Mobile Intertent World 2008, Boston

I’m at the MIW 2008 to jumpstart my interest in the mobile space as good place for Don Jose Media. I’m reporting on the fly, taking it in and spewing it out. Enjoy. -Joe Cox

 UNLEASHING THE POWER OF THE ANYWHERE NETWORK 

Emily Nagle Green, CEO, Yankee Group, is telling us about The Anywhere Network. It’s about a common platform, bandwith, intelliegence, seamlessness, and ubiquity. It’s Yankee Group’s vision, but not today’s reality.

Yankee Group is researching the trend, and according to Green, “When we get there, it’s going to be great.”

 So, is the Mobile Internet the same as The Anywhere Network? Well, the Mobile Internet is included in The Anywhere Network as part of a larger network, including the rest of the Internet.

Some of the issues that have been holding the progress of The Anywhere Network are: network limitations, device limitations, pricing problems, spectrum, and the mobile operator model.

Using the analogy of the Hoover Dam, Green talks about the incredible pressure at the base of the Hoover Dam. And so, in the same way, pressures are building behind the mobile dam: handset advances, new spectrum options, and threats proven viable.

It’s been a question, early on in the mobile space, how users would use mobile data. Priced right, users love mobile data , according to Green, citing examples of how flat rate data plans have flourished in Europe.

 There are cracks in the dam, however. Mobile revenues are declining, on a net basis. There’s a risk of unprofitable platforms.

Cracks lead to leaking dams. Recalling the AOL experience in Internet, there was a massive decline from 30 million subscribers to about 8 million today. Those users did not leave the Internet, Green says. They moved elsewhere within the Internet.

There’s another way to think about control. Showing a slide of a bilateral dam in Holland, Green draws a parallel to the mobile browser.

There will be a new mobile landscape, whether there are catastrophic changes or slower, thoughtful changes, there will be new network business models, a dissolution of current distribution chain, withering of device-specific software.

Expect and unleashed consumer impact. One device won’t suffice. Every application will be a mash-up. Users won’t want to switch between traffic information and their calendar. There will be even more trading of information for value- trading who I am and where I am for value.

On the enterprise side, there will be further consumer push on corporate Information Technology. Surveys of workers by Yankee, show that personal technology experiences are better than at work. That will change, Green says. There will be pervasive dual-mode connectivity.

In summary, if we acknowledge the cracks, skip the sandbags, move the cattle to higher ground, we can begin the controlled release and power the landscape.

Bringing the players together in the mobile space is imperitive.

Green encourages everyone to follow the conversation on Twitter.

MOBILE FREEDOM NOW

Russ McGuire is the VP Corporate Strategy at Sprint.

There’s a coming together of two different revolutions. The Internet was a revolution and there’s a similar thing happening in mobile.

As recently in the mid-1990’s, the enterprise space considered the Internet to be a toy compared to the quality of products being produced. Most people didn’t have an e-mail address on their business cards. But by 1995, more people did have e-mail for use in the business world.

Back then, there wasn’t a full utilization of the Internet. The same goes for the mobile space right now. Most businesses have not figured the way in which mobile is making how they operate fundamentally different.

At Sprit, it’s considered to be a revolution based on three factors: instant, compelling, worry-free. Instant is stuff that works now, compelling is something that a user says, “I have to have this.” Worry-free is a goal that requires carriers to cahnge. The present reality is that carriers are not the easiest people to work with, for instance, prohibitive costs.

Instant is, where I am, I am connected and do things right away. Sprint has launched WiMAX in Baltimore as XHOM. It’s a totally new business model. The cracks in the dam are the existing business models. A jump to The Anywhere Network is impossible with the existing business model.

Sprint’s XOHM is a big investment in infrastructure to make the Internet more open and usable.

Another aspect of instant mobility is push-to-talk. Femo is yet another technology that improves coverage for mobile devices inside homes.

For mobility to become compelling for all users, Sprint can make bets, but can’t imagine all the applications. So it needs to be easier for application developers to launch on the Sprint network, McGuire says. There are regular application developer conferences. Sprint offers better and better tools for developers.

Openness is esential for revolutionizing mobility.

Sprint is offering Simly Everything for $99.99 per month that makes connectivity worry-free for users. Ready Now and One Click are other efforts to make the user experience worry-free.

Asked when more users will be buying smartphones, McGuire doesn’t believe smartphones will be right for everyone ever. Ehanced power will come in different forms on more traditional handsets.

As for convergence, McGuire says the mobile browser has been considered as the poor cousin of the desktop experience. He believes that’s starting to change. The mobile aspect is becoming more rich. But some applications will be more appropriate and unique to the desktop and the same will be true for mobile devices.

New user interfaces are in the works, such as touch screens, but there are users who would prefer a full querty keyboard. Voice activation is great, but it won’t be an answer for everthing. The One Click interface is one of Sprint’s efforts to simplify the user experience, according to McGuire.

ENABLING THE BEST INTERNET EXPERIENCE IN YOUR POCKET

Anand Chandrasekher is SVP/GM at Ultra Mobility Group at Intel.

There’s a lot of changes in technology and in business. Looking back, 2008 will be considered The Year of Mobility.

If you look at Internet growth, it continues, mostly through tethered connections. If you look at what people are doing, that’s changing, very fast. We don’t know who the top 10 websites will be in 10 years.

The social networking trend is growing dramatically. About 25 percent of all traffic on the Internet is social networking. Previously, the dominant activity was pornography.

User genterated content such as You Tube has grown 84%. Location based services are increasing incredibly.

Forrester finds that 2 to 1, people prefer the full Internet on their handsets compared to limited Internet.

So, the software spiral becomes the Internet spiral. On the Internet, first it was text, then photos, then videos, and social networking. Now it’s mash-ups.

Referring to a vision video, user interface, multi touch, and and speach activation were included. Navigation (context) and the need for performance plus a robust software environment.

Intel believes, considering the 1.5 billion Internet users now, that the number will increase and be fueled by the mobile Internet.

Four elements are essential: broadband wireless, software compatibility, Internet compatibility, and performance.

Intel launched the Atom, the world’s smallest transistor, the lowest power CPU, fully Core 2 Duo compatilble. The Moorestown, expected by 2010, will pack into a ruler-size package the power from a 2005-era laptop. Another prototype is about the size of a SpeedStick deodorant package.

Lonnie Arima, VP/GM of Portable Devices at Navteq, involved with location based solutions, says that opportunities developed by Intel for mobile Internet will include personal navigation. Devices will change from being static to enable more than navigation with the use of the Atom chip.

Chandrasekher says the user interface will be changing, moving away from the Wiindows environment that has dominated the personal computer experience.

Gunnar Evermann, Chief Mobile Technology Officer at Nuance, demonstrates the DragonBar speech recognition possibilities via the Atom chip.

Broadband wireless is clearly critical. WiMAX deployments are increasing. Balitimore, for example.

Adding computing to wireless devices is creating all kinds of possibilities. Combining computing and communications will mean a dramatic change in the user experience.

THE OPEN INTERNET GENERATION: ALWAYS MOBILE, ALWAYS ON

 Albert Chu, VP of Marketing & Alliances, ACCESS

The vision of accessing the Internet beyond the PC is the foundation of ACCESS. We can all shape and profit from the mobile Internet generation.

In Japan, last year, the number of mobile users surpassed the tethered access to the Internet.

The open Internet generation includes a variety of social networking activities. Fears that an open Internet would divide families, surveys show that better connectivity through mobile devices has improved communications within families.

Online life has become mainstream. Young people are driving the growth of new online activities.

Today, 1.5 billion devices are connected to the Internet. By 2012, 3 billion devices are expected to be connected, half of them, mobile devices. 

Regular appliances, such as refrigerators, may also become connected. By 2020, 70 billion devices could be connected to the Internet. The economics will be staggering.

The future is incredible. Making it happen will mean openness. Open standards and an open platform.

The business opportunities will be enhanced. IP-enabled devices will be connected. IP-everywhere.

To make it work, content and application developers need to be able to create knowing their products will work everywhere. One way to do that is through widgets.

For example, in Japan, online retailers and social network sites are accessed through widgets.

The DLNA, the Digital Living Network Alliance, consists of consumer electronic companies that are sharing technology that allows devices to communicate with each other in the home.

Mobile software complexity has doubled every year, pointing to the need for open platforms. Feature phones and mid-teir phones should also be included in the open platform, not just smartphones.

The ACCESS Linux Platform 3.0, recently demonstrated in Japan, is an example of progress that’s happening now.

There’s a convergence of devices and services accessing the open Internet.

WEB ON MOBILE: THE SAME OR DIFFERENT?

Erik de Kroon, Head of Marketing for Internet Discovery, Vodafone

What is Internet discovery? Access and browsing, broadband, search, widgets, etc.

Vodafone is operating in 25 countries: Europe, Asia, India, U.S. Also, 42 partner markets- no equity stake, but work closely.

Since 2007, Vodafone started marketing mobile Internet. That’s 4 different things: flat rate pricing; content adaptation solutions; services from leading Internet players (Facebook, Google, eBay, Microsoft); and promotion campaigns.

Now, 90 percent of customers use Vodafone Live, even as off-portal page views are growing.

Most popular search terms at Vodafone are dominated by social networks, followed by adult content, e-mail, shopping, downloads, YouTube, gambling, sports, news & weather, and Google.

So, the main differences between PC and mobile.

The entry point is important- the screen is smaller and navigation is mostly different. There are business model differences- content purchases are popular, but users are not buying cars with their handsets. The reach is different- applications do not tend to work accross all devices. (That presents a major problem for content providers who need to make content available to a variety of platforms.)

Mobile widgets are good solutions. Useres are familiar with widgets from the web and standards are already in place.

On the PC, there are widgets, small applications, and full applications. In the mobile space, simple content updates are available, as well as small apps, but more complex device functions require more standardization.

The JIL (Joint Innovation Lab) is backed by the world’s largest mobile operators and it promotes acceleration of standardization of widget technology. The second area that needs attention is the developer community. A developer website is in the works. First, there will be basic widgets, then more rich experiences.

Emerging markets, non-European and non-U.S. include South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, and Romania. They’re large and growing fast. Mobile penetration is outpacing Internet presentation in those countries.

Some of the themes driving the demand for mobile Internet in emerging markets are economics- affordability, to justify the investment. Also, functional benefits- the ease and simplicity of use. And the emotional benefits- the relevence to daily life.

Mobile access to the Internet is becoming the main access to the Internet in many emerging markets.

The Internet is becoming mobile. Mobile operators will play a key role.

OPEN DEVELOPMENT - INNOVATION, CHOICE, GROWTH

Anthony Lewis, VP of Open Development, Verizon Wireless

The brand strategy has been about the network. The ads on TV show the people behind the network. The investment has been in the network with capital investment. Users go to Verizon because the network is reliable.

There’s redundancy, drive testing, etc., to keep the network up to speed.

The retail model include 2400+ sotres.

Product evolution started with big car phones, then 2G data, now 3G.

Verizon has the highest customer loyalty.

The changes include: broadband in the home (FiOS), broadband on the go (Verizon Wireless), and business services.

The changing wireless paradigm includes a wide range of devices that will be connected to the Internet. Medical devices, auto and telemetry, and digital lifestyle devices will drive change in the mobile industry.

Users will move to ways to make life easier and better. Wireless connections will explode.

The data opportunity includes 4G, LTE. There will be a global standard, significant throughput, global partnerships, and scales of economy. Benefits of the 700 MHz include fewer cell sites, faster roll-out, lower build-out and operating costs, best in-building coverage, speed/performance, and nationwide clear spectrum.

About 2010, the 700 MHz network will be rolled out. It’s an agressive track.

Open development will augment the existing model that consists of Verizon devices that work on the Verizon network. It’s about new opportunities, innovation, and choice for users and partners. Without partners, distribution and manufacturers, it won’t work.

Open development will ignite the market for non-traditional devices.

Customers will connect to the Verizon Wireless network with ANY device that meets minimum technical specifications. Customers will activate via an 800 number or through a web portal.

The OD Web portal = www.verizonwireless-opendevelopment.com

There will be traditional handsets, consumer electronics, and machine to machine devices.

-JC

This entry was posted on 22. October 2008 at 20:15 and is filed under Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.