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By
Barbara Lancaster and Trevor Hayes
(1) The Headlines
Mobile World Congress continues to grow and diversify. It's not getting prettier as it matures, but it still serves a purpose. Around 55,000 delegates turned up to the Barcelona conference center, which for four days holds the population of a good-size town, but with not so many bathrooms. Twelve-hundred companies paid for space on the exhibit floor and many more rented meeting rooms, or just turned up to network, sell, and buy in the halls and bars of the Barcelona conference center. This is a show that takes about five days to learn to find your way around. Too bad it only lasts four days.
First, here are the headlines to provide a flavor of the show for those who were not there.
Hot topics:
- Device operating systems - name the three or four that will survive long term;
- Over-the-top-services;
- Phenomenal growth in Asia;
- Video, of course;
- Femtocells;
- GPS-enabled handsets;
- The generation gap: this generation of users is very, very different.
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This is a show that takes about five days to learn to find your way around. Too bad it only lasts four days. |
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Yesterday's hot topics that hardly rated a mention this year: IMS, walled gardens, NGOSS. Notable players missing from the exhibitors list: Apple. Most overused presenter expression: "I'm excited to share with you ..." Least mentioned mobile service: person-to-person voice calls.
(2) The Big Picture
Did a big theme emerge? A show of this size covers a lot of ground. It's difficult to perceive an image when you're studying the pixels, so we'll ignore all the exciting announcements and cautiously suggest that the important development this year is not one single product or deal; it’s the emergence of a new mobile ecosystem.
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be bit-pipes” – but this is just because the script-writers haven’t caught on to what is actually happening. The new reality is that wireless carriers are starting to forge partnerships and relationships with the new inhabitants of the ecosystem and looking for ways to make money together, in preference to losing money in splendid isolation.
The trend is now towards, and not away from, concepts like collaboration, openness, and partnership. Maybe it’s because the carriers realized that they were asking a bit much to expect regulators to protect voice-era business models forever. Simple changes – such as widely available unlocked phones and devices open to third party
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