By Asokan Thiyagarajan – Technology Evangelist, Ecosystem and Market Development

Asokan Thiyagarajan serves as a technology evangelist within the Ecosystem and Market Development team at Motorola. In this role, he is responsible for recommending strategies to address market and technology trends as well as partnerships with key developers.

Asokan has over 18 years of international experience in high technology sectors, developing software and communication systems. Prior to Motorola, Asokan held a variety of senior development, operations and strategic management positions at companies such as Nokia, Ericsson and Compaq (HP). He also has entrepreneurial experience, having co-founded a technology company.

Asokan writes a monthly feature entitled "On the Cutting Edge" for the MOTODEV newsletter examining trends and events in the industry. A collection of those feature articles is listed below.

• Mobile Music: A Social Phenomenon | May 2, 2008

  Music remains an amazingly disruptive (in a good way) influence for the mobile marketplace. From basic hardware design evolution to robust DRM schemes, music has ushered the creation of several cutting edge developments for device manufacturers and software developers alike. It’s really no surprise, then, that music has the potential to form the core of creative new experiences in mobile applications...(more)

• Femto-Cells: Next Generation Home Base Stations | April 1, 2008

  More commonly known as the home base station, a femtocell creates that broadband - mobile network interface. Using a simple appliance similar to a wireless router, femtocell technology brings the promise of more consistent mobile connections using a technology native to existing mobile hardware...(more)

• Emerging Technology - Near Field Communications | March 3, 2008

  Near Field Communication (NFC) is a fast emerging short-range wireless connectivity standard that significantly simplifies the interaction of consumer devices across a range of applications. Though fairly new, NFC has evolved from a combination of existing contactless identification and interconnection technologies, most notably RFID. The technology can be implemented in mobile phones or other portable devices to enable secure electronic payments...(more)

• Location Based Services - Have they arrived? | February 1, 2008

  Until 2006, LBS was more talk than action, but now in the early days of 2008, LBS is a real thing. The technology now exists for these applications to work smoothly, without interruption, and in concert with each other. But that's the linchpin of the developer's puzzle: Rethinking the way these applications work together to provide a seamless location based experience instead of a one-off gadget ... (more)

• Games, Mobile Phones and Technology | January 1, 2008

  Mobile Games are gaining market presence. From the 38 million users measured across the globe in 2005, an iSuppli marketing report forecasts a threefold growth to 134 million mobile game users, each month, by 2010. Mobile gaming revenue is also expected to nearly triple by 2011, growing to $6.6 billion. An In-Stat report predicts that 9% of mobile subscribers will use their phones for games ... (more)

• Social Networks: The Mobile Way | December 3, 2007

  Social networks are sprouting these days like wild mushrooms. Many of these new online communities cater to niche interests ranging from obscure political candidates to independent films. Social networking sites allow users to create online profiles and build personal networks that connect them to other users ... (more)

• MIDP 3.0: The Next Generation In Java ME Application Development | November 1, 2007

  Ever since Java for Mobile Devices was released in 1998, it has been widely adopted by most manufacturers and application programmers. Java ME is available on more than 80% of the handsets and it seems to be a very favorable programming environment due to its wide availability. Though portability has suffered due to fragmentation issues, it still seems to be the #1 choice for mobile application programmers ... (more)

• Web 2.0: An Introduction | October 1, 2007

  With always-on connectivity and higher bandwidth available on mobile networks, mobile Internet access is on the verge of becoming a fully realized service that has the potential to create radical change in the competitive dynamics between content owners, network operators, technology vendors, and end-users ... (more)

• MOTODEV Summits: San Jose | September 3, 2007

  As I was putting together the sessions for our first-ever series of MOTODEV Summits, I started getting really excited about the numerous possibilities these events offer to developers. Those who attend the Summits – in San Jose, in London or in Beijing – will get a unique 360-degree view of what's out there today and discover new ways to create cool, innovative applications ... (more)

• Mobile Content Protection & Digital Rights Management | August 1, 2007

  The users have spoken: access to music and other media is essential on today's feature-rich handsets. The possibilities for media applications are nearly limitless, but developers must confront the ongoing threat of content piracy. As the value of content increases, so does the level of hacker sophistication ... (more)

• Developer Innovation Using Displays | July 2, 2007

  As technologies evolve, one major trend in the mobile handset industry is a shift toward more advanced display technology bringing developers larger screens, richer colors, sharper contrast and higher refresh rates for mobile applications ... (more)

• Getting In Touch with Haptics | June 1, 2007

  As mobile computing becomes more pervasive, the quality of mobile data networks and the capabilities of mobile devices are getting stronger, spurring the development of cooler, more innovative and more user-friendly applications for handheld resource-constrained devices. ... (more)