Lingering thoughts: Fear and OS rumble in Barcelona
Written by guest blogger Martin Gleissner, Schwartz Stockholm
Judging by the number of exhibitors and attendees, the 2010 Mobile World Congress was a big success. There was an optimistic spirit at exhibitors’ booths, the conference sessions and the networking parties. However, there is still a level of uncertainty in the industry that was best illustrated by the absence of any major news announcements.
The initial buzz at the show was that Nokia, the world’s largest mobile handset manufacturer, would not be announcing any new products at the conference, a first in the history of the show. Many took this as a sign of weakness, but in retrospect it was a wise decision, giving the company the opportunity to evaluate the state of the market rather than create hype with little substance.
The biggest trend in the handset world is the rapid rise of Google’s Android, which has been embraced by a wide range of handset manufacturers. However, it remains unclear whether Google’s OS alone will help to solve the problems of the established phone manufacturers. More important will be innovative applications and user features that get built on the Android operating system.
Microsoft has thus far neglected the average consumer in its ambitions to conquer smart phone power users (most of whom are businesspeople) but they caused quite a stir at MWC with the launch of Windows Phone 7, which will be available later this year. Debuting to generally positive reviews in the media, Phone 7’s visual, iconic interface challenges the iPhone and targets the technically savvy consumers who are using social media and gaming applications.
Despite Microsoft’s public relations success, Google’s Android was the clear winner of the mobile OS battle in Barcelona, albeit with the obvious absence of Apple from the festivities. Apple’s absence from the show was strategically smart and predictable. They are in the position of power in the mobile industry where they can watch from a distance as the competition works hard to catch up.
One overriding trend that became apparent at this year’s MWC was the emphasis on business customers. Phones and other gadgets are still the eye candy that gets the most attention. But since wireless devices are now an integral part of every corporate environment, management security issues are as important as games and GPS features. And one should not forget to mention that there is a cloud (a computing one at that) hovering above the wireless industry that will have drive even further business applications and processes through mobile devices in 2011.
It will be interesting to see what will happen to App World in 2011. A real world manifestation of the app stores hosted by Apple, Blackberry and the service providers, MWC’s App World was a small exhibition hall, scrunched in a corner at the very end of the conference complex. This was by far the most colorful hall, with mostly small booths and small companies that are delivering innovations for phones, VoIP apps, barcode scanners, maps and games. It would great to see some of the small App World players make it over to the hall where the big boys can be found.
Posted by Carol McGarry on March 17, 2010 at 3:37 PM
