Greece at MWC 2013 With the participation of 25 companies, Greece “enters” the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2013, held in Barcelona, Spain on 25 – 28 February. It is the first time that Greece officially participates in this event. The Greek participation is an initiative of the Association of Mobile Applications Greece (SEKEE) with the cooperation of the Ministry for Development, Competitiveness, Infrastructure, Transport and Networks. Participating with a national stand and a group of companies this presence offers Greece the opportunity to showcase the technological capabilities of the country. The slogan to promote Greek companies was”Innovation Born in Greece Goes Global!” The business mission to Barcelona is part of a number of outward oriented actions, called Σynergies, planned in partnership by the business associations SEKEE (Mobile apps), ΕNEVI (Microelectronics), EVIDITE (Aerospace), ΗBio (Biotechnology) and HSA (Startups), for 2013 and 2014. Greece to Exhibit at Cebit 2013  Greece is to renew its participation in the world’s biggest information technology and telecommunications exhibition, CeBIT 2013, following many years of absence, with a national pavilion arranged by the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) – Helexpo. CeBIT 2013 is being held in Hannover, Germany, on March 5-9, and 20 businesses and associations, as well as 10 state organizations are participating in the Greek mission. Invest in Greece is presenting investment opportunities on the Greek ICT sector.

Telefónica Digital and Mozilla, the firm behind the Firefox web browser, will create a new mobile platform to deliver the first HTML5-based devices running on the open web. mobilenewscwp.co.uk

The surge in mobile software and other apps has also led to a surge in jobs, almost half a million just in the U.S. news.cnet.com

While it will be years before mobile shopping becomes the dominant way that consumers complete in-store retail transactions, there is no doubt that 2011 has marked a breakthrough year when it comes to mogile shopping technologies. zdnet.com

HAMAC’s Vice-President and President of Upstream, Marco Veremis makes a case for the ‘Perfect Pitch’ over mobile – one that respects the consumer and yet is so expertly crafted that it invites a willing response.  His mantra, that mobile marketers must ‘communicate less, with more impact’ will be tested in the coming years with analyst house Forrester predicting that mobile marketing spend will rise to $1.25bn by 2014. read article

It’s no secret; enterprises have begun to adopt tablets with the same fervor of consumers. The integration of tablet devices into our lives and work has progressed rapidly – so fast it’s sometimes hard to put in perspective how quickly got here. venturebeat.com

Mobile payments has become a mainstream tech topic in the last couple of years, mirroring the rise of smartphones and application stores. What does the mobile payments ecosystem look like in the short term? readwriteweb.com

Upstream and Luth research shows that smartphone users are strongly interested in viewing ads for content for their mobile device, followed by movies/entertainment, including tickets; offers from their mobile service provider; and consumer goods. Location is not an important factor in getting people to respond to mobile marketing. internetretailing.net

Upstream’s Assaf Baciu describes how, despite the hype around location-based mobile advertising and offers, consumers are four times more likely to respond to a mobile ad that reflects their interests vs one that only takes into account their location.

Relative Files: Naftemporiki – Applications for smartphones