We were having an interesting discussion around the lab today about cell phones and the potentially huge increase in innovation that could result from open-source development on wireless handsets. The conversation started after lab executive director Greg Johnson sent around a MediaPost posting about Google’s approach to mobile search. Our consensus seems to be that cell phone applications are really going to take off when there’s a reliable way for them to live outside of an individual handset (a la the mobile Google Maps) instead of having to reside on a consumer’s individual handset. Innovation in this area would occur significantly faster if carriers or handset developers would allow open APIs to program against or, ideally, open-source handsets that can be built from the ground up.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that open-source development probably addresses a lot of issues that make mobile deployments so darn expensive at the moment. At the very least, open-source folks are reasonably adept at porting software over to other operating systems, which rebuts the issue of having to build the same mobile application for different handsets in order to make sure most consumers can use it. I’m including all of our comments on the subject below, but please feel free to drop in and give us a piece of your mind. We’re always looking for more.
(Note: “Off deck” means an application is hosted elsewhere, “on deck” means an application resides on the handset)
Michael Ball, our mobile expert, said:
That’s funny—when I went to CTIA, the VP of Biz Dev for Orange said that 80% of traffic stayed on-deck in Europe (or at least in France). Although he was obviously a carrier guy, so perhaps he was doing some spin…
Overall, I agree with most of the points here, except for the Google-branded phone. A point in ESPN Mobile’s failure that nobody seems to mention is that what grown man wants to walk around with an ESPN phone? Especially when his peers are carrying around RAZRs and Treos. Maybe if you market to moms and kids, but even then…
Still, I wouldn’t expect carriers to open up the walled garden until the revenue model shifts—which I don’t see happening anytime soon. If anything, look for a forward-thinking carrier to license Google’s search technology for their deck…
I responded:
Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead with a rainbow-colored phone. And, yeah, I think the downfall of the ESPN phone might have been with the branding, but I also question how essential the functionality in it was. A Google phone, like that described below, would have a ton of functionality that would be very nice. And since navigation is one of the biggest problems with off-deck features, using the Google technology would be a good idea.
Honestly, though, I think the whole business would have a lot more innovation if carriers weren’t so darn strict and opened up their platforms so anyone could develop for them, since, you know, the open-source community seems to be much better at organically developing easy-to-use interfaces than any carrier is right now. I’d be the first in line to buy an open-source phone.
Lab Executive Director Greg Johnson said:
Most current traffic is on-deck – I think that real digital platform and content success will happen when you can easily deliver apps off-deck, like google maps on a blackberry. I agree with Jeff, this needs to happen to open up innovation. A common java app for payments, etc…
Michael Ball got in the last word with:
Yep, I’m with you on that. My point was that the Verizons and Cingulars of the world are going to jealously guard their decks until the model shifts toward off-deck being a bigger revenue driver. They’re not going to willingly invite open-sourcers to the party—even though it would speed innovation and growth of the mobile space tremendously. No different than what Microsoft did with their OS pre-Linux, or what AOL did with their content when it was a dial-up world.
It’s short term investing, and the carriers themselves know it. But I don’t see which of the Lemmings is going to break from the pack first…
