The world has hot phone hardware. Fast carrier networks. And phone software that continues to enable more functionality and experiences. The promise of wireless innovation and scenarios that people imagined back in the dot com era is real, and today we’re seeing the emergence of connected apps and integrated experiences, and it’s why we’re fired up about what we are building at Dashwire.
The mobile phone is constantly recording life – and people take it with them everywhere because it connects them to family, friends, information and helps them capture what’s important. People are also spending a lot of time online, as the computer continues to play a more important role in connecting people and information. Morgan Stanley’s recent web trends report indicated that approximately 40% of global time spent online is for communication and social networks. There is an intersection that’s taking place – and a huge opportunity - to seamlessly bridge these two worlds by integrating mobile and web content and communication, and making it easy for people, and that’s what we’re focused on at Dashwire.
We believe cross platform open (meaning building our solution to work across as many smart phone platforms) solutions offer the biggest value creation opportunity in the industry. Dashwire works today for Windows Mobile 5.0, 6 and 6.1 phones and soon will work on Symbian and BlackBerry, increasing the number of people that can realize the full value of our service to over 150M+ in a market that is continuing to grow rapidly, and according to IDC, is expected to have an install base of 1B by 2011.
There are very few companies who aren’t 800lb gorillas in the industry today with cross platform connected service offerings for consumers because it’s expensive and difficult (server and mobile code), many were too early and flamed out, and VC investors have largely shied away over the past few years as a result of what they saw with investments they or others made in the past. Apple set the new bar with the mobile browser, and as it continues to improve, many companies will just build inexpensive browser apps, but believe a native thin-client app is a base requirement, and software that goes deep into the phone operating system and integrates to solve customer problems and deliver superior offline and online experiences across platforms will be the major creators of value for mobile connected services.
Companies looking to deliver value as part of the next wave of mobile should be focused exclusively on building experiences for smartphone users (Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Linux) with the understanding that a) consumers not businesses are driving growth in this market; b) these users are more likely to have a data plan; c) if you really want to go through the pain of getting your app to work on feature phones, work with the mobile operators to include your spec into their device maker requirements document to get the broadest coverage; and d) the phone is being replaced by users approximately every 18 months, and at that point there will be more smartphones to choose from, and people aren’t necessarily going to be brand loyal in their next purchase, so cross platform support enables you to have a more likely chance of keeping them as a customer.
The big dogs have started moving their ships in the right direction toward connected services – Nokia, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo – and have resources and the ambition to build the future. When these companies bet billions on the next wave, both technically and with business development and marketing dollars to drive awareness, user adoption and growth, companies that deliver value on top of the platforms and services they are building will be poised to bring experiences to life in new ways for hundreds of millions to several billions of users. And that’s where companies like Dashwire come into play. I will be posting on a few cool start ups in addition to Dashwire that are helping to drive mobile services in a future post.
Below is a quick breakdown of what the 800lb gorillas are pulling together from a services perspective, and why their moves today are setting in motion the future of phone services:
I. Nokia
Last August, Nokia unveiled its OVI brand and strategy, and believe the vision shared publicly is the most compelling of the 800lb club in terms of focus on connected services for mobile phone users. OVI is a group of services for S60 users that offer PC, web and mobile experiences. Even with 40% of the global phone market and devices like the N95, Nokia recognized that selling hardware alone into mobile operators and direct to consumer was no longer going to be enough to maintain its market share against the software companies invading its turf, and that raising the bar with a new strategy of connected services would enhance the value of the overall communication and mobile experience.
Nokia has invested big dollars to back its move to become a services business and assembled a promising line up with OVI around media sharing (Twango), maps (NAVTEQ and gate5), music (Loudeye), and gaming (N-Gage) for its S60 phones, and expect them to roll out on S40, and if really smart, non-Nokia platforms to leverage its services infrastructure. Vodafone and Orange are the two heavy hitters who have announced support for OVI, the Orange news coming a few days after Vodafone acquired ZYB, a potential asset Vodafone can use to compete against OVI, so we’ll see how it plays out.
II. Microsoft
(disclaimer – I used to work in Windows Mobile and believe will continue to gain market share). Microsoft, like BlackBerry, has nailed the enterprise server value proposition of connected mobile services in bringing email, calendar, contacts and tasks to the phone. The value that business users have enjoyed is something that consumers would enjoy too, but they don’t have an IT manager or use Outlook.
The recent acquisition of Danger with its mobile client and carrier-grade server infrastructure is a sign that Microsoft is serious about connected mobile services, and that they are finally going to shift toward consumer. They have to. Competing against BlackBerry in the enterprise space with Windows Mobile is great and they should do it, but even BlackBerry is focused on expanding its market to consumers with Pearl and Curve, and Symbian still commands about 70% of the global smartphone market. Microsoft’s device maker partners are working over-time to differentiate on top of the phone operating system to deliver more consumer experiences - the HTC Touch Diamond being the most recent and best example of a clear push to deliver unique value for consumers.
Windows Live Local, Windows Live Mobile, SPOT on phone, are cool apps and good start, and highlight efforts by the Windows Live team to deliver for Symbian and BlackBerry as well as Windows Mobile. Expect the trend of supporting more platforms to continue for Microsoft, and will be interesting to follow whether the Danger deal translates to compelling services for consumers.
III. Google
The big news from Google on the mobile front over the last year has been Android, its mobile phone operating system platform that will possibly ship on at least one phone before the end of 2008, and its lobbying of the FCC to sell open spectrum.
Google has tons of cloud services (Gmail, Google Calendar, Picassa, Docs, Orkut, Open Social, Search, GrandCentral, etc) that it can integrate with Android (Andy Rubin, who runs the Android platform at Google, has services ingrained in his thinking as a co-founder of Danger) and it’s platform has been highlighted to developers as a way to easily build connected services, a contrast from Apple’s current approach with its SDK strategy. How it evolves and where advertising fits into the mix should become more evident in 2008/09.
What’s interesting today is Google Mobile product efforts to deliver value across phone platforms. The Google Mobile team is similar to Windows Live in that they are separate from the core OS team (Windows Mobile, Android). Google has offerings for Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry, iPhone, and has taken a broad look at the market to deliver value. Google Maps, the Gmail client and Search homescreen plug-ins are great additions to enhance your phone, and are examples of thin clients that pull in data from the web. Like Nokia and Microsoft, even Google, who most would believe from the spectrum auction as viewing the mobile operators as roadblocks, has started to work with them, but it will only be up to a certain point unless the operators start moving faster or if Google fails to build huge consumer demand for Android like Apple has done with iPhone.
Google has also pulled together an interesting suite of mobile related companies/technologies through recent acquisitions of GrandCentral and Jaiku, and how these fit into its strategy are key questions as it looks to pull together its mobile connected services story.
IV. Yahoo
When Christian Lindholm was at Yahoo, they were able to deliver Yahoo Go!, first for S60 and then Window Mobile. That was the first real connected app that I enjoyed trialing, with mail, contact, and calendar sync to Yahoo cloud services. Yahoo Go! 2.0 moved away from native apps to a unified Java-based offering to gain consistent UI across the different handsets. To me, it became less interesting in the fact it wasn’t integrated with the native applications on the phone, but it offered some neat experiences. Where they are going with 3.0 and the widgets based offering seems like Widsets with nicer UI, but we’ll see. If OneConnect, Yahoo’s online social address book, moves out of demoware state, it could be hot. Yahoo has made a clear choice to focus on the handset experience vs. unifying something for users on the web as well, an approach that believe could hurt them unless they cut deals with device makers to integrate its services into the native apps on the phone.
V. Apple
Apple gets credit obviously for iPhone and awareness it drove for smartphones and their capabilities, but it also gets credit for kicking its competitors and the industry into gear by breaking the mold and cutting an amazing deal with Cingular (now A&T Mobility) to forego the usual 200-plus page requirements document, avoided branding and negotiated the most aggressive financial terms that have Nokia, Microsoft, and Google evaluating their strategies. iTunes sync and service integration is seamless and tough to argue because it works well, and USB is still the best way to transfer 16GB of media to a mobile device, but I am waiting for Apple to have a .mac version of a connected iPhone service integrated into the device – not an if, but when question. Purchasing iTunes content including apps OTA is where everything is going with iPhone 2.0, and extending further to the cloud is the next step. The most interesting sign of change for the wireless industry is that Apple services for the wireless space are all Apple branded, something that many companies are following closely.
iPhone is on the roadmap for a Dashwire client, but we, like many other developers, need Apple to support running background apps like the leading smartphone operating systems. The fact they don’t is being masked by the iPhone halo effect, and is not only unfortunate for developers, but for consumers that would enjoy using the services those companies can imagine bringing to iPhone. Once Apple delivers on this capability for developers, we’ll build a hot Dashwire experience for iPhone users.
Conclusion
If the big dogs are betting on the future of mobile communication and services, it stands to reason that to participate in this opportunity, supporting their platforms and customers with differentiated experiences is the right bet because as we know, seeing the big ship start to move creates lots of time to speed past, build something hot, and have it ready when the ship sails. At Dashwire, we will support as many smartphone platforms with a deeply integrated mobile client to solve tough customer and industry problems and make it seamless for customers to get the most out of their phone, the data it captures, and the web and communications we facilitate in-and-out of the phone.
We’re excited to be a participant in this exciting world of connected mobile services, and expect for Dashwire to deliver big things. Stay tuned.
