Mobility & The New Frontier (July 14, 2008)

Last night at JPMorgan’s offices, the New York Software Industry Association held a very well attended panel presentation and discussion on the future of the mobile web. The presenters were from Nokia, RIM (makers of Blackberry), a mobile web analytics firm, and a mobile web consultancy. The moderator was a senior executive for Vodafone, part owners of Verizon.

The discussion was interesting for a number of reasons. The main conclusions of the presenters seemed to be the following:

- The mobile web is now where the internet in general was in 1998 – there is a lot of fragmentation in terms what different devices/mobile browsers will support, etc.

- Mobile applications are constrained in many ways developers may not anticipate – battery life and form factor, for example, are major issues in a mobile context. Developers have to orient themselves to these set of constraints the same way they did over the past 10 years in PC-based internet applications. A very interesting observation by the mobile web analytics firm that many may not realize – all the big analytics companies still do not track mobile web browser hits. Also, the DHCP structure of most carriers limits the detailed analytics which can be captured.

- The blossoming of social networks and highly-demanded smart devices like the iPhone creates a new set of challenges for CIOs – there is greater pressure than ever to accomodate the applications and devices people want to use, in spite of not having additional resources and tools to manage them.

- Firms like Nokia and RIM are clearly attempting to keep pace with the iPhone and iPhone app store, but they are pursuing very different strategies. Given their installed base, it is likely that there will continue to be differing standards, tools, etc., available on different device platforms. That will continue to make it more difficult for developers.