If RIM has fallen behind, and Microsoft was never there, smartphone-wise, who's keeping them in the game? The mobile operators! Why? Because mobile operators don't want a few giant handsets controlling their destiny.
I think most providers nowadays are LUCKY. Consumers get so caught up with apps and the capabilities of their mobile devices that we ignore the ridiculous plan pricing. The worst part is that there really is no differentiation (besides maybe the Boost Mobile and Metro PCS $50/mo plans) between the larger providers is you want to bargain hunt.
The whole handset-and-services relationship with plans and subsidies and so forth is just another dimension of complexity in the business model for wireless services--and that model is already too complicated to work without a lot of creaking in my view!
Great insight into the world of mobile operators Alan! The fluctuation in data plan and speed of services byAT&T and Verizon necessiates that they offer a wide array of mobile handsets to their customers
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
50 billion household devices will be on the Internet by 2020, according to Cisco. And we're hearing foreign governments are hacking our infrastructure. Surely our refrigerators are next!
YouTube's move to a partial pay-for-view model could help relieve a dearth of good new content but it could also complicate debates in many parts of the world over payment by content providers for delivery of their material to customers.
That's what Larry Page said on Google's earnings call, referring to the conjunction of mobile and the cloud. Well, let's chart it then! We need to be thinking about an Internet where 90% of our traffic goes to 70 destinations within 40 miles of us.
Facebook's Graph Search may face some profound challenges and risks, first, because Facebook users haven't been thinking of their posts as product reviews; and second, because Facebook will now have to contend with the social-network equivalent of SEO "gaming" of results.
EU operators are considering joining up to create a pan-European network to reduce competitive overbuild and cost. This might lower costs and focus operators on higher-level, more interesting services.
Verizon's one-data-plan-for-all-devices could revolutionize mobile data by making it practical to have multiple devices share a plan, and thus encourage users to cellular-equip all their portable appliances.
To date, smartphone apps have only been able to work with 50Meg chunks of information. Well, recent technical advances have been able to boost that number to 4Gbytes. Consequently, developers will be able to work with more complex data types. But will wireless networks be able to handle the additional traffic?
Google bid on spectrum once, but it can get into the cellular carrier business a cheaper way by becoming a mobile virtual network operator. Since Apple is looking at that approach, we may get our phone service from our handset vendors in the future.
Apple is falling further behind in the smartphone space but it looks as if Google is falling behind in the tablet world, and that may be the most important device in the mobile market. But there's still time for Google to catch up.
Nicole and Kim have heard the news that Google's new mobile OS, "Jelly Bean," has a voice assistant that's poised to defeat their precious Siri. It's time for another test!
The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
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