The battle between the closed MNO-controlled vs. the open PC-like Mobile Economy:
Recently I identified the mobile meta-competition between the 2 major
strategies of making money in our beloved Mobile Economy. It will be
fascinating to see if the closed or open Mobile Economy is going to win.
The mobile meta-competition actually is the battle between the closed
MNO-controlled vs. the open PC-like Mobile Economy.
Vodafone by now globally adopted NTTDoCoMo's strategy of tight MNO-control
by giving 100%-specifications to handset makers regarding device features
and dos and don'ts of content distribution to those devices.
On the other hand, Nokia pushes Symbian and the vision of the open mobile online computer on which
the user can run any application while moving any data to the PC or between
handsets (e.g. Face2Face file sharing over Bluetooth or SD cards).
To remain in control of mobile content and application distribution, NTTDoCoMo has
trimmed some key data exchange functionality of the Symbian OS version on their 2
Fujitsu FOMA handsets. Although Symbian is THE open OS for mobile devices,
NTTDoCoMo does not allow to write protected data to the SD card or read
from it. Of course, this is to prevent alternative distribution channels
and mobile file sharing activities.
So here are some scenarios of the ultimate outcome of the mobile meta-competition
between the open vs. closed Mobile Economy:
Nokia first becomes an MVNO and/or later buys a number of available MNOs.
The MNOs to be bought by Nokia may even be new players that bring Mobile
Broadband to the market, such as German
Airdata
that is based on wireless Mobile Broadband high-tech from
IPWireless.
Microsoft develops and sells (almost open) devices and
becomes an MVNO and/or buys MNOs, too. As pointed out above, the
control over mobile data distribution is the key success
factor and Microsoft has got lots of fixed Internet experience through MSN.
NTTDoCoMo and Vodafone relax their tight control due to market
pressure from Nokia and Microsoft.
The closed MNOs win the battle while Nokia and Microsoft just have to adapt to
such an unfortunate reality. But before they would accept the defeat they will have
spent many billions to change the rules of the game.
I am sure that ultimately the mass market demand represented by
smart users will decide the outcome of this mobile meta-competition of
control vs. openness in the Mobile Economy. People just want to have control
THEMSELVES over their mobile online computing devices, in the same way they enjoy
running any software on their online PCs today. And I believe that
in North America and Europe this open attitude is (still) more widely spread
in consumers' minds than in the Asian region.
Somewhere, Q4 2003
Jan Michael Hess, CEO, Mobile Economy GmbH
We Need to Build our Green Economy within this Decade “Going green is the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century,” summarises the famous American VC John Doerr of KPCB. I agree but I believe that it is not only a business opportunity but rather an economic responsibility - a corporate and consumer responsibility that everybody on this planet should internalise and put into practice, corporations as well as consumers.
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