Mobile Industry Trends

Michael Gartenburg, a research analyst, presented next on major trends in mobility. Point form notes tend to be the best type of way to summarize these types of presentations, so here goes:

• There's a worldwide market for 50,000 of anything;

• Sometimes David does beat Goliath; an underdog always has a chance to upset everything;

• "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone...PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." - Ed Collogan, Palm CEO, circa 2006. Talk about famous near-last words;

• The three big issues in 2009 are OS evolution (Apple and Google weren't on the mobile radar two years ago), Anytime & Anywhere, and ubiquitous devices;

• The notion of digital ubiquity is now a reality - you can get virtually anything you want to access on any device, pretty much anywhere in the world...but only if lawyers aren't involved to hold everything back;

• The third "tsunami of personal technology" is about multiple mobile devices, devices that are ubiquitous and contextual;

Figure 17: The very intelligent and well-spoken Michael Gartenburg. I always enjoy hearing him speak.

• Is a camera phone that a person that doesn't take photos with really a camera? They'll still have a digital camera. If someone has a "music phone" but they never use it to listen to music, they'll still have an MP3 player. The idea is that just because one device does that same thing as another device, doesn't mean that the consumer will get down to only one device;

• Consumers prefer to carry one device, but they will carry up to three things. One size doesn't fit all. The number and nature of devices are going to change. You don't want to be the fourth device! Three seems to be the universal number for what people are willing to carry. The types of devices will vary based on cultural factors, but three seems to be the magic number;

• The PC is not dead. First it was going to be the Internet that was going to kill the PC, then it was Java, then network computing. The PC remains a Swiss Army Knife of computing. Laptops and netbooks continue to grow in mainstream adoption. Productivity, communication, and entertainment are still driving factors;

• Casual content creation is becoming more common (YouTube, Flickr, etc.);

• Question: what's a "smartphone"? Answer: it doesn't matter anymore. The strict categorization of what a smartphone is only matters to people who count things;

• If a device doesn't displace another device, or serve a discreet function, that device will die...a slow, horrible, painful death. This reminded me of my Samsung Q1 Ultra, a device that has virtually no practical use for me;

• Technology is fashion. Geeks care about feeds and speeds (hardware), features, features, and POWER. The mass market? They care about form factors, color, caressability;

• Microsoft's core business is licensing and partnering. Apple's job is deliver end to end experiences, and they'll partner, but only on Apple's terms;

• Mobile OS task suitability: voice capability is critical, email is important, web browsing is important, media & entertainment less so, yet still part of the target that needs to be hit;

• There is no "Windows" of the mobile world, meaning a single standard that unifies everything. Lots of pieces: Windows Mobile, Android (Linux), RIM (Java), Palm, Mac OS, Series 60;

• Market success in the mobile market does not require market dominance. There will be many strong players in the mobile space even as there is consolidation;

• Control Sync - Control the World! Microsoft has all the right pieces, but they struggle with the messaging (this is my opinion at least).