The Institute for Information Industry (III,
The partners in the collaboration hope to develop applications (aps) that allows cellphone users to play multimedia games and to watch brief video clips on their handsets.
"The collaboration will further enhance Taiwan's position in the global telecom market," said Lin Ferng-ching (林逢慶), chief executive of the government-funded research organization.
Sweden-based Ericsson, one of the world's major mobile-system providers, will be in charge of the project's technical support, while III, will offer research as well as invite local partners to join the collaboration.
Mobile-phone service providers, content developers and handheld device makers are ideal candidates to join the partnership, Lin said.
Mobile entertainment aps are expected to be a strong cash earner as consumers seek to gain more entertainment and utilitarian value from their mobile devices.
"The mobile entertainment market has incredible potential to create a wealth of business opportunities," Lin said.
The global mobile aps market is expected to grow to US$14.5 billion (NT$505.2 billion) by next year -- a compounded annual growth rate of 143.37 percent, according to a recent Jupiter Research report.
Lin added that the government hopes, through this alliance, not only to elevate the nation's software development but also to upgrade local hardware makers' manufacturing ability.
Meanwhile, one market analyst said the benefits of the Ericsson-III link-up may be some time away.
"With the multimedia services becoming more and more important in the mobile sector, the collaboration is significant," said Ken Ko (
But III should speed up the plan or they may miss the right timing, he added. The bureaucratic organization has a reputation for concluding research behind schedule. Local companies have therefore missed the opportunity to benefit from III's findings, he said.
This is not the first time the government has linked up with Ericsson.
Back in 2001, III cooperated with Sony Ericsson to develop a mobile software.
"Since the software was developed locally and many Taiwanese handset makers [are] involved in the project, Sony Ericsson later decided to place more orders to local companies," Lin said.
Sony Ericsson chose GVC Corp (
"We hope this new alliance can also benefit local handset and personal-digital-assistant [PDA] makers," Lin stressed.
Taiwan shipped out 27 million handsets last year, accounting for about 6 percent of the global cellphone market. That number may rise to 40.3 million units, or a 8.5 percent global market this year, according to the Market Intelligence Center (MIC,
In return, the alliance is expected to act as a stepping stone for Ericsson's China expansion.
"Taiwan will become very crucial for [future telecom] development ? not only the Taiwanese market but also the Chinese market, so the opportunity for us to grow further in the future is very good," said Jan Signell, chairman of Ericsson Taiwan.
He added that with Taiwan having the highest mobile-phone service penetration in the world -- over 100 percent -- it is in a favorable position to develop mobile multimedia.
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