Some reflections on the Mobile Glasnost panel discussion at Mobile Life, March 4th

I participated in the in the industry panel at Open House at Mobile Life Centre in Kista. Represented in the panel were, except for myself representing Squace, Ericsson – Martin Körling, Sony Ericsson – Troed Sångberg and TeliaSonera – Johan Wickman. The panel was moderated by professor Lars Erik Holmquist, Mobile Life Centre. The topic as phrased in the programme: “Mobile services have been stuck in a winter, closely guarded by specialized engineers and proprietary business models. Now, the ice is melting – operators, device manufacturers and infrastructure providers are opening up their walled gardens, telling their most valuable secrets and sharing opportunities with the masses. Or are they?”  

 

There was clearly a joint understanding that an open approach is needed and that walled garden and vertical approaches will slow down the development and limit the success of the mobile Internet. However, we may put different meaning to the word “opened”. Operators and device manufactures have over the years shown a clear reluctance to open up to not decrease their competitiveness. We can hope that this will now change but take their somewhat conflicting strategic agendas into account. This change will not come easy, both due to their need to differentiate but even more importantly due to mindset and culture which is very seldom changed very quickly.

 

The direct question on if the solution to overcome the complexity and key barriers to innovations and growth is a common operating system illustrates the core of the issue. This is a very technical approach to the problem and the panel have somewhat different view on if this is even necessary and if it will happen, how long this will take. The concept of a horizontal layer over all different operating systems were discuss as a faster and most probable solution as the present players presently have limited incentives to agree on a common operating.  This is what the Universal Mobile Interface is, one generic interface towards the content providers so they don’t need to bother about all different operating systems etc. and at the same time a generic interface for the end user so that they can freely change from one device to the other without being lost.

 

In conclusion we may now see a “Mobile Glasnost”, but this just one of the first steps and there are still many obstacles ahead. Remember that Glasnost created a very painful transformation phase for Russia. As Russia do, we will have to deal with many future issues, they are probably not be called mafia, oligarchs, Putin and Chechnya, but we need to remember that the Glasnost was probably necessary start and that change of mindset and culture is one of the hardest things to accomplish.

App Stores – Unleashing the mobile potential or building yet more barriers

At 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona last week a number of initiatives were announced to meet or copy the success of the iPhone.
There are new fantastic UIs, big touch screens and each device with an app store. Looking at the agendas of operators, device manufacturers and games providers etc., I can conclude that many would like to capitalise on their position and now see the app stores as an interesting way to be part of the new mobile trend.
But don’t they miss part of the point here? Is it just to set up an app store and dress the old phone in a new nice UI/touch screen rapping?

If we extrapolate the present trend we end up in a situation with a lot of app stores but does this really meet the needs of the end user and the content providers?
Do we expect end users to accept that whatever apps I buy and install they are lost when I change device manufacturer?
And what about the content providers, do we expect them to make one version of there application for each different operating system?
Even a player like Facebook, (see the clip from Davos) complain about the situation and can’t accept this situation. The new app store hysteria will thereby build yet another barrier for really getting the true potential out of the mobile.

Only few players will have the incentive to be on all these app store and to do what’s necessary to manage this. Then we miss one key element to make the new mobile services valuable to the end user, being that I want to choose my content and applications independently of device brand or operator.
As all these app stores will be based on a number of operating systems, this will for sure limit the application and content richness.
To really get the true value out of the mobile more or less the full long-tail of content has to be available and to make that happen it has to be easy and efficient for content providers to get their stuff out on all mobile platforms.
There is a need for device and operator independent solutions to really unleashing the potential, but unfortunately the present development seems quite the opposite.

UMI seminar at Mobile Life VINN Excellence Centre

On Wednesday February 18th 2009, the research center Mobile Life in Stockholm/Kista organised a seminar with Martin Vendel and Bo Karlson.

The seminar entitled “The Universal Mobile Interface: A key concept for unleashing the Mobile Internet” was visited by researchers from Mobile Life, Swedish Institute for Computer Science (SICS) and Interactive Institute, among others Professor Kia Höök, Professor Lar Erik Holmquist, PhD Annika Waern and PhD Stina Nylander.

Universal Mobile Interface: A key concept for unleashing the Mobile Internet

Seminars at Wireless@KTH

Date: 2009-02-13
Time: 14:30
Location: Isafjordsgatan 26, Electrum building, floor 3, Kista
Speaker: Dr. Martin Vendel and Dr. Bo Karlson, Squace AB

This presentation is focused on a new type of software designed to overcome critical barriers to the use of Internet over the mobile phone. The concept is denoted Universal Mobile Interface, UMI. UMI has some unique characteristics which enable a potential to become truly viral, especially as it is applied independently of operator and device. UMI acts as a personal mobile Internet browser, but also includes features such as messaging and contacts.

Read more at: http://www.wireless.kth.se/news_and_events/view_event.php?event_id=400

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