PC sales in Japan have been sinking for the past 3 quarters and 40% of Japs are using their mobile to reply emails. (related news)
I guess while the world is moving away from heavy weight desktops and seems like no one wants vista … I think google’s announcement for Android as Open Mobile platform just came in time. (see news and video)
And with that opportunities for entrepreneurs to create something new in Google’s Android Developer Challenge with $10M prizes.
Jaspreet
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That’s not the case with other high end phones that don’t even make 10% of total phone sales.
It’s like the old French aphorism “If you don’t have bread to eat, eat cake”.
Bipin,
My perception was that of a lay user. I appreciate your elucidation and thanks a million.
You say “multimedia features and apps ( and not wireless comm quality) are definitely strong reasons why customers are buying cellphones today”.
I don’t buy that argument.
If that were the case, tell me why M-VAS is not picking up…? Check out the revenue break-up of telcos, the bulk of which comes in from “pre-paid” recharges. You might as well check out the revenue numbers of Nokia (or that of HCL Infosystems, its franchisee in India) and other hardware vendors. How many of us use blackberry, btw…?
I, for one, don’t like a phone screen beaming multi-media visuals, leave alone the pain of watching movies in a screen that’s slightly bigger than a chip. Yes, I might buy an iPhone if it comes with “carrier freedom” (AT&T in the US has a monopoly for 2 years) for the iPod advantage perhaps, but certainly not for browsing or GPRS features (at that cost) that is so cumbersome in a handheld, because I don’t want to strain my eyes any further.
My point was precisely that if the basic feature of mobile calling is not improved, it’s a question of time before it runs out of fancy. It’s like a famished vegetarian going to an Gujarati restaurant in Europe to have a Gujarati Thali only to find that he has to make do with salad or sandwiches.
As far as camera phones are concerned, that just comes in as an add-on and the marginal cost of camera in a phone is negligible and is one-time payout (No pay per use cost impact)
I have an idea for this challenge but i don’t know about Mobile Technology.Anyone interested to co-develop?
There is content explosion in the mobile space. At present it is limited of ringtones and music.However,going forward we can see other forms of content as well.
The increasing strength of Mobile Social Networking will lead to increased content piracy and will cause a lot of problems for the content providers.Can we leverage the “viral Marketing” aspect of the mobile platform to reduce piracy ?
I want to develop an application to manage Content Referral for the Mobile Platform. I purchase a content for $1. Every time a referral of my content purchases i get a dicount of 2.5%(just an example number) on my cost which means for 40 referrals buying the same product i pay zero money when i pay my telephone bill. Beyond 40 i have an opportunity to earn money on my work. It’s highly possible that an individual may entice 4-5 people in his network to buy the content which means a 12.5% discount. Discounts are always a preferred route of retailers to increase sales.
Apart from this i have other ideas on expanding this “content referral”.Interested parties reach out to me at abubuckerblogs@gmail.com.We can discuss and see if it’s possible to take this forward.
Krish, call drops and spectrum have nothing in common with mobile apps. Mobile apps typically run on a separate processor+OS while the wireless communication stack typically runs on a DSP+RTOS.
Anyways, multimedia features and apps ( and not wireless comm quality) are definitely strong reasons why customers are buying cellphones today. Just look at how ubiquitous camera phones have become. iPhone is another example – a top end (500 USD)handheld entertainment device which also acts as a phone btw 🙂 and does not support 3G.
It’s all great to read…
Looking at the level of call drops and the ongoing spectrum squabble, would it be smart to bet on mobile apps…? This morning, the news is that GSM players added another 5.7 m users in october. I take it to mean “more call drops”.
Unless something is done about improving the cell infrastructure (Towers/bandwidth) or an alternative spectrum independent voice/data streaming protocol is devised, all bets are off.