much on offer. Huawei, LG, Sony and ZTE all have some nice phones on display, and their smaller ‘booths’ are buzzing. The HTC booth features gymnasts, and what is often mentioned as the best phone introduced at the show. The Nokia booth features a massive conga line every hour. They have some phones too. The only exception to the merriment is the Motorola booth. For some reason they decided to decorate their showspace with high walls and climbing vines, so it’s hard not to think of Ancient Roman ruins. They have two models on display, the Droid RAZR HD and RAZRi, both of which are at six months old at least. And neither was running the latest version of Android, even though Motorola is now part of Google’s corporate family. The assumption is that Motorola is saving its best for Google I/O in May, which is odd because carriers buy phones in bulk at MWC, not at I/O.

Different halls focus on different types of companies. This year Hall 3 seems to have the largest booths. Qualcomm, Intel, Samsung, Nokia, and Alcatel all seem to have a half acre apiece there. The smaller networking and backhaul equipment vendors congregate in Hall 7. Hall 8 is where you find the app and monetization companies. This is not a perfect system, but it helps to keep track of what’s what.

It is hard to do a precise analysis because this venue is bigger than that of past shows, but you could probably learn something meaningful by comparing the amount of floor space reserved for each kind of company.

For instance, “App Planet” used to be lots of small stands from dozens of app and game vendors. Now it is home to large exhibitions from ad networks, analytics companies, and gaming studios like Gree.

Big telco vendors like Alcatel, Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia Siemens all have huge spaces, but the antenna, base station component, power system and cabling companies now consume far less square footage than in the past.

One thing that has not changed is that the biggest exhibitors, notably Ericsson, still maintain gigantic facilities set apart from the main building. These companies sell to carriers and need a lot of space to host big operator entourages, display big pieces of hardware, and sign big deals. I heard one guesstimate that Ericsson spent $15 million on the exhibition this year, but signed $5 billion in contracts at the show. Seems like a good investment. In fact, Ericsson’s ‘booth’ really seems to be a village, or a show in its own right, complete with its own entertainment, restaurant-scale catering, and numerous sub-sections.

Looked at in this light, one of the more notable themes this year is the growing importance of the enterprise in mobile. Typically MWC does not attract a lot of non-carrier corporate buyers.

But that does not seem to have stopped Airwatch. This provider of Mobile Device Management (MDM) and enterprise mobility software had a space in Hall 3 that appears to be larger than even that of its neighbors, Qualcomm and Intel.

Set aside the fact that Airwatch could probably hold all of its employees in a quarter of that space, its presence is a pretty clear sign that software is now a major force at MWC.

Photo credit: VentureBeat/Jonathan Goldberg

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Mobile payments is a sector on the cusp of exploding. The Nilson Report recently found that 73 percent of smartphone owners have used their device while shopping, yet only 2 percent claim to have used a mobile wallet or made an in-app purchase. At last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I saw a swathe of companies hoping to claim a piece of the pie.

BoxPAY is looking to challenge mobile wallets with its SMS-based payments platform. Once you have signed up, you simply text your phone number and a PIN code to make a purchase, which is then automatically added to your phone bill. This system seems like it will be great for low-value transactions such as in app purchases or buying premium news content. The company has offices in Ireland, the US, Australia, and South Africa.

UK firm Cogenta demoed its latest product Sccope in Barcelona. Sccope is a price-comparison app that can be linked to the upcoming wallet from UK mobile operator O2. I was able to search for a particular model of television on the app and then pay for it online with a card registered with O2. To complete a transaction, you have to enter the security code on the back of your card for authentication, making Sccope great for high-value transactions but less effective for micropayments.

One company exhibiting at MWC that seemed to be bucking the trend for NFC-enabled payments was DigiMo. The DigiMo app features a QR-code reader that can scan product barcodes and allows users to pay for those products at the point-of-sale, whether that point of sale is NFC-equipped or not. If this form of payment were to take off, merchants could take mobile payments without the expense of upgrading their infrastructure to NFC. Only time will tell if DigiMo’s business strategy will pay off. The company is based in Israel.

The final mobile payments company that really caught my eye at MWC was Blippar. It has used augmented reality technology to create an app with image recognition capabilities, pictured at top. As a demo, the company took a smartphone and hovered it in front of a film poster for Jurassic Park with a dinosaur on it. On the phone screen, the dinosaur jumped out of the phone, roared, and you could then purchase tickets for the film. When augmented reality is this good, who needs reality? Blippar is based in the UK and has plan to expand globally this year. Check out the video demo of Blippar below:

Alex McCracken is Relationship Director at Silicon Valley Bank.

VentureBeat is holding its second annual Mobile Summit this April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and technology challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants — 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers — will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

It’s easy to think of mobile wallet solutions from companies Google, PayPal, and Isis as locked in a heated battle for the future of payments. But according to Michael Abbott, CEO of the mobile payments company Isis, that’s far from the case.

“There is no mobile wallet war out there,” Abbott told VentureBeat in an interview at the Mobile World Congress yesterday. Instead, he sees all the companies exploring mobile payments now as something that will benefit everyone, including consumers, retailers, carriers, and everyone else involved in the mobile payments chain.

For lack of a proper meeting space, we sat outdoors on a couch in the middle of the Mobile World Congress madness. Directly behind Abbott was the National Art Museum of Catalonia, an imposing and grand building that looks down on the conference housed at the Fira de Barcelona convention center.

The spirit of Barcelona gives almost everything at MWC an extra layer of magic, so my judgement may have been clouded. But as I discussed the future of mobile payments and Isis’ slow-and-steady launch with Abbott, I couldn’t help but think he had a point. We’re facing a sea change with the rise of mobile payments, and now anything that helps to communicate the benefits of paying with your phone versus a dumb credit card will help consumers understand, and ultimately adopt, mobile payments.

Isis, which is jointly owned by AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, is developing a mobile payments network based on near-field communication (NFC) technology. The idea is that you’ll be able to swipe your phone to make purchases instantly and securely. NFC-based swipe and pay is something Google is also exploring with Google Wallet, as well as PayPal with its upcoming wallet (PayPal already offers a way to easily transfer money with NFC).

Isis yesterday announced its first bank partners, Chase, Capital One, and Barclaycard, a big step for the company. The banks have agreed to let their credit, debit, and prepaid cards work with Isis’s mobile wallet. Isis test users in Salt Lake City, Utah and Austin, Texas will be able to add their cards from the companies to Isis in mid-2012.

The bank support comes on top of the payment network partnerships Isis made last year with Visa, MasterCard, Discovery, and American Express.

It may seem like things are moving slowly for Isis, which was first announced back in November 2010. But Abbott says he wouldn’t have it any other way. The company is putting the pieces together for a payment network that will last for more than a decade, Abbott said, so he sees no need to rush out with a half-baked solution.

“We’re solving for a four-sided market,” he said, pointing to the fact that Isis needs to make sure consumers, merchants, payment companies, and its parent carriers are happy with its product.

When I asked if Isis has any contingency plans in mind if NFC doesn’t take off, Abbott said that the company is “looking at everything that works.” He stressed that any mobile payments technology must be secure, cost-effective, and most importantly, fast. After all, if it’s faster and easier to keep using your credit card for purchases, mobile payments will never take off. PayPal, and its parent company eBay, currently have their fingers in other mobile payments solutions, like carrier billing and scanning with QR codes.

So what’s next for Isis? Abbott says that the company will now focus on the consumer side of things, as well as with device makers in the fall. Isis has no release schedule in mind for its mobile wallet, instead, the company is taking a “when it’s ready attitude.”

Given that Isis basically has one shot to get mobile payments right, I don’t blame the company for taking its time to launch.

Most of us go for the newest model when we are in market for a new cell phone. But if you can’t afford a never-been-touched model, you might reach for a refurbished device, though you might not always know what you are getting. The Device Renewal Forum wants to change that by setting specific standards for recycled phones so they are just as enticing as a brand new one.

“We are trying to create another class of devices. There are already new, used, and refurbished cell devices, but refurbished means something different to different people,” eRecyclingCorps chief executive David Edmondson told VentureBeat in an interview, “The Device Renewal Forum will create a standard for refurbished phones and a new category of goods renewed to a standard of quality that we agree upon as an industry.”

The Device Renewal Forum will consist of representatives from distributors, sellers, re-manfactureres, OEMs, and carriers who will give their two-cents about which devices should be renewed, the technical standards for each refurbished device, and how devices will be rebuilt. The Forum will work as an independent governing body that will set the standards for renewed devices and evaluate the facilities that rebuild handsets. Standards will include which parts need to be replaced in certain devices and which devices shouldn’t be refurbished at all.

“We are creating an organization that gives consumers and carriers confidence in rebuilt devices, and rebuilds devices up to a standard that they believe in,” said Edmondson, “Devices are retired when they perceptually obsolete, we will create a standard that says the devices is not functionally obsolete.”

Edmondson says that devices will carry a certain brand label to tell consumers that a device has been rebuilt to the Forum’s standards, which he hopes will inspire confidence in less expensive, refurbished devices. The Device Renewal Forum’s first meeting will take place February 29 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The Forum will also be open to anyone who wants to join for the next few months.

Cell phones in trashcan image via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

You read that right. Nokia just announced the 808 PureView here at the Mobile World Congress, and it sports an astoundingly large 41 megapixel camera.

Nokia is well aware that such large resolution pictures will be difficult to share, so the phone will oversample pictures to a size roughly around a 5 megapixel picture. That means better picture quality without scary file sizes. And if you do dare to take a picture at the full resolution (which is actually 38 MP), you’ll be able to zoom into the picture after the fact without losing much detail.

The 808 PureView runs Nokia’s Belle OS, which could be a disappointment to those expecting yet another new Windows Phone from the company. Jo Harlow, Nokia’s head of smartphones, said that the company will eventually bring its PureView technology to future phones. We can consider the 808 PureView a practice run for the tech, and a new lustworthy device for Nokia fanatics.

The phone features a 4-inch display and a 1.3 gigahertz processor. We expect to hear more about how this phone’s magical camera works in the future. In comparison, the iPhone 4S, and most other high-end smartphones, feature 8-megapixel cameras. The 808 is interesting, but I’m far more curious what PureView will look like once it hits future phones.

The Nokia 808 PureView is expected to ship in May for €450. No word on a U.S. release yet.

Top Photo/Devindra Hardawar

VentureBeat is holding its second annual Mobile Summit this April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and technology challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants — 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers — will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Nokia has impressively repositioned itself as a high-end Windows Phone maker, but the company hasn’t forgotten about the lower-end of the market either.

Nokia officially announced its cheapest Windows Device yet, the Lumia 610, as well as three new Asha S40 devices today at the Mobile World Congress, the Asha 202, 203, and 302. Additionally, the company has announced a major update to its Nokia Life service, which gives consumers in emerging markets access to useful mobile tools.

The Lumia 610 looks like a smaller version of the Lumia 710, and Nokia describes it as the perfect introduction for Windows Phone for younger audiences. The Asha 202 and 203 are touch-screen enabled, with the 202 offering the ever-popular (in Europe and Asia, at least) dual-SIM configuration. The Asha 202 and 203 are touch-screen enabled, with the 202 offering the ever-popular (in Europe and Asia, at least) dual-SIM configuration, while the 302 sports a QWERTY hardware keyboard.

With Nokia Life, which is now available in India, China, Indonesia, and Nigeria, users will be able to do things like easily learn English, or get information on basic health services from doctors. Nokia says it plans to extend Nokia Life beyond four markets soon.

Nokia says the Asha 202 and 203 will retail for 60 euros, while the 302, which is already available, will sell for 95 euros. A Nokia rep tells me the Lumia 610 will retail for around 190 euros without contract when it launches in a few months. At this point a U.S. release is uncertain, but I’m sure some prepaid carrier would love to pick it up.

Photos/Devindra Hardawar

VentureBeat is holding its second annual Mobile Summit this April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and technology challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants — 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers — will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Marvell is showing off a bunch of new chips for smartphones, smart TVs, networking, and other gear at the Mobile World Congress event this week. Among the new products is the world’s first TD-HSPA+ modem chip for smartphones used in emerging countries such as China.

Mobile chip makers are dueling to get their chips designed into the latest smartphones and tablets at this week’s event, which is being covered live by VentureBeat’s Devindar Hardawar. Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Intel have all announced big customer wins already at the show.

The new modem chip, the Marvell PXA1202, can triple the data rate for phones connected to TD-SCDMA networks. Phones using the so-called 3.5G technology can download data at rates of 8.4 megabits per second, compared with 2.8 megabits per second for current phones.

Marvell is also launching its LTE multimode modem chip set for phones that can transfer a lot of data at a low cost. The new PXA1802 chip will help address geographic fragmentation problems that have slowed adoption of certain mobile standards. The chip targets China’s TD-SCDMA network technology for mobile phones.

Marvell said it will have a number of new handset design wins for its TD-SCDMA chips for emerging markets such as China. Those designs use a user interface from Marvell dubbed Kinoma.

Kinoma Play is a user interface for smartphones, tablet computers, and other mobile devices. It can be built into a single application or become the user’s main interface for operating the multimedia apps on a phone. Kinoma Play is functional, fluid and fast interface. It works great with a touchscreen, letting you do tasks more easily, such as flipping through your music collection or zooming in on a face in a picture. Marvell acquired the small software company Kinoma last year.

Among Kinoma’s new features: the ability to manage your home appliances and lighting from afar. It makes sense for a chip maker to do this because it isn’t all about the hardware. Great smartphone software can show off the power of a chip through applications such as photo browsing. Intel has learned that too and is designing entire phones for its first smartphone customers.

“I am very proud that we are a strong driving force behind the evolution of the smart devices people around the world use every day in the home and at work, from mobile smartphones and smart TVs, such as Google TV, to smart appliances, energy-efficient lighting and mobile printing,” said Weili Dai, co-founder of Marvell.

Marvell’s new WiFi platform, Avastar, will be upgraded to handle 802.11ac, which promises much faster wireless networking in the not so distant future, as well as near-field communications (NFC) for more ubiquitous phone-based payment platforms.

Marvell said it is also launching technology to support easier mobile printing via WiFi networks.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Just how much does your smartphone’s camera matter to you? With its latest flagship Android line, dubbed HTC One, the Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC is hoping that a killer camera is just enough to sway you over to its phones.

Those killer features include the ability to take video and photos without switching modes (something that wastes precious seconds), as well as near-instant camera app launching and autofocus. HTC is calling its combined new photo technology ImageSense, which CEO Peter Chou describes as “the power of a true digital camera on your phone.”

Chou unveiled the One series of devices, which includes the HTC One X, One S, and One V, at the Mobile World Congress today to a packed room. He said that taking photos was the second-most common thing consumers did with their phones, so the company saw a huge market reason to focus on helping people take better photos.

Thanks to ImageSense — which is an all-encompassing term to describe tweaks HTC has made to the camera lens, sensor, user interface and software — Chou says that HTC One phones can launch their camera app in 0.7 seconds, and they can autofocus in just 0.2 seconds. Other tweaks are sure to appeal to camera fanatics. For example, the phones can take a burst of photos simply by holding down the shutter button, and they can automatically adjust the flash level to keep subjects from looking washed out.

Perhaps best of all, the HTC One phones will let you easily take a picture while recording a video.

The new camera capabilities will be included in HTC Sense 4, the latest version of the company’s custom Android software. In addition to photos, the new phones will offer Beats integration with music from any source, be it on your device or streamed from the web. The One series will also include 25 gigabytes of free Dropbox storage for two years, and thanks to Sense 4, they will be able to automatically sync music wirelessly from your computer.

The HTC One X is the flagship device in the new series, with a 4.7-inch screen, 720p HD resolution, and quad-core Tegra 3 processor. HTC will also offer an LTE variant of the One X that will run Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 platform. The One X features a unibody polycarbonate design — a necessary upgrade for HTC, as its past phones weren’t the most durable devices.

Not surprisingly, the One S and One V are meant to serve mid-range and low-range customers. The One S is smaller than the X and features an anodized aluminum case. HTC didn’t hype up the One V much at its press conference, but we expect it to eschew the fancy case designs and large screens in exchange for a more affordable price.

HTC is also taking a different strategy this time around when it comes to bringing these phones to the public. Instead of slowly rolling them out across different regions, the One series of phones will launch globally in April. Chou said that 144 carriers around the world have already signed on to offer the phones.

VentureBeat is holding its second annual Mobile Summit this April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and technology challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants — 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers — will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Sony Mobile president Bert Nordberg showing off the new Xperia phones

Sony unveiled two new smartphones tonight at Mobile World Congress, the Xperia P and Xperia U, which will sit alongside the company’s previously announced Xperia S phone.

Altogether, the phones make up Sony’s new “Xperia NXT” brand. More than just being the next generation of Xperia handsets, the NXT series shows how Sony can take command of its mobile future now that Ericsson is out of the picture. The company has already released a slew of Android devices under the Xperia name, but none of them have been smash hits.

At the press conference, Sony CMO Steve Walker described each phone as having “a very unique personality.” Indeed, all of the NXT models have different key features. The Xperia S is the best for viewing HD content, thanks to its 720p resolution display and large 4.3-inch screen. The 4-inch Xperia P sports a screen with the same 720p resolution (making everything look slightly more sharp than the S), and a new technology called “White Magic” that makes it ideal for outdoor viewing. You can also plug the Xperia P into a dock to output its display to a TV, as well as control it via keyboard and mouse.

The Xperia U is the runt of the litter, since it has the smallest screen at 3.5-inches, but its portability (and likely slightly cheaper price) could be appealing to those who don’t want large phones. (Don’t forget that the iPhone 4S still sports a 3.5-inch display as well.) The U is powered by a 1 gigahertz processor and includes “xLoud” sound processing, which will likely help it make your tunes sound better.

All of the phones feature near-field communication (NFC), which will work together with Sony’s Xperia Smart Tags, tiny modules you can place anywhere to easily change your phone’s settings with one tap. For example, you could easily reconfigure your Xperia phone for use in the car by placing a Smart Tag somewhere on your dashboard.

It’s worth nothing that tonight’s press conference at MWC was the company’s first showing with its newly renamed Sony Mobile division. The Xperia P and Xperia U don’t seem that remarkable on their own, but their existence shows that Sony is now getting better about creating a unified Android brand, something that could help the company better compete against Samsung and Apple.

The company’s other flagship phone, the Xperia Ion, is still in the picture, but I won’t be too surprised if an updated version of the Ion eventually falls under the NXT brand as well.

The Xperia S is now shipping globally, and Sony says that both the P and U models will be available in the second quarter.

VentureBeat is holding its second annual Mobile Summit this April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and technology challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants — 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers — will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Is LG’s new Optimus 4X HD quad-core flagship phone not your style? You’ll have many more options to choose from this year by the Korean manufacturer, judging from its showing today at the Mobile World Congress.

The company unveiled its new L-Style series of Android phones, which target the more deal-savvy mid-range market, as well as an updated 3D phone, the Optimus 3D Max. LG also shows off the Optimus Vu, a 5-inch behemoth that will go toe-to-toe with Samsung’s Galaxy Note.

Unlike HTC, which is now focusing on creating a handful of high-quality Android phones, LG isn’t afraid of flooding the market with several models, hoping for one to catch on. It’s a strategy employed by other Android manufacturers, but at this point it doesn’t seem like the smartest idea (unless you’re consistently releasing stuff people actually want).

The L-Style series includes the L3, L5, and L7 (pictured above), which rank in order from lowest-end to highest. The L3 sports a 800 megahertz processor, puny 3.2-inch display, and runs Android 2.3. The L5 ups the ante with a large 4-inch screen and Android 4.0, but it’s still stuck with an 800Mhz CPU. The L7 offers an even bigger display at 4.3-inches, Android 4.0, and a 1 gigahertz processor. All of the phones boast a thin and striking new design.

For some reason, LG still hasn’t taken the hint that nobody wants a 3D phone. The Optimus 3D Max seems like a slight upgrade to its predecessor, with a brighter 4.3-inch display and wider 3D viewing angle. But it’s still stuck with Android 2.3, which makes the phone seem especially useless by this point.

And then there’s the Optimus Vu (pictured below). It sports a 5-inch screen, much like Samsung’s Galaxy Note, but it’s also presented in an awkward 4 by 3 aspect ratio. That means it feels even bigger in your hand than the Galaxy Note, since the Vu is more on the squarish side. LG has also equipped it with basic range of stylus options — don’t expect the Wacom technology powering the Galaxy Note’s stylus here.

VentureBeat is holding its second annual Mobile Summit this April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and technology challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants — 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers — will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Samsung kicked off its Mobile World Congress presence by revealing two new devices this morning: a larger 10.1-inch version of the Galaxy Tab 2 Android tablet, and the intriguing/baffling Galaxy Beam, an Android smartphone with a built-in projector.

Given Samsung’s propensity to delivering tablets of many different sizes, the larger Galaxy Tab 2 doesn’t come as much as a surprise. The Galaxy Beam, on the other hand, is a bit of a head scratcher.

The Beam is a traditional Android smartphone, aside from the projector aspect. It has a 4-inch display, a 1 gigahertz dual-core processor, and runs Android 2.3. Honestly, it sounds like a phone that would have been announced last year, not something that Samsung would save for the biggest mobile event of 2012.

But the Galaxy Beam’s real claim to fame is its powerful built-in projector, which Samsung says can project HD up to 50-inches wide at 15 lumens. You’ll be able to project photos, videos, and games using a special Samsung app. Like the Galaxy Note, the Beam appears to be a very niche device, but it’s the first step towards Samsung bringing projectors to its future mainstream devices (it’d certainly be a nice addition to next year’s Galaxy S lineup).

The 10.1-inch version of the Galaxy Tab 2 is clearly Samsung’s volley to stay competitive with the iPad 3, which could be announced as soon as next week. It sports a 1280 by 800 10.1-inch display, Android 3.0, and 1 gigabyte of RAM. It’s only 9.7 millimeters thick and will come in 16 gigabyte and 32GB varieties.

Samsung is also expected to announce a 10-inch version of the Galaxy Note this week, so it’ll be interesting to see how it fits into the company’s tablet lineup. I found the Note to be iffy as a phone, but the S Pen stylus has a lot of potential in larger screens. It’s certainly one way for Samsung to stay a step ahead of the iPad 3.

VentureBeat is holding its second annual Mobile Summit this April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and technology challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants — 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers — will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

More than just a getaway for fine tapas and wine, Barcelona is also home to one of the most important events in the mobile industry, Mobile World Congress. The event, which begins on Sunday at the Fira de Barcelona conference center, is where the world’s mobile phone makers gather to show off the technologies they hope will dominate the coming year.

It’s coming at a key turning point in the mobile industry, where faster processors, faster connections speeds and increasingly versatile devices are enabling a whole new class of applications, like mobile shopping, mobile media, and mobile in the enterprise.

The event will attract more than 60,000 attendees this year. VentureBeat will be on the ground this year to cover all of the breaking MWC news (and hopefully a few parties).

We’re only one month beyond the Consumer Electronics Show, so it might seem like there’s not much left to announce at MWC. But this year’s CES was a bit of a bore, especially when it came to mobile announcements. It seems that many companies have instead saved their big announcements for Mobile World Congress.

VentureBeat is also in the midst of preparing our second annual Mobile Summit, so it’ll be interesting to see just how much MWC jibes with our predictions for the biggest mobile topics of the year.

Here’s what we’re most excited to see at the show:

The rise of quad-core phones

We’ve known that smartphones featuring quad-core CPUs, like Nvidia’s Tegra 3, are set to make a splash this year, but up until now they’ve mostly been mostly theoretical. At Mobile World Congress, manufacturers will finally be showing off their first quad-core devices, which promise even more computing power and battery efficiency than existing phones. LG has already kicked this off by announcing its Optimus 4X HD smartphone this week.

ARM is also working on its latest dual-core CPU platform, the OMAP 5 chip based on its upcoming Cortex A-15 architecture, and it’s reportedly even faster than quad-core chips available today. Basically, no matter how many cores your next smartphone will have, it’ll likely smoke whatever is in your pocket right now.

Windows 8 for everyone!

At first, Microsoft’s decision to unveil its Windows 8 Consumer Preview at Mobile World Congress seemed like a strange decision. For most people, the preview will be just another desktop operating system like past versions of Windows. But the MWC launch is significant when you consider Microsoft’s mobile ambitions with Windows 8 — remember that it’s equally suited for tablets, laptops, and desktops. And with the impending arrival of Windows on ARM devices, which will more closely resemble iOS and Android devices, it’s clear that mobile is a big deal for Microsoft this time around.

Microsoft will likely still make some announcements surrounding Windows Phone, but after the Lumia 900 stole the show at CES this year, we suspect the company will focus more on promoting Windows 8. It’s also worth noting that Microsoft isn’t holding a Windows Phone press conference this year, though it will be throwing a Windows Phone party in Barcelona.

Samsung playing Apple, again, by not announcing what everyone wants

At CES this year, it seemed that Samsung had reached an apex of hype and excitement for its products, something that’s normally reserved for Apple. Samsung is taking things a step further at MWC by refusing to announce its most highly anticipated mobile product, the Galaxy S III. It could be that the phone just isn’t ready to show off yet, but more likely Samsung aims to control the entire experience of its unveiling with a huge event of its own.

As for other devices, we’re expecting even more Android tablets (seriously Samsung, it’s okay to stop at some point), as well as possibly a larger version of the Galaxy Note.

HTC’s focus on fewer, more interesting phones

Once one of the top Android manufacturers, HTC, has taken a beating in recent years by Motorola and Samsung. Partially, that’s due to HTC’s habit of releasing a slew of near-identical Android phones. Since that’s clearly not a winning strategy, the company said last month that it will instead focus on releasing fewer, higher quality devices. We may see the first signs of that new strategy at MWC, where HTC is rumored to announce the Endeavor, a quad-core 4.7-inch superphone.

Barcelona surprises

With an event like Mobile World Congress, I’m particularly interested in digging up new and interesting companies that don’t typically get much coverage in the U.S. Being based in Barcelona allows MWC to attract companies that can’t afford the trip for big U.S. events like CES. After the over-hyped press conferences and keynote events are over, I’m looking forward to strolling the show floor and finding some hidden gems.

If you think your company fits the bill, feel free to drop me a line at devindra@venturebeat.com.

Prelude to VentureBeat’s Mobile Summit

At our upcoming Mobile Summit, which will be held on April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif., we’ll be discussing some of the biggest trends in the industry this year. Judging from my packed MWC schedule, I’ll be encountering many of the same themes in Barcelona, like mobile shopping, mobile media, and mobile in the enterprise.

The big takeaway I’m already gathering from Mobile World Congress, as well as our own events, is that the mobile industry is now going through a new phase of maturity. Tasks that we’ve traditionally accomplished on computers are not only moving to mobile, they’re being improved by mobile. And perhaps most importantly, the rise of cheap mobile mobile devices and ubiquitous cellular networks is bringing the promise of computing to just about everyone.

Photo via Christine und Hagen Graf/Flickr