Straub Venture’s Stefan Menden will speak among other web 2.0 experts in a panel discussion at the Essential MediaTech 2008 conference on 11th November in London.

Indeed truphone on blackberry is a very exciting product launch and we are excited about this milestone.

One reason is that most people these days see the blackberry as a status symbol of employment in a senior position. The device is almost omnipresent in global cities like New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Bejing and Shanghai. Still it comes with VERY LARGE BILLS (VLB’s) attached. The VLB are a result of our use of the inbuild address book for calls which very well could be done on Skype, or via your landline. But studies show that even in the presence of a landline phone or a computer with Skype installed we tend to use our mobile for convenience. We are addicted to our smartphones - the modern replacement of cigarettes. These days you see more people playing with mobile phones (in particular blackberries and iphones) on the subway, railways into these global cities than inhaling blue smoke. (thanks god).

Why is the truphone blackberry launch so exciting, many analysts will ask , when it does not yet use the full IP communication capability of the Blackberry WiFi chipset to allow end to end mobile IP communication? Yes, you heard it correctly it currently relies on the ((truphone)) Anywhere product specs (also enabled on the Nokia series by truphone (but not yet on the iPhone), meaning it uses for the first leg GSM to connect to the truphone calling servers ((truphone cloud)).

Also many people have enabled pure IP calling with truphone, pure mobile IP to IP calling with your mates, friends and family members makes a lot of sense once they are all on ((truphone)), but in many cases WiFi will not be openly accessible. So even then it is hugely beneficial if one party is on IP and you call him on his truphone number, meaning the leg into the truphone server comes out of your bundles but the termination is provided free of charge by the truphone calling cloud.

A personal anecdote: On a recent trip to Silicon Valley I was stuck at San Francisco Airport. Already on the American Airline flight to Chicago I was unable to access the lounge or Airport WiFi as the cabin shielded the signal. Nevertheless I was able to use my AT&T bundled minutes to call my family via truphone Anywhere back in London, United Kingdom by just using the At&T bundled minutes. The calling leg from the US truphone servers to my home in London was all provided free of charge by truphone. Therefore a telephone call which would have just lasted 4 minutes before my minutes would have been spend lasted 45 minutes.

The essence of the story is that Blackberries like iPhone contracts with huge bundled minutes which are just as good as WiFi. (e.g. in the UK carriers like 3, T-Moile and O2 are fighting over who offers more minutes for 15 Pounds). In my experience 1200 minutes are almost impossible to use up, except if you have truphone Anywhere enabled on your Nokia or blackberry.

Mobile VoIP to IP on truphone is still the most crystal clear connection if the setup is correctly done, but GSM is almost as good as truphone on WiFi, as Om Malik reports in his article at the New York time and his own Blog.

truphone press release:

Global mobile network operator Truphone today launched a beta of its mobile internet telephony service, Truphone Anywhere, for BlackBerry® smartphones. Truphone Anywhere brings simple, easy and cheap international calling to up to 40 million BlackBerry users across the world.

Truphone Anywhere works in 33 countries worldwide. It saves BlackBerry users from those countries money on the international calls they make from their home country. The service works alongside domestic service providers, but reduces international call costs to as little as £0.03/$0.06 per minute.

Truphone works with the user to save them money. Instead of requiring the user to remember what to do, Truphone Anywhere simply asks whether he/she wants to make a Truphone call whenever an international number is dialled. The user simply accepts, and Truphone connects the call.

“There’s no GSM business tariff that gets close to the prices we can offer BlackBerry users with Truphone for international calling,” said Geraldine Wilson, new CEO of Truphone. “And in these days of financial belt-tightening, businesses are looking at every means of cutting costs, which is an opportunity for us. Truphone is a genuine alternative carrier for international calls, with the potential to reduce annual mobile bills for the largest companies by many millions of dollars,” continued Wilson.

Aaron Simpson is the BlackBerry-using chief executive of Quintessentially, a private members’ club that provides a 24-hour global concierge service and is part of the world’s leading luxury lifestyle group. He stated: “Quintessentially has offices all around the world and, as CEO, I’m in constant contact with all of them. I’ve been using Truphone on my Blackberry and its low call rates have enabled me to make those calls at a fraction of the cost of using my mobile provider.”

In technical terms, Truphone Anywhere works by connecting to a local Truphone server, which then connects the long-distance part of the call over the internet. Because most BlackBerry users are contract customers, the local connection to Truphone is, typically, free because it uses bundled minutes from the customer’s usual cellular service provider.

Truphone for BlackBerry smartphones is available to download for free from www.truphone.com/blackberry. Alternatively, Handango users may also download Truphone from www.handango.com. There are no monthly subscriptions or other charges.

truphone, the mobile internet network operator, is pleased to announce the appointment of Geraldine Wilson as CEO.

Geraldine joins from Yahoo! where she was VP and GM EMEA Connected Life, Yahoo!’s Mobile and Broadband division. She was previously with Vodafone where she held key board positions in the UK and Sweden, including CCO, MD UK Content Services and Director of Prepay UK. Geraldine is an INSEAD graduate.

The appointment marks a new phase of growth for Truphone, which will increasingly aim to attract ‘typical’ mobile phone users to its low-cost, mobile internet telephony service.

Truphone raised over US$30m in its 2008 B Round after having raised the largest European Series A funding of 2006 with support from Straub Ventures, Eden Ventures, Wellington Partners, Independent News & Media and Burda Digital Ventures, together with significant angel investors. John McMonigall of Apax is Chairman of the board.

About Truphone
The first true mobile internet network operator, Truphone allows users of Wi-Fi-enabled mobile phones to make and receive regular telephone calls, and to send and receive SMS [text] messages, using only a Wi-Fi connection and the internet. Although still in beta, it has already attracted tens of thousands of users in 149 countries. Truphone is the trading name of Software Cellular Network (SCN). SCN is privately owned, funded by both venture capital investment and angel investors.

For more information, please visit www.truphone.com

Stefan talks about his background as an entrepreneur and explains what Straub Ventures are seeking in young companies. As it is all in German, here are some of the main points:

- we look for real disruptive technologies and businesses

- we look for big market opportunities

- don’t copy something from the US

To get us excited and spend our time and effort on your company, it better follow these rules.

Here is the interview with Stefan Menden