We can expect to see numerous stories from Barcelona this week as the The Mobile World Congress 3GSM as was takes place, and is the focus of much of the industry interest. As we all increasingly access the network online, shows like this are becoming more important, the battleground for market share is moving from the desktop to mobile devices and there is an opportunity for new players to flourish in hopefully a more open marketplace than there has been up until now.
Look for Hardware vendors to try and innovate independently from the network operators, look for a mobile device OS battle between established closed platforms and new open stacks (e.g. Google’s Android) and look for the network operators to try and hang on to their position on providing value added services beyond just network provision. LBS is becoming more mainstream, although it still needs to make the jump beyond providing maps on your mobile to provide context to all mobile services delivered by your mobile.
The iPhone has had limited market impact in Europe it seems, although how to design a mobile device from the point of usability and been redefined, and hopefully other manufactures must take note, just try and get someone who has used an iPhone for a week, to go back to Windows Mobile or Symbian.
The mobile industry is more dynamic this year than is has even been, the stakes for industry are much higher and hopefully the customer will benefit as ultimately mobile services should be an incredibly useful part of our lives, and will be if the industry can match the openness of the web in general.
So I will be an avid reader of all the news coming out of Barcelona this week.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.