Mobile World Congress 2011: Wrap-up and Key Trends

Yet another year of Mobile World Congress has passed. The 8th for me and the most positive in 4 years. People were optimistic about the future, there were lots of new exciting startups, we saw power shifts and power battles, and the overall message was: we are here to do business!

The key talking points:

1. Mobile OS wars
Some consider it game over, with iOS and Android the clear winners, but the other players certainly haven't given up. Two main factors keep adding fuel to the fire:

a) The operators don't want to become bitpipes
b) The handset manufacturers don't want to be relegated to hardware manufacturers

At the same time the handset manufacturers are launching a massive number of Android devices. Google, and hopefully the consumers, are currently the biggest winners from this. In the long run, it might result in less competition and innovation.

Operators hand have found that  Android devices are very easy to sell, creating a nice counter weight to iPhone. Google, once again, is the biggest winner while the operators have little control over or little revenue from the services provided. This is why the operators have put a big emphasis on WAC (Wholesale Application Community) this year at MWC. With WAC, the operators could succeed in building up their own eco-system for developers, basing it on web standards. This could open the door to a role in the app value chain. In the background, operators are revising their device purchasing strategies, aiming for a good balance between iOS, Android, WM7, RIM and other operating systems such as Limo. More about this in another blog.

2. The power is with the developers
Possibly one of the most exciting developments is the reassignment of roles between operators, device manufacturers and developers. Just two years ago it was almost impossible for a developer to get on the carrier decks (i.e. sell content through an operator portal). Operators normally wouldn't respond at
all and when they did it was usually with great arrogance towards the developer or content provider. Today this has completely changed. Operators are screaming for apps for their appstores and do everything they can to attract developer attention including competitions, developer outreach programs and more.  Many of the developers on the other hand refuse to even speak to the operators. They are happy with the existing appstore distribution channels, primarily Apple Appstore and Google Android Market.

3. Tablets, tablets and more tablets
One year ago all the visitors had notebooks, this year they had iPads. Even more prominent was the fact that almost every single device manufacturer presented a tablet of some kind this year including Motorola, RIM, HP, ZTE, Huawei, LG, Samsung, etc. According to Gartner, by 2013 media tablets such as Apple's iPad will have infiltrated 80 per cent of enterprises, and the increasing use of the devices, along with other mobile gadgetry such as smartphones, will be THE disruptive technology implementation for CIOs in the coming years. The question remains whether there is really a market for that many products?

4. Apps are KING
The "Content is king" trend goes in cycles. In 2000 AOL acquired Time Warner for 162 billion USD with the argument being that content would be the most important thing in acquiring and retaining customers. The same argument has been used several times since by mobile operators as well as handset manufacturers. Every 2-3 years they make a major investment and a few years later they get impatient and give up on the initiative. With the current app trend this is happening once again. Handset manufacturers are looking for exclusive apps that help differentiating their devices and appstores. Operators are looking for the latest and greatest apps for their appstores. This year content or rather apps were definitely king at MWC.

5. VAS and mobile marketing companies doing everything
- “What do you do?” I asked one of the companies in Hall 7 (the app and content area of MWC)
- “What do you want?” was the answer

Many of the companies at MWC still offer a little bit of everything to operators and companies. A typical offering by a mobile marketing agency (which they usually don't want to be referred as) includes messaging, text to win, CRM, search, mobile websites, video streaming, music, games, app development, mobile advertising, mobile social networking and LBS. Our experience is that it takes about 6 to 12 months for a sales or project manager to get to a base level in terms of knowledge about mobile apps alone. Imagine selling all of them. One expectation for next year is therefore more specialization and consolidation.

We definitely need a 12 month break now but already look forward to MWC 2012!

Will the WAC mobile app platform initiative succeed?

Establishing a common standard based on web devlopment for mobile apps, or widgets as they choose to call it, is simply a brilliant idea. If you can enable web developers to develop mobile apps the potential is huge.

The Vodafone 360 platform, launched in October 2009, had the right strategy but poor execution.  Nokia had already tried it and failed, and when Vodafone launched they did it with two vastly different versions of the runtime and various other shortcomings. Not only that. In parallel Orange, LG, HTC and RIM also launched their variants of web runtimes all with different APIs and configurations.

Joint Innovation Lab (JIL), set up together with China Mobile, Softbank and Verizon Wireless, was an extension to Vodafone 360 and never got much credibility in the market since nobody really believed that the other parties were truly engaging. In parallel with starting up JIL, Vodafone failed with the integrated device and software strategy which was the basis for 360. However, the web runtime development platform was working quite well, despite the fragmentation into two versions.

All of this might have changed with the Wholesale Application Community (WAC) announced at the Mobile World Congress. With 60 members now signed up, C-Level executives on the board and the freedom to run WAC almost like a startup it is now a powerhouse with potential to succeed. The specifications for WAC 1.0 and WAC 2.0 have been agreed, at least 3 software companies have implemented web runtimes, more are following, and most of the handset manufacturers will embed the runtime on the handsets sold through the operators.

The advantages for developers are obvious. Develop an app once which will run across Android, Blackberry, Symbian/Megoo and Windows Mobile. The apps will not be as good as a well implemented native app but the skill level required is lower and the effort vastly reduced. The platform also offers access to considerably more APIs than other cross-platform methods such as Rhohub and Phonegap that lack the power to influence handset manufacturers.

So why could WAC fail?

There are a few major stumbling blocks to WAC becoming an established
standard for mobile app development:

* The specifications are not followed by the developers of the runtimes (e.g. Opera, Obigo, etc), leading to fragmentation, so developers still have to test, tweak and optimise for different devices.
* Handset manufacturers (influenced by the operators) might not all embed the WAC compatible runtime which means that there won't be critical mass for developers to invest in developing for WAC.
* WAC doesn't get traction among developers and content providers fast enough, and with time, the operators get impatient and don't follow through on the partnership.

* Developers choose to develop mobile websites using HTML5 instead of
developing apps.

So what is the conclusion? The mobile app industry is
moving so fast at the moment, and still accelerating, so there are many uncertainties about who will succeed or fail in the long term.

Only time will tell...

Disclaimer: Golden Gekko has developed over 30 web runtime apps paid for by operators and other organizations and would therefore profit from the success of WAC. 

Why HTML5 sites for mobile require a mobile specialist

Although several mobile browsers now support HTML5 this is a version of HTML5 adapted for mobile:

A.      The design and user interaction of a mobile site is completely different to its equivalent website.  The use of the touch screen, the smaller screen size, different usage occasions and scenarios require a user experience designer with experience in mobile

B.      The browsers vary significantly depending on the OS – for example iPhone vs. Android but also between different Android devices.  Resolution/ screen size and layout (landscape vs. portrait) may differ from device to device

C.      The functionality of HTML5 on mobile devices can integrate parts of the native functionality such as location, messaging, contacts, accelerometer, etc.

D.      Each OS requires particular encoders for video

E.       Android in particular has differences depending on the OS version (1.6, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and soon 3.0) which means that the mobile site needs to be tested across all device versions

In summary there is currently not one version of HTML5 but several. For a mobile implementation of HTML5 you need someone with experience in mobile development. Before there is a stable development standard for mobile sites, there is still a lot of standardisation work remaining.