Sony Ericsson’s Mobile Kiosks

InfoWorld: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB is readying a series of multimedia kiosks that it hopes will save operators, retailers and users time and money when it comes to fixing common phone faults. The company showed an early sample of the kiosks in its booth at the 3GSM World Congress.
A common remedy for mobile phone performance problems is to update the firmware (the basic operating software coded into a semipermanent memory such as flash). However, this usually involves sending phones back to a service center, a process that takes several days at best. This is costly for the retailers, who must pack and ship the phones, and for the network operators who miss out on call revenue — not to mention the customers, who lose the use of their phones while all this is going on.
Sony Ericsson wants to simplify the update process by letting customers update their own phones at multimedia kiosks installed in busy stores. The cylindrical kiosks, about 0.5 meters wide and 1.5 meters tall, contain a small PC and feature a touch-sensitive flat-panel display and a docking cradle for a mobile phone. Customers will be able to slot their phone into the cradle after first removing the SIM card, then follow the on-screen prompts to update the firmware. The process will take about seven minutes, Sony Ericsson staff said. The kiosk’s computer will also contain a variety of multimedia content that customers can consult while their phone is being updated, and at other times the screen can display promotional messages, either for Sony Ericsson phones or for the store hosting the kiosk, according to Jesper Lykking, who is responsible for service portfolio management at Sony Ericsson.
Press release