Mobile World Congress 2011 Summary -Quick thoughts

BARCELONA- As usual, it has been a hectic 4 days at the MWC this year, with many exhibitors, new trends and, of course, plenty of gadgets on display.

Overall, the impression is that there were more visitors compared to 2010 and renewed optimism for the sector as a whole, following the gloomy economic backdrop to the 2010 edition.

There were rafts of new gadget announcements, with the LG Optimus 3D smartphone with 3D viewing as well as recording capabilities (no goggles required!) capturing the attention. You can see photos from the LG stand above during the Optimus demo.

Rare was the announcement of new products that didn't mention a tablet-type device, both 10 inch and 7 inch. Each tablet type will fill a different usage niche -though on a personal level, I prefer the 7 inch versions (like the sleek Blackberry Playbook on show) rather than a larger tablet than gets closer in size and weight to a laptop device.

On a geographical level, the might of the Chinese industrial powerhouse was evident, with an even bigger presence than last year in terms of exhibitors and, from the various Chinese OEM's I spoke to, a  clearer mobile strategy following the tentative moves of the last couple of years. It is clear that many of these manufacturers would like to re-grade their products and move them up the value chain by giving them brand support (rather than white-labelling for operators).

Finally, when it comes to the OS domain, let's just take a second to pause and consider the rise and rise of Google's Android system. Within one year, Android has risen to the top of the pack and for many stakeholders, is THE operating system of choice. It is not unrealistic to project that in one year, the once mighty Symbian/Java combo will be relegated to the bottom of the pack. Quite how the Microsoft WindowsPhone tie-up with Nokia will pan out is difficult to see, but the potential for it to be a contender cannot be denied.

Mobile World Congress 2010-#mwc10 Summary Part 2

Time precludes me from going into more detail about my Mobile World Congress experience, but as a second part of my earlier post, here are some observations about the past event:

NOTABLE ABSENCES

It was widely announced prior to the Congress that Nokia (and later LG) would be absent as exhibitors at the event. Nokia's cheeky move was to locate their Barcelona event HQ 100m from the entrance to the show at the ONCE Building on Gran Via. It is anyone's guess whether this actually was a money-saver (hiring a whole building is not cheap) but perhaps the bigger irony of the location was lost on others. In fact, the ONCE building is the Spanish Association for the Blind. Given Nokia's loss of traction in the key smartphone market, it was perhaps apt that they should be headquartered in a 'blind spot'.

LG's absence was hard to understand, but allowed Samsung to take all the glory from fans of Korean technology. Their App Store strategy is even more baffling, as LG launched a LiMo App Store (in some countries) but is looking to scrap that for a more generic store.

Another notable absentee was Palm.Those present last year, will have witnessed a great hoo-hah over their Palm Pre..clearly, all is not well at Palm, as they were near-invisible at this year's event

IT'S GOOGLE TIME!

It was to be expected. Google stole a great deal of the limelight at the show. Partly, it was the excitement caused by the NexusOne giveway (want to get developers frothing with excitement for hours?Give them a new bit of hardware to play with!). Partly, it was Eric Schmidt's captivating keynote speech, where he laid a clear stake in the ground (and is continuing to do so in Abu Dhabi at the Abu Dhabi Media Show) when it comes to mobile. Simply put, Google is now placing mobile at the centre of its strategy.Could not be clearer than that. Everyone else playing in the yard has been warned!

Mobile World Congress 2010 –Rumours and Expectations

It’s that time of the year again when mobilists around the world prick their ears to detect the crescendo of rumours concerning the 2010 edition of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Changing times

Globally, mobile is growing at a steady pace, with emerging economies taking the slack from mature ones, smarter phones encouraging greater use of data connections over the 3G and 4G networks and new services (like mobile money) coming on stream to create more captivating services on mobile.

So, why the gloomy faces on the mobile operators’ executives? Because times are a changin'. What began as an easily shrugged-off trend, ‘openness’, has seriously destabilised the comfortable world mobile operators were operating in. Threats of ‘dumb pipes’ loom large on the horizon. What I’ve referred to as ‘Open Playgrounds’ back in 2008 are now becoming the norm. Increasingly, operators find themselves at a loss to come up with a compelling consumer proposition that they can control (control being the key to monetisation). Meantime, that much loved measure, ARPU, continues on its gradual downward decline. Not the best situation to be in if you need to upgrade creaking 3G infrastructure to ‘gold standard’ 4G or LTE architecture by investing billions of euros.

Much more than hardware

Where exactly is the light at the end of the tunnel? No-one is sure, but increasingly operators think they can see an Apple silhouette against that light. Because no-one has been able to engage consumers in a controlled or closed environment quite the way Apple has done with the iPhone. Hence the launch of the GSMA App Planet (it’s all about the apps) during the Congress –which is great in a kind of ‘let’s jump on the bandwagon’ sort of way, but not so great when you notice that Apple isn’t in the GSMA’s App Planet (presumably Apple’s planet orbits within a different galaxy). Still, Google will be there to let everyone know that they are serious about mobile.

Google’s presence will loom large

In fact, Google will have the biggest profile ever at the Mobile World Congress, following its NexusOne launch and also with the much anticipated Key Note by CEO Eric Schmidt. Without a doubt, Google will shake up the industry and create (as well as destroy) new market segments –what I’m not sure about, is how much they will tread on the toes of operators in doing so.

Nokia and LG absent

Even for market leaders, this is a dangerous strategy –despite agreeing with Nokia’s strategy to re-invent itself into a de-facto software provider, their manner of doing so has also meant they have eroded their market leadership in the hardware/handset market. Partly so, by annoying operators with an attempt to create their own controlled system (remember, this is what operators consider part of their territory). It should come as no surprise therefore, that Nokia will be absent from the show,as is the case with LG. They too plan to create their own controlled App store and ecosystem.

Let Innovation Take Centre Stage

When the going gets tough, the tough start innovating! Now is a great moment for new services and companies to test out new concepts and shake up the industry at the grass-roots. We already saw at the CES Show last month some great innovations in the area of 3D technology. I expect Augmented Reality to be one of the key innovations buzzed about at the MWC (if it isn’t, something will be amiss!). If you are visiting the show, I recommend you check out the Innovation Zone and see where the services of tomorrow will be born.

LG $10,000 Chocolate Mystery-deadline set for midnight on 30.09.09

Following the interest my earlier blog post arose over the mysterious $10,000 reward offered by LG for returning one of 5 LG Chocolate phones manufactured with serial numbers:

· 802KPAE821224

· 803KPBF578597

· 803KPXV578330

· 803KPVH578503

· 803KPJP923836

...I am publishing a short update here.

The good people at the PR agency managing the LG Chocolate Reward have told me that the phones in question were produced between February and March 2008. This date is found in the identifier label as shown in the picture with this post. The next numbers in the label indicate the factory, so you can see that the 5 handsets were made in the same factory of PyungTaek in Korea.

So if you have one of the lucky phones, you need to be sharpish in contacting LG by mailing them at:inform@lge.com. The deadline for returning them ends at midnight on the 30th September 2009. $10,000 plus a brand new BL40 phone could be yours!

Mobile Services in Korea-an eyewitness report

SEOUL-As you would expect, things are a little different in Korea compared to, say, Europe...Research reports are all fine and well, but they fail to give that 'finger-on-the-pulse' feel for what is happening on the street.

So, having spent a week in Korea (and considering that this is one of the most advanced countries in terms of mobile communications) I thought I would share some brief impressions of mobile usage in the region.

Firstly, I'd like to dispel the myth that everyone uses the sort of high end LG or Samsung models widely publicised in Europe...while Koreans have a very high penetration of 3G handsets, many of the ones I saw were Anycall handsets, a Samsung local brand or Cyon (the LG local brand) .

Another thing you notice travelling on the Seoul subway, is how everyone has a mobile device of some sort, be it an MP3 player, PSP or mobile phone. And the most widely used feature on a mobile phone that I witnessed was..yes, you guessed it, TV...and not Mobile TV, but good old Terrestrial/Digital TV, whose signal is captured via a not-so-modern retractable antenna.

All of this should not make us forget that Mobile Social Networking is also huge in Korea, with the Cyworld service launched by SK Telecom boasts over 20m users and has built a profitable business model based on sale of creative digital content.

Finally, it was also noticeable how every car (and I really mean all of them, taxi or otherwise) had a GPS PND device-Seoul is a big city, so GPS offers an invaluable service to local drivers.

One bit of trivia...Samsung is actually a word in Korean and it means 3 stars.