Ad & Thread:
Interesting BW article on the mobile internet.
businessweek.com
The following caught my eye:
Still, Europe's 3G project, long viewed as a way to leapfrog the Americans on the Net, now proceeds grimly. Why? Even
as they were trumpeting the Third Generation, Europe's phone companies were flunking their first Internet exam.
The introductory Web service, launched with fanfare a year ago, has bombed across the Continent. First there were not
enough phones. And when the handsets finally arrived, users struggled briefly with slow data speed, primitive applications,
and sky-high connections rates--and then logged off for good. A year into Wireless Access Protocol, or WAP, there are
fewer than 2 million WAP-surfers in Europe--one-fifth of last year's estimates
The phone companies are good at voice and bad at the Internet. That should open Europe's mobile Web to Net companies.
DoCoMo, after all, has managed to create a vibrant Web largely by staying
clear of the software business: It merely provides the platform and opens it to the Web entrepreneurs, who entice
DoCoMo's customers with applications by the thousands.
The tumult of Europe's mobile Web also threatens to shake up the handset manufacturers. It was Nokia and Ericsson that
pushed the industry toward WAP and drew the road map for 3G. But now the phonemakers must battle for the Internet
against Web-enabled Palms and pocket-size Microsoft-powered machines. The development costs are huge. Nokia
spends an eye-popping 9% of revenue on research and development, topping $2 billion this year. And Ericsson, struggling
to keep up in the handset market, squeezes out only 1% margins on phone sales.
Interesting no? Earlier this year the pundits were telling us that web enabled smart phones from deep pocketed Nokia, Ericsson and others would strangle Palm and other PDA's. Now it doesn't sound so easy with the failure of WAP to catch on in Europe. And NTT DoCoMo's success with an "open platform" approach sounds very much like Palm's strategy. Carl Y, with his Sony background, clearly has part of his attention focused on what's working in the Japanese market as well as the PDA competition at home from MSFT et al.
Seems to me the key is how fast can 3G get rolled out around the world to enable all the entrepeneurial goodies, and PALM looks to be on track to have their ducks in a row for the expected 3G roll out timetable. Also seems to me that QCOM is uniquely positioned to benefit from this over the next few years, whether the 3G be CDMA 2000 or WDCMA.
David T. |
