Thinking Mobile

Yesterday, the week ended on a wireless note. I met up with my cousin Martin who is Head of Wireless Strategy at the Carphone Warehouse.

We had the type of conversation it is sometimes difficult to have in New Zealand. This is not down to the actual technology. It revolves more about the question of choice. In NZ, there are basically two large players: Telecom and Vodafone. The argument is that with a market of only 4+ million and a land mass slightly larger than the UK, the cost of building a third network would be too great. It is an argument I have had sympathy for. Until yesterday.

The Carphone Warehouse has built a mobile network across Greenland. Now Greenland is big...very big. And its population is measured in the hundreds of thousands, not the millions. It makes you think.

Windows Mobile Opportunities

Following up from John's recent trip on the UK Trade & Investment Wireless Mission to Taipei, more opportunities in the wireless space have started to spring up. They have probably always been there, but like most things, its only when one's awareness is pricked that you become conscious of them.

Along with the opportunities, go the stats.

Windows Mobile® has more than 140 devices in the marketplace worldwide available from 125 mobile operators. IDC’s expectation is that Windows Mobile will experience the largest growth of any mobile operating system worldwide, at 75.6 percent, through to the year 2010.

From our point of view, Microsoft Mobile 6 comes with mobile versions of Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. That's good. In 2006, there were 9 million unit sales of Microsoft Office Mobile® and a total of 20 million global Windows Smartphone Users.

Talking to mobile handset manufacturers and mobile operators, the thirst for 'sticky' B2B mobile apps is real. So is the opportunity.

Mobile Search is Hot and its Here

The ‘Mobile Search’ space was one of the big plays of the week at this week’s Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. When asked in one of the sessions, what technologies are the most intriguing to Google, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said during a question-and-answer session, "The biggest growth areas are clearly within the mobile space”.

ABI Research forecast global mobile marketing and advertising to increase six fold to $19 billion by 2011, from an estimated $3 billion by the end of 2007.

Mobile search is clearly a potentially major disruptive technology for existing market leaders, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Not only is the platform different, but a whole host of new industry partners come into play as do different business models.

From a platform position, improved voice-recognition technology and the inclusion of global positioning system chips into mobile phones open the door for new applications to help users find relevant information wherever they find themselves. In addition, improvements in handset technology make today's cell phone capable of doing almost as much as computers of a decade ago.

The potential that Mobile Search offers is evidenced by the huge growth and usage of mobile devices, particularly in developing markets such as China and India. Expect this to be a ‘hot’ sector for some time to come.