This years' WMC conference held in Barcelona was, like most years, exceptional. Although the total number of attendees was apparently down some 10-15% (according to the GSMA), it was still very well attended by senior executives from across the global mobile ecosystem. The good news for the industry is that Mobility appears to be weathering the global economic recession better than most industries; this in large part simply because the mobile device has become a necessity in life; an everyday utility. The f
Key Show Themes
- "The application stores"
- Strong focus on application build versus new devices, new network infrastructure
- Microsoft, Nokia and Orange all announced independent application stores; even AMDOCS making noise in this category
- Market confusion; increasing fragmentation from perspective of developers will only serve to further complicate how to bring new applications to market
- In summary - it's refreshing to see such a strong push on revenue generation elements of the mobile ecosystem (applications) versus the usually announcements around infrastructure
- "BlackBerry versus Apple"
- Dominant back room discussions seem to focus in on this debate
- RIM very top of mind; strong global focus
- RIM won highly acclaimed "GSMA Chairman Award" - tops in industry
- Amazing how much air time Apple received even though they have no formal representation at the show. Will be interesting to see, with their continued push into mobility, if they ever decide to formalize their presence at WMC
- LTE - when can we expect to see it happen
- Verizon announces deployment...but little from other operators
- will still likely be another 4-6 years till we see broad based LTE network deployments
- Attendance was down 10-15%, but still very well attended at C-level
- Touch devices
- Devices with touch screen the new model; numerous vendor announcements; most still fundamentally sub-par to Apple in my opinion
- Lots of innovation around User Interface - leveraging the accelerometer
- Android was very visible; very impressed considering they are less than one year old; strong handset OEM support (Vodafone/HTC announcement)
- Microsoft Trying to Recapture Presence
- Revamped Mobile OS is an improvement (Windows Phone)
- Looking to launch nicely integrated offering (device, PC, app store) - Windows Marketplace
- Definitely playing catch up; am not overly optimistic on level of success
- Location
- Embedded approach offering some interesting business offerings (Aloqa)
- Lots of discussion around impact of Google Latitude; more than 1M users in first week
- Mobile advertising
- Cautious optimism - reality about relevant size of opportunity and timelines by which mobile advertising will evolve. Very relevant to the early stage ventures we look at that have advertising based business models
- "Nokia cuts half its mobile ad sales force" - very telling in of itself.
1 Comment
No doubt on the RIM vs Apple bit. Their strategies and assets are completely different. For starters, RIM has more than 2-year head start over Apple in China.