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Steve trades insights on mobile computing with colleagues and attendees at NXTcomm 08

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Steve's opening remarks on the future of mobile computing / NXTcomm Las Vegas

In a wide ranging one-hour debate kicked off by positioning speeches, Steve and fellow industry experts Jeff Orr, CEO and Founder of Orr Technology in Oregon (a noted WiMax.com and mobile broadband news author), and Jon Pelson, Chief of Convergence for British Telecom in London, UK, staked out their positions and debated the future of next generation mobile computing applications, along with the potential impact on the service providers and network architectures that will support them.

In his opening marks, Bell laid out his thesis that the "killer application" for mobile computing devices is the mobile web experience, and that new devices like Apple's iPhone as well as Google Android-class devices represent a seminal shift which have created a turning point in mobile device philosophy. "The web is now the platform to write to", says Bell, "the device is just for managing local content".

According to Bell, this will now usher in what is likely to become a significantly different new business era of computing and communication, in which the mobile computing market will grow to exceed the size of the personal computing market both in unit volume and in dollars. "I have forecast emerging tech markets for 20 years", Bell said, "a few of them jump off the page at you as obvious; and even fewer will run over you like a truck if you don't get out of the way - they are so obvious. And this is one of THOSE".

mobile computing debate at NXTcomm Las Vegas

Bell predicted that both Apple's iPhone business and Google's Android phones will quickly grow into multi-Billion dollar market ecosystems supporting thousands of applications and placing heavy loads on carrier network switching and backhaul capacities. "Research in Motion, Microsoft, Nokia and the rest of the smartphone and handset makers are not going to stand still while this disruptive shift happens around them", Bell predicted, "they are going to jump on this new mobile device paradigm and run with it".

Bell offered up a framework of four primary classes of applications for mobile computing devices: communications, business productivity, infotainment, and social networking. Bell cited examples from each of these categories and made the argument that everything we are doing on the web today, and a lot more, is coming to the mobile device within a five year window. Bell asserted that the web is the new platform for these mobile devices, and while the local operating system is important, what is more important is the quality of the browser, I/O subsystem, and of the underlying network, so that truly powerful network applications can be deployed, sufficiently secured, to move applications that are now desktop and notebook bound onto the next generation of mobile devices. He zero'd in on many examples of "Best in Class" applications and devices, along with their current issues.

There was a lot of discussion on factors which may inhibit the development of this market; on 4G/WiMax/LTE business models and network issues; applications which may run on these future broadband network; network security; application provisioning; user adoption profiles and demographics; etc (some more detail pending over the weekend).

We'll have the rest of the story from this panel posted over the weekend. Thanks for moderator Jeff Orr for inviting us, running a great panel and posing many interesting questions. And to our industry colleague Mr. Pelson of BT for many spot-on observations and insights on the topic. We had trouble finding something to disagree with him about.

When it comes to this topic, what happens in Vegas, does not always stay in Vegas -- we'll continue to hear more and more about this huge disruptive shift in the computing and communications business from many angles.

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