Microsoft's $1 Billion spend

Microsoft will reportedly spend $1 billion to launch Windows Phone later this year. That seems like a lot of money to launch a product but I guess Microsoft is showing that's its (finally) serious about mobile. Despite this large spend, it doesn't seem like analysts are too hopeful about Microsoft's chances in the mobile OS game. A mobile OS report out of Gartner has Microsoft's Windows Phone market share dwindling down to 3.9% by 2014, with Android and Symbian battling it out for the top spot. Interestingly enough they have the iPhone OS market share holding steady and not flat out dominating the industry over the next couple of years.

$1 billion seems like a lot of money to be throwing at a potentially losing product... but I guess Microsoft has to do it if they even want a fighting chance in the market. As Paul Thurrott from WinInfo Daily puts it "How much of your own money would you spend if you had to save your own life?" (Love that quote!)

Forecast: Mobile Communications Device Open OS Sales to End Users by OS (Thousands of Units)

OS	2009	2010	2011	2014
Symbian	80,876.3	107,662.4	141,278.6	264,351.8
Market Share (%)	46.9	40.1	34.2	30.2
Android	6,798.4	47,462.1	91,937.7	259,306.4
Market Share (%)	3.9	17.7	22.2	29.6
Research In Motion	34,346.8	46,922.9	62,198.2	102,579.5
Market Share (%)	19.9	17.5	15.0	11.7
iOS	24,889.8	41,461.8	70,740.0	130,393.0
Market Share (%)	14.4	15.4	17.1	14.9
Windows Phone	15,031.1	12,686.5	21,308.8	34,490.2
Market Share (%)	8.7	4.7	5.2	3.9
Other Operating Systems	10,431.9	12,588.1	26,017.3	84,452.9
Market Share (%)	6.1	4.7	6.3	9.6
Total Market	172,374.3	268,783.7	413,480.5	875,573.8

Source: Gartner (August 2010)

Windows Phone 7: Better late than never?

From everything I've read so far, it sounds like Microsoft has done a great job with the upcoming Windows Phone 7 platform. A complete reboot from the Windows Mobile series, the Windows Phone platform has rich system features and technical specs that rival iPhone and Android devices. Microsoft has even done a good job of building up excitement in the ever important app developer community. If Microsoft released this platform today it would give Apple and Google a good run for their money in the smartphone market.

Too bad we won't see Windows Phone 7 available on devices until much later in the year. Apple and Google aren't going to stand still until then with their own products. This year several new Android devices will roll out to the market and Google is finally starting to take steps to address its Android fragmentation issue. Apple is set to release a new iPhone model and OS this year (and possibly even on a new network, Verizon). Add on top of all this the entry of the new mobile tablet PCs that could steal away market share from high-end smartphones. All of these new mobile products entering the market in 2010 will steal away Microsoft's thunder and dampen sales of its devices. The Windows Phone 7 platform looks really strong, but as Palm's WebOS system has shown us lately sometimes that's just not enough to gain traction in the marketplace.

Microsoft's Project Pink

Slowly but surely the buzz around Microsoft's mobile strategy has been building up these past couple of weeks. It started out small and unassuming, with little snippets here and there about Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7, but this week Microsoft's Project "Pink" is making a big splash.

For the past couple of months any article you read about Windows Mobile tended to be pretty down on Microsoft. I wrote a couple here and there but Colin Gibbs from GigaOm really went to town on Microsoft in his articles 'Microsoft + Mobile Consumers = FAIL' and 'Has the Window Closed for Windows Mobile'. The articles are a bit harsh on Microsoft, but Gibbs makes great points about Microsoft's shortcomings in the mobile consumer space.

A couple weeks ago I started hearing a bit more about Windows Mobile 7. A co-worker forwarded me this article from Windows IT Pro, 'Microsoft's plan to save Windows Mobile'. The article talks about Windows Mobile 6.5 and the fact that it was a rushed product that was not a true reflection of Microsoft's mobile vision. The next generation of Windows Mobile would uproot the archaic layers underneath 6.5 and would deliver a smoother experience to the user. I didn't read too much into the article at the time, as anyone who has played around with Windows Mobile 6.5 can tell you that Microsoft really needed to revamp its UI if it wants to keep up with the iPhones of today.

Then earlier this week we heard that Windows Mobile 7 would (finally) be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in February. The big news was that this new version of WinMo would be a whole new platform, completely different than previous versions. In fact it wouldn't even be compatible with older version of the mobile OS. It would essentially be a copy of the Zune HD's kernel, and the UI would look and feel like a Zune HD interface. This got me thinking 'Alright, now we're getting somewhere with this.' It seemed that Microsoft had finally heard the cry of its (small) legion of Zune users who felt the device was ready for the big show. However, even with this news I felt that Microsoft would still have to integrate into the phone hardware if it wanted to have a real chance in the mobile market. WinMo7 would get Microsoft part of the way there, but it would still need to take one more big step after that.

Well, now AllThingsD is reporting that Project "Pink" (aka the Zune Phone) is back in play. Not only will Microsoft unveil WinMo7 (or just 'Seven' as it may be known) at the MWC, but it may also debut a Zune-like phone at the event. The device is rumored to be a combination phone, Zune player, and XBox mobile gaming device. It is Microsoft's direct response to the iPhone and Nexus One. The phone may not be in production until 2011 though, which still leaves a lot of time for Apple and Google to make further advances against Microsoft.

We'll see if Project "Pink" can turn around Microsoft's mobile fortunes. I personally have a bit of a soft spot for Windows Mobile, since my first smartphone was an HTC Wizard loaded with Windows Mobile 6. Looking back at it now and comparing it against my iPhone, the thing was a slow clunky beast, but I loved it. It's kind of like your first car... sure it may have been a bucket of bolts but you'll never forget how it felt the first time you fired it up and took it out for a spin. Microsoft still has a long way to go in the mobile market but I'll continue to quietly root for WinMo and wait for the Zune phone to come out.

Do I really need a tablet?

Tablets garnered a lot of buzz last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It seemed like every electronics company out there is launching a tablet product, including Apple, HTC, Microsoft, HP, Nokia, Dell and Lenovo. Reading all the reviews and technical specs behind these devices I can't help but want one. They look pretty slick and powerful and I know I'll want to play around with one as soon as they come out.

But really, do I NEED a tablet? Does anyone really need a tablet? Some folks are calling tablets "game changers" but quite honestly I can't see the void that this product is going to fill in a consumer's life. The tablet is supposed to fit in between a smartphone and a laptop... but technically a netbook can fill that space for 1/2 the price of a tablet, and provide you with more functionality. Anything you would really do on a tablet like surfing the web, watching a video or reading an ebook can be done just as well (if not better) by other devices. Do you want to surf the web on the go? Use your smartphone. Do you want to watch video on the go? You can use a tablet, but you're not going to be walking around and watching video at the same time, you're going to be sitting down to watch your video At that point you might as well use a netbook. Do you want to read an ebook? Well, they have specialized reader devices just for that, and they seem to do the job pretty well. Overall, at an estimated cost of $600-$1000 I'm not sure if anyone can really justify the cost of buying a tablet.

Also, you have to think about all these data plans that they're touting for the tablet. Do we really need another monthly data plan? Right now I already pay around $30 a month for my iPhone data plan, so do I really need another $9.99-19.99 a month data plan on top of that? I don't know if my pocketbook can handle another subscription on top of my current data plan. I wonder if AT&T would allow me to group both my phone and tablet data plans together. Considering that AT&T is already having a hard time handling the data usage just for iPhone users I doubt they'll go along with that approach.

Back to this year's CES. The tablet that generated the most buzz despite not being scheduled to be revealed in Vegas? Apple's iSlate of course. The iSlate is scheduled for a big 'reveal' at the end of the month, and will go on sale in March. I might head over to the Apple store and play around with it a bit, but will I buy one? Probably not. I really just can't justify it right now. I know I'll want the iSlate, but I really don't need it for anything just yet. There will certainly be people out there who will buy a tablet as a "cool toy" rather than as a device that will serve a real purpose, but overall I think Apple and other manufacturers will have a hard time convincing folks to fork over so much cash for another computer/toy.

Microsoft in 2010: Make or break year for mobile

2009 was a stumbling block for Microsoft in the mobile phone market. The continued growth of the iPhone and the introduction of Google's Android platform (and upcoming Nexus One device) stole significant market share away from Microsoft's Windows Mobile system. Microsoft so far has failed to respond to these smartphone threats and some industry analysts have gone so far as to call for Microsoft to exit the consumer phone game.

For 2010 it looks like tablet PCs will join smartphones as the next hot mobile battleground. This year's Consumer Electronics Show will showcase a lot of the new products set to be released in this latest category. Apple is scheduled to release an 'iSlate' tablet by the end of the month, and Google is rumored to be working with HTC to create a Google tablet running the Android platform. Microsoft also has its own dual-screen tablet in the works called Courier. There aren't too many specs out yet for the Courier device, so a lot remains unknown. Will Microsoft be able to keep up with Apple and Google in this new tablet market?

On the Zune HD front Microsoft looks like it's pushing to get Xbox Live games on Windows Mobile platforms, which will be a good step towards making WinMo phones relevant again. There's also speculation that Microsoft may announce some big Windows Mobile news soon during upcoming conferences. Maybe we'll see details on a full fledged Windows/Zune Phone? The Windows Mobile 7 OS was delayed until the second half of 2010, so Microsoft really needs something big here if it hopes to shake up the order of the current market leaders.

There's a lot at stake with mobile platforms like the smartphone and tablet as we move towards consuming more and more data on the go. 2010 will be an exciting year for innovative mobile products, and I expect to see great things from Apple, Google, Microsoft and others.

Augmented Reality on Michigan Ave.

This weekend I went Christmas shopping on Michigan Ave. and I decided to try out a couple iPhone augmented reality apps during my trip. The Magnificent Mile is a high traffic shopping area with a good mix of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues. With all of these different points around me I'd have access to a lot of data to play with as I walked around the area.

Augmented Reality Apps

Augmented reality on smartphones is essentially taking your phone's camera feed and overlaying graphical information on top of it. Most of the apps I list out below deal with your location. That means these apps use GPS to find your location, then take your camera feed and the digital compass capabilities and figure out where to lay out the data on the screen. It's pretty interesting stuff.

I had several different types of augmented reality apps on my iPhone. I had some venue review apps, like Yelp and Urbanspoon. I also had Wikitude, which overlays Wikipedia information on top of geotagged points of interest. Similar to Wikitude, I had Layar's augmented reality browser, which hooks into Wikipedia data. Layar also has a plug-in for showing tweets nearby. I also wanted to check out some of Google's Favorite Places so I downloaded NeoReader's app for scanning QR codes.

I started up north by the Water Tower Place. Right off the bat I realized that there would be no subtle way for me to use augmented reality with my phone. You have to point your device at the 'horizon'... which actually means a little bit higher than eye level. So essentially I was walking around with my phone held at arm's length in front of me. As you move the phone around from one direction to the next the data on the screen changes, so you have to keep an eye out on the display the whole time.

I started out with the review based apps. Yelp has a feature called Monocle that uses AR to display quick restaurant reviews around you. Urbanspoon has a similar feature. These apps worked pretty well, I noted that they were fairly accurate in direction and distance. One bad thing was that the number of data points on the screen was a bit much at times. You can set filters to limit the types of restaurants and places that get displayed, but in a densely populated area the AR items can quickly overtake your whole screen.

The Wikipedia based apps were a bit of bust. Both Wikitude and Layar's Wikipedia plug-in failed to show any real data around me, even though I was near actual points of interest like the Museum of Contemporary Art, Water Tower Place, or the John Hancock Center. The best these apps could show me was information for 'nearby' locations like Millenium Park to the south and Lincoln Park to north, which actually weren't that close to me at all.

Google's Favorite Places was also a bust. I was under the impression that the Favorite Places program had rolled out in Chicago and I would be able to find QR codes on windows of certain venues around the city. I had a list of places around Michigan Ave. but every one I checked out didn't actually have a decal sticker on the window. That was a bit disappointing.

The most interesting tool of all of them was definitely Layar's Twitter plug-in, Tweeps Around. With this app I could see tweets around me and find some pretty interesting tidbits of data. The problem was... most of these tweets weren't relevant to the location! I only saw one or two tweets about people actually shopping on Michigan Ave., the rest were just random bites of nonsense. The tweet that got me the most excited was one I saw near the Apple Store. Someone tweeted that they had just dropped off their computer at the store. Not too much there in that actual tweet but it shows a glimpse of the potential behind people geotagging relevant tweets around the city. Imagine being able to take the 'pulse' of the area based on tweets around you. Say for example you're on Michigan Ave. shopping, and you're thinking of going to the Apple Store at some point. If you see that there are a lot of tweets coming from the store that the place is "packed" you can plan accordingly, either by giving yourself extra time to shop there or skipping it altogether.

Overall Experience

Overall, 'augmented reality' itself didn't add too much value for me. There was a bit of a 'wow' factor at first, but that novelty quickly faded. The review based apps would have worked just as well for me without the augmented reality factor. Same goes for Layar's Twitter app. One thing I did notice was that there was a lot of 'noise' in the data being presented to me. There was a lot of information available, but it was cluttered and at times irrelevant. My small iPhone screen was quickly overwhelmed by labels and data that didn't really enhance my experience.

We're bound to see a huge growth in location based services as more data is geotagged on the internet. The key to all these services will be to figure out how best to filter all this data and present it to the user. Sure, 'augmented reality' is a cool way to present data, but I would much rather have a service that actually offers highly relevant and useful information to me and my current location.

iPhone, Google Phone, Zune Phone?

With the upcoming release of Google’s Nexus One we’re seeing a big shift in the smartphone industry. The new direction in mobile is in integrating the hardware and software behind the device and delivering a ‘complete’ and ‘pure’ experience to consumers. Apple obviously started this out with the wildly successful iPhone and now Google is following suit with the Nexus One. Let’s not forget about Nokia’s Maemo platform and Samsung’s upcoming Bada operating system. But what about Microsoft? Where do Microsoft and its Windows Mobile platform fit in this increasingly competitive arena?

Microsoft has certainly fallen behind the curve in the mobile world. There’s no buzz around its mobile platform right now and sales of Windows Mobile devices have been relatively low compared to its competitors. Some analysts are calling for Microsoft to get out of the phone business entirely. It seems unlikely that Microsoft will exit this area given the importance of mobile computing, but it definitely needs to shift its strategy if it hopes to compete for market share. I think that if Microsoft hopes to remain a player in the mobile world it will need to cross the threshold into smartphone hardware and release its own fully branded Windows phone.

Microsoft is no stranger to stepping into the hardware game. Microsoft successfully entered the video game market in 2001 with the introduction of the Xbox console, challenging Sony and Nintendo for superiority in the home gaming market. Microsoft also entered the portable media player market in 2006 with the Zune player to challenge Apple’s line of iPods. The Zune player itself is a sleek device that rivals the iPod in functionality and ease of use, but it never really caught on with consumers. Although it has not sold well in the market, analysts predict that Microsoft may enhance the Zune device with phone capabilities and enter the smartphone space with it.

Over the past year, there have been murmurs on the internet about the ‘Zune Phone’, but so far nothing concrete has materialized and Microsoft has not confirmed any of these rumors. The release of the Nexus One will certainly increase this chatter. It’s also going to inadvertently shine a bright light on Microsoft and call into question its current mobile strategy. Right now it appears that Microsoft is focusing much of its attention on the next version of its mobile operating system, Windows Mobile 7, scheduled for a 2010 launch. But will this be enough for Microsoft to regain its lost market share? Probably not.

If Microsoft hopes to once again become a leader in mobile computing it will need to follow the lead of its rivals. Windows Mobile 7 will not be enough. Microsoft needs to move beyond software and integrate into hardware for smartphones. I think we will see a Zune Phone released by the end of 2010. If Microsoft waits much longer than that it could find itself completely out of the mobile revolution.

The Google Phone is coming

Big Google news this weekend: the Google Phone is coming! This highly anticipated move takes Google's Android mobile phone platform to the next level and could be a big game changer in the mobile landscape.

Last month I talked about Google's current problems with Android; brand appeal, simplicity and applications. All of these issues stemmed from Google's decentralized approach to the mobile market. Google gave away the Android OS to any manufacturer who wanted to use it and as a result the market was flooded with many different Android devices that each worked a bit differently than the rest. The fragmentation of the Android market was causing headaches for both consumers and app developers alike.

The solution itself seemed simple enough, although it would be hard to implement. Google would have to regain control of its mobile platform and standardize the consumer experience on Android. Google would have to somehow rein in all of the Android devices running in the wild and establish a unified platform for consumers.

The Google Phone looks like it will do all that. By rolling out its own phone, Google will be able to control every aspect of the device, from hardware to software, and deliver a complete 'Google' experience. The issue of brand appeal and simplicity go away. If a consumer wants an Android phone, the choice is clear; get the latest Google Phone. The issue of application compatibility goes away too. Google will control the OS on its phone and can push out updates and patches as it deems fit.

But what about Droid and the other Android devices out in the wild? Will Google continue to support these devices? They'll probably still be supported but we're likely to see the number of non-Google Android devices go down. The Google Phone may not be immediately available on all carriers, so there may still be a couple new Android devices released on different networks. Expect to see Google exert a tighter control on these devices as it looks to enforce the Android standard.

Now that Google is moving away from a 'Windows Mobile' strategy and moving closer towards an 'iPhone' strategy, how will Microsoft and Apple react?

Will Microsoft enter the phone manufacturer market? There have been murmurs of a Zune Phone but nothing concrete yet. Windows Mobile is falling further and further behind the curve; what can Microsoft do at this point to regain market share?

What will be the impact next year when the AT&T and iPhone exclusivity deal ends? Verizon is rumored to be the next major American carrier to roll out the iPhone. Can T-Mobile be too far behind? You can already unlock an iPhone and run it on T-Mobile's GSM network. Can Apple nip the Google Phone in the bud by making the iPhone more widely available to consumers?

Finally, don't forget about the impact of apps. As of November, the App Store has 100,000 apps available to the Android Market's 15,000. The Windows Marketplace has 376. Unless the Google Phone completely blows away the iPhone in terms of hardware superiority, the battle will still come down to apps. Google has a long way to go before it can match Apple for app numbers. The Google Phone will cause a spike in the number of apps on the Android Market, but will it be enough to pass up the App Store?

4mapper

Check out this Google Map image showing all the places I've checked into around the city on Foursquare. Unsurprisingly enough, I've checked in the most around work and school. Seeing as how I spend most of my time at these two locations that shouldn't be too much of a shocker.

I generated this map over on the 4mapper website. 4mapper is a nice little mash-up of Google Maps and Foursquare that overlays your check-ins on top of a map to give you a visual display of your recent activity. From my map you can see I tend to hang out in certain areas of the city more so than others. Hopefully I'll add more spots on the map the rest of this month when I embark on my iPhone maps & augmented reality expedition. Stay tuned for more details!

Foursquare in Chicago

I've been playing around with Foursquare for the past couple of weeks and so far I'm the mayor at my office and gym, and I'm in the running for mayor at my school. Yeah!

Running through my Foursquare history, here's what I've done so far. I joined two weekends ago and started checking in as I ran some errands around town. I stopped off at the Borders on North Ave and Halsted and noticed that there's no mayor there. Hmm, I study there from time to time... maybe I'll try to take the mayor crown there.

I added my work location to Foursquare, and started checking in every day. I'm now the mayor at work! Considering that no one else in my office uses Foursquare it wasn't that hard to do. I also started checking in at places around work as I went out to lunch, but not every place was listed in the system. Oh well.

I added my training center (Vision Quest) to the map. Vision Quest is actually doing a pretty good job with social media and the web. They have a Facebook page and a Twitter account (@vqcoaching) but no Foursquare presence yet. Started checking in there and quickly became the mayor of VQ. Sweet!

I also started checking in at school but so far I'm not the mayor there yet. Jane U. has that crown now, but I've politely let her know that I may challenge her for mayorship of Kellogg.

So far Foursquare has been pretty fun, but I don't feel like it's done anything useful for me yet. Deals are starting to show up on my map, but I don't think the Foursquare 'buzz' has caught on in Chicago just yet, despite this weekend's article in the Chicago Tribune. I did score a free shot at the Hunt Club over the weekend thanks to Foursquare, but that's about the only real application of the system I've seen in the area.

Another problem for me is that none of my friends are on Foursquare yet, and I really only know of one or two other people on the service. Having my friends use Foursquare would make the game a lot more enjoyable for me, as I'd have people I could challenge for points and mayor positions all over the city. Right now most of my friends have never even heard of Foursquare and look at me funny when I "check in" at certain places. They get the concept of the game, but don't quite understand why I'm using it or what purpose it serves.

Geolocation services like Foursquare haven't quite gone mainstream yet, but according to many analysts the mobile market will soon begin trending this way. There's a lot of potential in these context-aware services, with applications ranging from mobile entertainment and social networking to targeted advertisement and localized recommendations. Like any hot new service du jour, success will ultimately be dictated by the size of its user base. Foursquare is generating a lot of buzz lately and is building up its user base, but will it be able to hold off bigger players like Twitter and Facebook, who have started to move into the geolocation space themselves?

I know if Facebook rolled out its own geolocation service tomorrow, I would start using it instead of Foursquare. Why? Well, all of my friends would already be on the service so the experience would be a lot more social and enjoyable for me. Also, with Facebook's massive installed user base we'd see more applications built on top of the platform and more "offers" available for users on the map.

We'll see how long it takes for geolocation to go mainstream. Hopefully all this media attention for Foursquare will lead to new users signing up for the service, especially in the Chicagoland area. It's a little lonely playing Foursquare all by myself. :(

Mobile App vs. Mobile Web

First off, let me start by saying: I work for a Fortune 100 company and this is my personal opinion.

I work in the consumer division at my company doing software consulting. Right now we're prototyping a mobile app for some of our web users. It's actually more of an experimental proof-of-concept item right now, falling under a pseudo-budget we have for "innovations". This past year one of the big initiatives I've been trying to champion at work is this concept of innovations and creativity within our team and this mobile app project is the latest figurehead of those efforts. Our development team has taken it upon themselves to create a mobile solution that we believe will add business value and create sales opportunities for our company.

So far we've only been able to work on this mobile app project in bits and pieces. Since we don't have a proper budget for innovations yet, we've had to work on it during our down time and off-hours. That's set to change soon, as our stakeholders have finally recognized the benefits of innovation within IT and are planning on adding an official Innovations budget in 2010. I'm excited to see what our team will be able to produce next year as we expand on our efforts to create business innovations through the use of technology.

Our team is excited to play around with mobile technology right now, especially since we're hoping to launch a version of our mobile app on the iPhone, Blackberry and Android platforms. We're trying to develop a successful prototype by the end of the year, but we haven't really been able to allocate that much time to development lately and we've been hampered with some mobile platform issues (especially on the iPhone). I've had to scale back the expectations of the prototype to our business partners and I'm generally worried about what we'll be able to deliver by the end of the year. This weekend I was thinking about the larger approach to our project and kept asking myself over and over: Should we be building a mobile app or focusing on a mobile web solution?

Is our team pushing this technology just for the sake of technology? At our company this is one of the business owners' biggest concerns with our IT department... and the reason why I think our team has had such a hard time earning credibility in our innovation efforts. Too often our team gets caught up in trying to use the latest technology or software release without really thinking about the actual benefits of that technology. We're all about trying to use the latest and greatest, even though we can't quantify what we'll gain through the adoption of the latest and greatest. It's something I'm keenly aware of and I always stress to my team that we *have* to show the business value behind our technology if we hope to gain real traction with our business partners.

So, should our team build a mobile app or focus on a mobile web solution? How can we best serve the mobile needs of our consumers? Our devs are excited to work on mobile apps because it's something that personally interests them, but is that the best way to go? Here's a quick rundown of a (native) mobile app vs. a mobile web solution on the iPhone (courtesy of O'Reilly):

What is a Web App? [Mobile Web]
....A web app is basically a web site that is specifically optimized for the iPhone. The site content could be anything from a standard small business brochure site to a mortgage calculator to a daily calorie tracker–the content is irrelevant. The defining characteristics of a web app are that the user interface is built with web standard technologies, it is available at a URL (public, private, or perhaps behind a login), and it is optimized for the specifics of the iPhone. A web app is not installed on the phone, it is not available in the iTunes App Store, and it is not written with Objective-C.

What is a Native App? [Mobile App]
In contrast, native apps are installed on the iPhone, they have access to the hardware (speakers, accelerometer, camera, etc.), and they are written with Objective-C. The defining characteristic of a native app, however, is that it’s available in the iTunes App store.

The O'Reilly website lists out the pros and cons to each approach, from functional hardware access to ease of deployment. For us, the pros of going with a mobile app are essentially just access to all the cool hardware features of the device. The cons list is much longer though: develop using Objective-C, develop on a Mac, lengthy Apple approval process, cumbersome bug fix process and slow development cycles. For a mobile web solution, the pros for us are: develop using current tools, develop on current platform, bug fixes in real-time and a fast development cycle. The cons are lack of access to all the cool hardware features and loss of sophisticated UI effects.

After reviewing all the pros and cons and the business requirements I honestly don't think we need to go with a native mobile app. Sure, we'll be able to deliver a cooler application if we go with a mobile app, but I don't think it's worth the hassles of going native. We're already dealing with native platform issues and there are major concerns over deployment and maintenance in the future. So far our team has turned a blind eye to these items and we've taken a "we'll figure it out later" attitude, but I think it's time we take a serious look at our approach and reconsider our solution. We can't just force a mobile app solution because we're all super excited to work on the iPhone and Android. You have to use the right tool for the job, and right now mobile app technology is not the right tool for our job.

Sigh, I guess I'll have to be the bad guy at work this week. Hopefully our team won't be too crushed when I tell them we'll have to scale back the "cool" factor for our mobile solution.

Android's Problems: Brand appeal, simplicity and applications

There's a lot of anti-Android chatter right now all over the web, stemming from the Android fragmentation problem I've mentioned a couple of times. Mike Elgan, from Datamation, is the latest analyst to call for Android's failure. Elgan writes "In today's [smartphone] market ... only three things count: brand appeal, simplicity and applications." In all three of these the iPhone leads the market. It has the "top brand, easiest-to-use phone and the most and best applications" available. It's not hard to see why the iPhone is dominating the smartphone industry. Any real challenger would have to tackle the iPhone on all three fronts:

This is the problem competitors face with creating the elusive "iPhone killer." In order to beat the iPhone, a cell phone would have to at minimum equal the iPhone in two of these measures, and surpass it in the third. In other words, an iPhone Killer would have to, say, be associated with as good a brand as the Apple and iPhone brands, be every bit as simple to use as the iPhone, and have more applications.

If we take a look at the barriers that Google faces on all three fronts, they each boil down to one thing: Google's decentralized strategy with the Android platform.

Google has a Brand problem because it allows for any phone manufacturer to rebrand the Android platform. You have the Motorola Droid, the HTC Magic and the Samsung Galaxy, to name a few. By next year there will be many more phone with many different names all using Android in different ways.

Google's Simplicity problem stems from the same source as its Brand problem. Google provides the Android platform for any phone manufacturer to use. Again, you have the Motorola Droid, the HTC Magic and the Samsung Galaxy, to name a few. If you walk into a store you may get overwhelmed with all of the different options and complex features available. Apple doesn't have this problem. Apple has the iPhone. You walk into a store, you see the latest iPhone, and you get it. Quick and simple.

Finally, Google's App problem is one I've talked about in my "Fragmentation of the Android market" posts. With all of the different versions of Android platforms out there, applications built for the Android may not be guaranteed to work across all Android phones. This is problematic for both consumers and developers.

It's already difficult, expensive and time consuming to develop on the Android platform. As a result, we can expect three bad outcomes: First, consumers will face uncertainty and confusion about which apps can successfully run on what devices. Second, the complexity, time and hassle of coping with multiple OS versions and many hardware variations provide a disincentive for many would-be developers to stick with it. And finally, providing real compatibility requires extra code, which could affect app performance.

Overall it sounds like the tech market is bearish on Android right now, which is too bad because it's a solid open platform that could bring real innovation to the smartphone market and provide an alternative to Apple's iPhone. Google's current Android strategy is working well in gaining market share right now, but at some point it will need to evolve if it hopes to be sustainable in the industry. I'll repost my recommendation from my 11/17 post: My recommendation: standardize the Android platform and enforce that standard. Once Google has gained a large enough foothold in the mobile market, it can command better control over the usage of Android with phone manufacturers. It can limit the number of OS versions, force software upgrades, set hardware standards, and standardize the user interface. All this will help to enhance the app experience for both users and developers on the Android platform.

Gartner's Top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012

Gartner released a report today with the Top 10 Consumer Mobile Applications for 2012. Topping the list? Money Transfer.

There has been a push worldwide to use mobile technology for money transfers, but I haven't seen too much adoption here in the U.S. market. Security is a top concern for consumers, so if we want to see a wide scale adoption we'll need a large increase in security and fraud protection. There has to be an assurance that our money will be safe once we hit the 'Send' key on our mobile devices.

Aside from that top pick, Gartner's list reads like a "hot" topics list today in mobile technology. Location-based services, mobile search, and mobile browsing come in the next three spots. Rounding out the top 5 is an interesting pick... mobile health monitoring.

"Mobile health monitoring is the use of IT and mobile telecommunications to monitor patients remotely, and could help governments, care delivery organizations (CDOs) and healthcare payers reduce costs related to chronic diseases and improve the quality of life of their patients."

I think we'll definitely see a rise of activity in this market as the health care industry seeks reform. Technology will play a critical role in increasing doctor/patient communication, transferring patient information across different providers, and lowering overall care costs. I tweeted the other day about an article in the WSJ with Bruce Goodman, CIO of Humana Inc. In the article, Goodman talks about the role of technology in health care and reform. He hints at some aspects of mobile health monitoring, so it sounds like the industry is taking some steps in that general direction. I guess we'll have to wait and see if this truly becomes a top 5 mobile application in 2012.

Fragmentation of the Android market: Part 2

Yesterday I talked about the fragmentation of the Android market from a consumer's perspective. All the different Android versions on the market could potentially confuse consumers and stop them from making an Android phone purchase. Today I wanted to take a look at the fragmentation issue from an app developer's perspective.

Wired magazine has an article this week about Android's rapid growth and rising developer concerns. Android is now available on at least 12 phones and is scheduled to be released on many more over the next year. But this isn't necessarily good news for Android developers.

A slew of problems have made managing Android apps a “nightmare,” [developers] say, including three versions of the OS (Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0), custom firmware on many phones, and hardware differences between different models.

For users, it means apps in the store could be buggy, might not work well depending on their handsets, and could deliver a frustrating experience. Unaware of the increasing back-end complexity, they would then be more likely to leave bad reviews for those apps — a potentially lethal blow for small businesses, say developers.

It looks like the flexibility that Google has given to phone manufacturers with Android has created many different variations of its mobile platform. These variations may be small enough to go unnoticed by an average consumer, but they're large enough that they can cause a developer major headaches. Instead of working on new features and apps, developers find themselves busy debugging their existing apps across different Android phones.

This problem will only get worse as more and more different Android phones are released into the marketplace. iPhone developers don't have this problem since Apple tightly controls the iPhone platform and the operating system version. “Apple maintains an iron grip on what they do and there’s an advantage to that,” says Kelly Schrock, app developer. “IPhone developers don’t have to worry about fragmentation and creating apps for the iPhone is much easier.”

App developers are critical to the complementary network around a mobile platform. Where would the iPhone be without the developers that created the 100,000+ apps in the App Store? No matter how small or trivial, apps play a major role in the mobile world. If a slowdown in developer productivity leads to less new app releases on the Android platform, Google could very well see user share slip away as consumers switch to a platform with a better 'eco-system'.

At some point in the near term future, Google must address this problem. My recommendation: standardize the Android platform and enforce that standard. Once Google has gained a large enough foothold in the mobile market, it can command better control over the usage of Android with phone manufacturers. It can limit the number of OS versions, force software upgrades, set hardware standards, and standardize the user interface. All this will help to enhance the app experience for both users and developers on the Android platform.

Fragmentation of the Android market

Great article from Peter Burrows about the real hurdle Motorola's Droid faces: fragmentation of the Android market. Peter writes:

But Droid’s main competition isn’t really the iPhone: it’s fragmentation of the Android market. Clearly, Apple will have no problem keeping consumers focused on its device. The iPhone is the only smart phone Apple sells ... now consider Motorola’s challenge. Within weeks, consumers who go into a Verizon store will have many of different phones to choose from ... all these different interfaces is bound to confuse consumers.

Ed Zander, former CEO of Motorola, raises another good point. Zander "wonders if consumers will be put off by the complexity of the Android model. It’s bad enough with the iPhone, where Apple is responsible for the device and AT&T for the network. With Android, 'are you buying from Verizon, or Google or Motorola?'"

Google's distributed approach in the mobile market is giving it an early jump in market share, but it will have to be careful to keep a cohesive and unified "platform" as the different number of Android versions in the marketplace multiply.

If I have a Motorola Droid, my friend has an HTC myTouch (Magic), and our mutual friend has a Samsung Galaxy, our phones should all be able to talk to each other. And if not, who should we turn to for support?

Samsung throws its hat into the ring

It seems like all I talk about these days is mobile platforms. Android this, iPhone that, Windows Mobile here, Blackberry there, etc... But if you thought there were enough players in this market already, think again. Just this week Samsung announced the launch of its own 'open' mobile platform, Bada.

The whole plan by Samsung is to move away from using the Windows Mobile platform on its phones and instead shifting to open (free) platforms. Samsung will shift to using Android and Bada over the next couple of years as it looks to retain control over its phones.

I think moving to Android is a smart move for Samsung, but trying to launch a new platform probably won't work. Samsung may be the number 2 phone handset maker, but they have less than 5% of the smartphone market. That's simply not enough phones to gain any real traction among app developers. Their best bet would be to focus on handsets and leverage an existing open platform like Android to retain control over its phones and cut down on OS licensing costs.

The mobile platform market is already pretty fragmented right now, so I don't think adding more players at this point is going to do us any good. I'm not against competition, but in a game where market share is king, if you're not already in this space today you're probably too late.

Buzz Killer?

Hmmm, haven't heard too much about the Droid today. The "killer" phone was launched last Friday and was supposed to really shake up the mobile phone industry, but so far not too much noise being generated on the internet about it. Maybe it's being overshadowed by bigger news... such as the rumored Verizon-iPhone deal for 2010...

The Droid has arrived

Verizon's Droid is released to the public today! We haven't seen this much hype and buzz around a phone since the Palm Pre or the Blackberry Storm, and we all know how those worked out. Many have hailed the Droid as the next iPhone killer, but I prefer the term Windows Mobile killer. We'll see how much of the hype actually lives up to the real thing this week.

Gizmodo sums it up quite nicely:

It's this simple: If you don't buy an iPhone, buy a Droid.

It's the best phone on Verizon, and with Android 2.0, the second best smartphone you can buy, period. It's flawed, deeply in some ways. But it's the second best phone around, on the best network around.

Google GPS

Google just keeps dropping bombs all over the web, and its latest product offering is already making huge waves. Last week, Google announced that it would provide free turn-by-turn GPS maps to mobile devices. Reaction was sharp and immediate: GPS-makers saw their share prices plummet.

It's hard to compete against a giant like Google when it gives away its products for free. Just like with the Android mobile platform, Google is giving away its GPS maps product for free in order to build up its mobile search market. So it's hard for the other mapmakers to compete against Google when all of their profits come directly from the map technology and Google's profit comes from the search revenue delivered indirectly by the map technology. Google's complementary search product is so strong that it has a huge competitive advantage in almost any field X it enters since it can afford to off-set any direct losses on product X with indirect search revenue, so long as that product can add to Google's search market share.

What's even more interesting is that sometimes Google even pays for others to use its product. For example, with the Android platform, Google will actually pay you ad splits to use certain licensed versions of its software. This "less than free" model is even more bad news for anyone competing against the search giant.

Who will be next to fall under the mighty axe of Google?

Windows Mobile Killer

The Droid chatter continues on the web, and Verizon has announced that it's releasing it next week on November 6th. It will be interesting to see how the Droid actually performs in the market and how much user share it can steal away from the other mobile platforms.

Of course the Droid has been called the "iPhone Killer", but then again so has every other new phone that has come out recently. One thing I mentioned in an earlier post is how much different Google's strategy is to Apple's when it comes to their mobile platforms. While Apple has only released the iPhone on its handsets and on the AT&T network, Google has gone with a wider spread approach and essentially released Android into the wild. So maybe it's incorrect to compare the Android (Droid) to the iPhone, when we really should be comparing it to something else.

This Tech Crunch article ("The problem with iPhone Killers") does a great job of highlighting this point. The Droid isn't actually an iPhone Killer because first and foremost... it's not trying to be an iPhone Killer! Although it's competing in the same marketplace with the iPhone, in actuality Google's strategy and approach seems to be more targeted at being a "Windows Mobile Killer". Google is following the same mobile operation model as Microsoft; releasing its mobile operating system to the device makers and letting them control the physical hardware and distribution process. But the big difference for Google is that its OS is open source and free, while Microsoft charges licensing fees upwards of $25 per phone. The problem for Microsoft right now is that the Android platform is starting to gain real traction with the public and with the device makers. We're seeing more and more phones released with the Android platform, stealing away market share from Windows Mobile. Microsoft is responding with its upcoming Windows Mobile 7 platform, but for now it looks like it could be facing a lengthy uphill battle against Google.

So while most people will be eagerly anticipating the release of the latest iPhone Killer next week, I think I'll be keeping a closer eye on the real battle going on in the mobile world. At some future point, Android might be a true iPhone killer, but for now Google appears to be focusing on building up its mobile base by going after much weaker prey: Microsoft.