Mobile Internet World - Day 2 - Afternoon

Mobile Internet World day 2 is just about to wrap up. Regarding the second half of the day, I heard from a bunch of speakers. I'll only capture the highlights.

First, I heard from Erik de Kroon of Vodafone. Vodafone is another network operator prevalent outside the US. There were two important points that I took from Erik's presentation: The main differences between the PC and mobile device with regard to distributing mobile content are that the entry point is very important (users don't want to type long urls on their mobile device), the business models are different, and finally there is limited reach on the mobile platforms due to the large fragmentation in the market. The other important point from Erik's presentation, is the large amount of work that Vodafone is putting into developing a widget platform for their mobile devices. It didn't sound like this platform would be open to developers for third party apps, but merely an easy way for Vodafone to distribute apps.

Next, we heard from Tony Lewis, VP of Open Development at Verizon Wireless. Right off the bat, Tony's first slide was a "safe harbor" slide. I had never seen one of these, but he passed it off as something everyone in the audience had seen. There was a bunch of small font text on the slide, but I think the gist of it was, don't repeat what you're about to hear. I'll keep this part brief, and restricted to info that is already public. One cool thing Tony mentioned, is that Verizon has these mobile cell towers that they can drive to areas with poor coverage. Also, Verizon Wireless really does have people driving around testing service (can you hear me now?). Tony also described the Verizon Wireless Open Development program. I'll let you go to the site to read about it, but OMG YET ANOTHER OPERATOR COPYING APPLE'S IPHONE DEVELOPMENT SITE!!!! It's so funny how fast these companies mimic eachother. It's a site with documentation and a community for developers writing apps for Verizon devices. Ok, enough on Verizon.

Next up, Marcelo Vieira, General Manager of OMAP at Texas Instruments. The guys from the hardware companies (like Intel and TI) have the coolest toys. Similar to the Intel Atom processor, TI has release a processor for mobile devices. As an example of its power, he was demo'd a photo album app on a mobile device (using the processor) that was easily and very quickly flipping through 8 megapixel photos! It was definitely impressive. Here's an interesting stat Marcelo mentioned:

In 2004, 15% of the handsets shipped were smartphones
In 2012, 35% of handsets shipped will be smartphones

So what's a smartphone? This question has been posed to be many times, and I don't think I ever gave an answer as accurate or succinct as Marcelo's. A smartphone is a handset with a high-level operating system. This makes a lot of sense. Just think of the functionality offered on RAZRs, and then functionality on a phone with, say, Windows Mobile. There's a huge difference. It's not just the QUERTY keyboard, but the nature of the software. Smartphones weren't the only mobile device that Marcelo talked about. There's an exciting new class of devices coming onto the mobile market, mobile internet devices (MIDs). Characteristics of MIDs include: boots up in seconds (not minutes), can go a full day's charge with a full day's use, impressive service, and uncompromised browsing. These are like mini laptops, not quite a laptop, but certainly more functional than a smartphone (with regard to Internet browsing). Finally, the coolest device that Marcelo discussed (but no demo :() is called the DLP Pico. It's a tiny projector that may be integrated or included with smartphones! Google it to check out the product page.

Next, I heard an okay presentation on near field communication. The topic of the presentation was attractive, "Mobile Transactions." Instead of meaning software based transactions, like mobile banking, it was much more focused around near field communication as a technique to use your cell phone like a credit card. Interesting, but not really up my alley.

After the presentation on near field communication, I attended a presentation on securing SMS messaging. SMS messaging (or simply text messaging) is extremely unreliable and insecure. Additionally, unlike email, SMS messages that are sent and received cannot be monitored for compliance purposes. Even with these limitations, data indicates that there will be 2.3 trillion messages sent in 2008. Obviousily, these are at the consumer level, not enterprise. Regarding the enterprise, a company called CellTrust has come up with a solution to secure SMS. Besides needing to subscribe to their service, a thin client is required to be installed on the consumers phone! That seems like a huge barrier of entry to me. Maybe within the enterprise and its devices that are managed by the company, one could easily roll out the software to their phones. This seems to be way too much of an inconvenience for a company to expect their clients and consumers to install an app on their phone, merely to receieve secure messages. I certainly wouldn't. Messages just aren't that important to me.

Next I heard a panel discussion on WiFi in the enterprise. Couple of interesting points here. It was suggested that any new WiFi rollouts in the enterprise should, without a doubt, include hardware to support 802.11n. There was also some interesting discussion around fixed mobile convergence. I'm still a little unclear on what fixed mobile convergence is. At the highest level, it's basically a way to integrate your mobile device and your other communication devices, such as your desk phone, and work voice mail. Advancements in wifi and related software will eventually enable this. It was the common consensus on the panel that 4G/WiMax will not replace WiFi, but they will instead complement eachother. WiFi is so cheap these days that there's no reason every electronic chip should come with an integrated radio to allow for connectivity.

The last panel of the day discussed mobile enterprise applications. This was slightly a disappointment. The CIO of Providence (yes the town in Rhode Island) monopolized the time by telling the audience how he set up a complicated network for his police force. While interesting, not really the type of information I was looking for. There were a few worthwhile points that came out of the discussion. Drivers for enterprise mobile applications need to come from a balance of the business and IT, not solely from either. The panelist from Yankee Group confirmed some of my thoughts, that college grads entering the workforce will make choices of where to work based on the company's enterprise mobile direction. Meaning, companies without a strong mobile direction will lose the best job candidates.

There's the highlights from this afternoon. I've probably skimmed over some of the details, but I do have some notes that go a little further below the surface. I'm not trying to go that deep on this post.