Mobile Innovation

Reading this article made me think of the business model for AM/FM radio and TV before cable. All you needed was an antennae and you could watch or listen to your shows. We all got used to listening or watching those commercials and learned they were part of why you did not pay for the programs. If you wanted to pay for entertainment, then you went to a movie.

This all changed when cable TV was introduced. People got used to paying for TV service and now we even have paid radio.

So, will Google return us to free services (or at least subsidized) for our cell phone and will consumers be willing to have commercials as part of their cell phone. Imagine having to listen to a commercial before your call is made? Will we as consumers dial the phone and ignore the commercial like we do with most TV advertising?

In many ways this makes sense. The usage and capabilities of Cell phones continues to grow dramatically and it would only make sense for offerings like Google's to expand the market. I do, however, see this as more of a consumer option. I can not see companies opting for their employees to have to watch an ad before they could read their email on their PDA's or allowing google to search your mail to give you targeted ads.

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Posted by Mobile Innovation at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nokia's partnership with Vodafone, Apple's partnership with AT&T, O2, and others, and Google's partnership with T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel, LG, HTC, and others indeed signals a shift in mobile. There are players with software and user interface expertise delivering the true mobile Internet to customers; and the hardware manufacturer or carriers can not bypass that trend.

Nokia’s deal with Vodafone is definitely one model for carriers, should the Ovi platform succeed, especially in the face of challenges from Apple’s Safari interface, the new Google OS, and even Microsoft CE.

Let's see what the other handset manufacturers focus on:

First of all we have Motorola. Motorola’s hardware dominance eroded after iteration after iteration of RAZR clones that they released, along with their failure to concentrate on software - the new level of dominance.

Besides Motorola there are Sony Ericcson and Samsung, true hardware players, with better opportunities in Asia, as their gaming or feature-laden phones continue to have success. However, they too are not software experts and should struggle as the software giants make their play.

LG and HTC, on the other hand, are aligning with carriers, collaborating on phone production to meet their needs, and the new software players. Both are smartly onboard with Google’s partnership, though it is far too early to determine what will become of Google’s efforts.

Nokia is my favorite for the most adaptable handset manufacturer. In addition to their Symbian OS and Ovi mobile application layer, they purchased Navteq, entering the GPS market in a force. Nokia’s play may not pay huge dividends for the short-term, but I believe it positions them well for the future.

So, Is the Vodafone – Nokia partnership intelligent for the new mobile era, one in which data margins, if not revenue, will trump voice revenue? In my opinion Vodafone is making the right steps toward realizing and executing against the future mobile model, even if the partnership does not succeed.

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Posted by Mobile Innovation at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We all now realize the power of the Apple brand, especially at the negotiating table, but I for one never thought that they could demand such a huge revenue share. By holding AT&T over the proverbial barrel, Apple has sucked the true money pit -- data revenue -- from the carrier's hands and left the carrier with the commodity, voice revenue. This negotiating precedent should have implications in Nokia's negotiations with Vodafone, Google's negotiations with Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, and all the rest, plus the other carrier - software combinations.

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Posted by Mobile Innovation at 09:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)