Category Archives: Mobile Industry General

The Next Generation On Device Portal – Do it or Drop the Service Provider title

The missed opportunity of the ODP (On Device Portal) has been discussed on this weblog several times.  The fact it took Apple to show the industry how to get it right is an embarrassment.  Apple’s iPhone has redefined the relationships in the mobile ecosystem.  Essentially they have become the service provider and the operator a […]

Apple Facetime Sounds the Death Knell for Upfront Per-Service Charging

Apple Facetime looks like its going to be another in the series of video communication applications that are proving to be more successful than the mobile industry’s attempts at video telephony, which began at the turn of this century and unfortunately have changed little since. Skype was the first video communication service to hit mainstream.  […]

Developer Community / Ingestion Management Taxonomies

I show below a sample of a taxonomy of the operators’ developer communities across consumer applications (e.g. widgets), consumer content (music, ring-tones, caller ring back tones, wallpaper), enterprise applications (e.g. field force automation tools) and enterprise IT (that is having enterprise IT departments build apps for their employees only). As discussed in the “Emerging App […]

Operators need for Baby Steps in Business Intelligence, More TMO Customer Service Woes, and the ITization of Telecoms

Amazon provides amazing customer service, I’ve never had to call them through the hundreds of transactions, everything is just there online.  Its respectful of my time and lack of patience.  Comparing this to my latest TMO (T-Mobile) experience has me wishing Amazon would take over TMO’s customer service.  The week before last my wife had […]

Divided they fall… Symbian continues to weaken

Nokia recently announced its to ditch Symbian software for its high-end smartphones, instead using MeeGo that was announced at Mobile World Congress this year. The N-series has been Nokia’s crown jewel for years and dominated the smartphone space before the arrival of Apple’s iPhone (be-careful how you hold it) and HTC’s Android-based devices. “Going forward, […]

A Fundamental Advantage Lost by Not “Sharing the Love”?

In previous articles I’ve discussed the three dimensions upon which a customer pays: cash, time/attention and privacy.  As we’re seeing with Facebook and Google’s problems, society is starting to realize the value of privacy – businesses of all sizes should be even more concerned.  Google has caused significant market disruption using a very old business […]

Diversity in Consumption, Black and White Thinking, and Life in 2020

I recently responded to a friend’s weblog post, Ric Ferraro, when I read through his article about a day in his life in 2020.  I thought I’d use this article to give my perspective on how some technologies and behaviors may look by then, as well as some ramblings on a few related topics. An […]

Beware Investment Analysts Hearlding the Mobile Internet as the Next Wealth Creation Cycle

I’ve had several people talking to me about how the mobile internet is the next wealth creation cycle, a new category of equal importance to the creation of the internet.  When I respond with, ‘There is no such thing as the mobile internet, only mobile access to the internet.  Calling it the mobile internet is […]

Mobile World Congress 2010 Summary

Entry through Barcelona airport was strange this year, no queue at immigration, no queue for the taxi, and there were even a couple of spare seats on the plane. This uncrowded entry was in line with the number of people letting me know they were not attending this year.  Many western European operators had only […]

Why operators need an integrated Security Strategy to remain relevant as a service provider, not just a pipe provider

I presented at a recent sales conference for a large security / IT solution provider on the evolution of the telco industry and the role security and protection plays in that evolution.  I show below a cut down version of the slides I presented, removing the discussion on specific market opportunities and actions. In the […]