The mobile phone world was a-twitter with word that Nokia has purchased mobile software maker Symbian and will make the core of its software an open source resource some time later this year via a new Symbian Foundation, with other open-source assets to follow. Engadget notes that the Symbian foundation will include many of the mobile industry's biggest names and will include technology donated from both Nokia and many others, including Motorola, Sony Ericsson and NTT DoCoM. Other members will include Texas Instruments, Vodafone, Samsung, LG, and, interestingly, AT&T, which has had great success as of late with the proprietary Apple iPhone platform.

Clearly the impending launch of Google's open source Andriod mobile platform, delayed in launch until the fall but looming nevertheless, has forced the hand of mobile equipment providers and network operators to consider the potential impact of having their highly proprietary approaches to mobile technologies "googled" away to the demand for more common mobile standards for software to power more content services development. By creating a common core of technologies based on a company with which it's had a long-standing relationship Nokia gets to expand the value of their knowledge of the platform in a way that may transform their business model over time from one of manufacturing to one of enabling systems development. Given the demand for mobile services in developing nations this will enable companies like Nokia to have a hand in those markets without having to bear the full cost of either hardware or software development through the Foundation's partner network.

But more importantly for the content industry this puts at least as much pressure on providers Microsoft, Palm, Apple and Research in Motion to recognize that there is ever more pressure on proprietary operating system solutions to justify their ways. With speed wireless broadband network services opening up the Web to mobile devices the ability to deliver platform-specific content services will become icing on the cake for those who want new status toys but for the bread-and-butter corprorate worker or mobile entrepreneurs and family members it may take more than just a few proprietary services and a delightful interface to keep people locked into a proprietary platform. For content suppliers looking for new "choke points" via proprietary platforms the short-term news via suppliers like Microsoft, RIM and Apple looks good, but the picture over the horizon is likely to look vastly different in less than a year. Be it via the Symbian Foundation or Android platforms, publishers need to stop looking again and again for new ways to activate old business models via mobile platforms and look far more aggressively at how they will survive and thrive in a world enabled with open and universal access to Web-enabled content sources.

Labels: Android, AT+T, Google, mobile, nokia, open source, RIM

The world tripped over one another to ooh and aah at the latest version of Apple's iPhone, a somewhat sleeker model with 3G wireless Internet access and a software development toolkit that enables applications to be built for the iPhone that can take advantage of all of it's "new hotness" interface features. Prominent among the new applications at launch is Microsoft Exchange, a shot across the bow to enterprise users equipped with Blackberries and feeling that, well, they're just not as hip as the next sales and busdev guy. Toss in promised interfaces to home appliances and Microsoft's home strategy takes a bit of hit as well.

Also prominent is the new USD 200 domestic price tag, presumably subsidized by AT&T in much the same manner as other mobile phones to promote mass sales and mass usage of AT&T services. Now people wanting to keep up with the tech-leader Joneses down the street can pile on and join the fun. Put these factors all together and you have a highly competitive platform (albeit one that still lacks a keyboard) that makes consumer and enterprise content accessible in mobile markets as never before. That's the good rah-rah news, in any event.

The not-so-good news is that the exclusive deal with AT&T puts pressure on other mobile carriers to come up with their own deals that can compete with AT&T at a price point that's much closer to attainable luxury for most folks. Supporting a plethora of platforms has hindered the ability of applications developers to create software that scales to markets and has drageed down enabling full Web access on 3G networks, hobbling the ability of U.S. carriers to prepare for this inevitable moment of challenge by Apple and AT&T. Instead of focusing intently on content, most mobile carriers have focused too much on the tech of the platform, instead of viewing mobile devices as just another blank screen that can be painted with content from any application.

However, these aggressive moves by Apple and AT&T may be more a preparation for emerging competition. Microsoft or Google or both will benefit from other mobile carriers and device makers trying to create more cost-effective alternatives to the iPhone now that the USD 200 price barrier has been breached. Microsoft is the more likely beneficiary in the short term, but with profitability becoming an issue, especially with the cost of 3G Web services pushing margins down, Google's Android cross-platform operating system is likely to emerge as the platform that allows more profits at lower price points for both mobile device manufacturers and carrier networks. As noted in TheStreet.com recently a preview version of an iPhone-like phone equipped with Andriod offered touch-screen operation, 3G Web access, software development interfaces for applications and many other features which are likely to come in close to iPhone functionality without the content and software licensing baggage that comes along from Apple.

There's no doubt that the iPhone will continue to be the Lexus of Web-enabled phones for a while, but there's also no doubt that the world has been waiting for the Toyota version to show up for a while. Especially in burgeoning markets like China and India, where Apple's licensing strategy is likely to be less appealing, Android-equipped phones that enable integrated Web access and language-independent hardware are more likely to be the global winners in mobile communications. So while the hoopla around the iPhone 3G launch looks hot for today, remember that in the fall we're likely to be talking about a different perspective on its future.

Labels: apple, AT+T, broadband wireless, iPhone

You have your choice of horror stories to choose from as AT+T sends out its first service bills for Web access via Apple's iPhones. USA Today covers an active text messager who had her 300-page bill delivered in a box (YouTube video below) while a design consultant who got socked with roaming charges for Web access had to cough up USD 5,000 to settle his everyday use of the mobile web. The culprit in both instances is message units, with AT&T's by-the-byte metering making single-page Web downloads as much as USD 20 per page or more in some instances. With rates like this one can only wonder what mobile Web carriers would have in mind if they decided to start adding on fees for high-traffic Web sites as some of them are proposing for general Web access.

While AT&T dismisses these as extreme examples of billing charges the fact of the matter is that it's indicative of how little phone carriers have come in accepting what creates value in content access today. We have had more than a decade of flat-rate Internet access services and increasing use of free or flat-rate telephony to accelerate the growth of electronic publishing but still the major carriers want to play by the old rules - to the long-term detriment of publishers. The most likely consequence of this early application of inflexible metered billing is to heighten the appeal of proposals before the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to make new frequencies available for broadband wireless access more open to competition and transparent access to content and supporting services.

The same threats to revenues faced by publishers as telecommunications companies try to impose tariffs on land-line Internet access are already in place in a mobile marketplace that will represent an increasingly significant portion of publisher revenues - if we can get beyond USD 20-per-page Web downloads. AT&T's clumsy handling of billing may back-handedly do publishers a great favor by letting them see both the promise of a device like the iPhone and the inordinate restrictions for its use to access the Web. Publishers know already that print revenues will no longer fill the bottom line as before: it's time for publishers to push aggressively in the U.S. Congress for a more open, flat-rate approach to mobile Web access that will help them to build online revenues as quickly as possible and to promote more accessible and profitable mobile services that will help them to do that more effectively.

Labels: apple, AT+T, iPhone, mobile, Monetization