it is over – THE mobile industry congress – the Mobile World Conference (MWC) in Barcelona. Some people have already noted down their thoughts, like Heike from mobilezeitgeist (Link – in German) and various videos are spread via YouTube (Link, Eric Schmidt, Google CEO Keynote) that shows what was happening at the conference and will be happening this year in terms of mobile.
Their was the natural recurring question that all of us participating at the MWC hit us in the end: “What was impressing you most?”. The question is set in order to check and identify the “hot” spots, the topics that shall drive the industry and checks if oneself got the right ideas.
For me personally there were, like every year, a lot of things to observe and a lot of notable things to consider in my upcoming work and therefore I would like you to give a high-level overview about it by dividing it into a) Services/Application Development b) Devices/Technology and c) Brand/Marketing:
a) Services/App Dev: You can already see in the order that the approach to bring solutions to the user drew more attention then the years before and that there is a growing gap between the business mobile operator are strong in (networks, antennas, frequencies) vs. the business companies like Google are focusing in (cloud computing, software development). The question we are facing most this year is for WHAT the customer is willing to pay and how is the link between the players in this ecosystem. For now the MNOs still have the customer bonded by a contract or the selling of interesting devices to them. It gets obvious that service providers are passing by this relationship and are aiming for direct contact and relationship to the user in order to place advertising or direct transactions. The speed of innovation in terms of solution development accelerate tremendous compared to possible new buying points for the network providers. Therefore it is also not surprising that we can observe a seperate conference in the actual MWC, the hall 7 with the App World was the most visited with the biggest buzz in that week where solution providers exposed their products and where developers met in order to learn, discuss and exchange. It is also interesting to see how visitor clothes are changing compared to recent years – jeans and shirts are slightly ruling over suit and tie. So what were the services and topics impressing most?
Google came with their CEO Eric Schmidt and engineers of Google presenting the most recent products: Google Voice Search, Google Goggles and Flash capacity on Android. Google Voice Search is not new, but the update with several languages is a significant step in mobile search. The first Google phone Nexus One is actually able to manage most inputs through voice which is a big feature for the customer in terms of ease of use. Google Goggles is the next level of search by using the camera to capture pictures or text in order to find similar pictures to receive contextual further content or to simply translate a text of a menu written in german. Goggles was presented by Hartmut Neven, the technical lead, which also made it a bit transparent who is actual working on this services. As expected Adobe and Google showcased the new Flashplayer 10.1 running in basically all new browsers and Adobe Air on Android and iPhone which showed the next step of web technology going mobile. With the long expected HTML5 we will also see more web development happening on our mobile devices.
Finally the word of Eric Schmidt stays: “Mobile first ..” (Google developers are focusing first on mobile development of new services compared developing for other devices)
b) Devices/Technology: here we are talking about the recent gadgets and devices and what was in the focus of the MNOs. LTE was actually the only big topic still interesting for mobile network providers. The technology and the huge invest in it shall not be underestimated because it will enable the next level of quality of new applications and also ensure new growth in terms of customers and services. Besides the network standard several device manufacturer (OEMs) showed as every year their newest devices: HTC was the most visited booth showing their new Android devices HTC Desire & HTC Legend and their WinMo 6.5 device HD2. In terms of HD2 (with its huge screen) we got the acknowledgement on the Microsoft booth that Windows Phone 7 will run pretty likely as well on this handset. MS was only 50 meters from the HTC booth (as well as Adobe) and showcased their new Windows Phone 7 via big touch screens and not on real devices. The next level of information about Winphone7 will be announced at the Mix in Las Vegas in March. For now the front end of Winphone7 looks nice and smooth but the real test will be on devices with external applications installed – so lets wait with a more detailed judgement. Motorola impressed with the first showcase of the “swype” technology on their Quench (see recent post from the MWC Day 1) and SonyEricsson with their new Symbian phone Vivaz Pro with the availability of HD video and photo recording on a gorgeous display. Just the price tag higher then the recent iPhone will not lead to a big selling success. A price tag equals 0 was provided by Google who gave their Nexus One to everyone attending their Android App Dev sessions in the App world away for free. How big the urge and need of everyone on the fair is to get a hyped gadget got obvious when CEOs were queuing up like teenage girls for a popular boy band. Which leeds me to the next topic:
c) Brand/Marketing: Marketing in combination with brand is getting more and more traction and will lead many new services coming in 2010. Not only Mobile Marketing in its classical way with campaigns mostly based on banners will get a booth – more the location based and direct transactions models, like couponing will drive the market and generate new revenues. On the congress were many new and established players showing their products but we are still missing the key to success even so it looks that companies like AdMob or Smaato might lead this field with their experience at least this year. Anyway from my perspective the most unknown “hot” topic for this year. What brand can do to the mobile industry got also obvious when Google gave away their free phones – nevertheless the strength or weaknesses of the phone the crowd got crazy to get the Google branded phone. More strong brands like Puma with their own solar powered phone based on LG technology are finding their way and attraction and we will see a complete new competition in terms of brands in the coming years.
So finally I would like to do a quick check with my forecast list:
- mCommerce: check – in terms of mobile marketing and location
- location: check – almost everybody had a location solution, almost as often as you could have seen ad server solutions in the recent years.
- mPayment: surprisingly vanished – even VISA with their new booth in Hall 1 showed nothing new. I assume that the final call will get to the MNOs who will provide solutions soon … I hope!
- Augmented Reality: check – a lot of showcases from Layar, Wikitude et al, but nothing tremendous new and still no business case
- social communication: check – it seems already so “standard” that no one was specifically offering it
- mobile apps: check – well, with its own developer world it was the most attractive topic and the most growing
In the end it was of course for me personally the conference to meet people, new ones but especially old mates that I have not seen the whole year (and might not until next year). It is still a big mobile family. Special cheers to James Cameron who I only knew before via twitter, Heike Scholz & Ulrike Gagel from Mobilezeitgeist, the Tagcrumbs crew Sascha, Benedikt and Cornelius, Philipp Deprez, Marius from Netbiscuits and Daniela Arens.
Looking forward to 2010 …
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