I was going through some old publications and presentations today and found a blast from the past. At a Feb 2004 “Mobile Europe” conference in Bremen, Germany I made the following predictions for 2010
Trends are:
• Mobile phone will be commonly used for M-commerce and web-browsing.
• Mobile presence of organizations will develop.
• Community-based WLANs/WWANs start a powerful movement “Broadband for everybody” [This will] strongly impact pricing for telco data services
• Integration of form and function, like:
– Mobiles/PDAs/Stereo/credit cards/ car keys etc. will merge
– Mobile Services and Internet Services (&Technologies) will merge
– An increasing number of mobile services will make use of /require contextual
information about subscribers (location, profile, etc.)
Predicting the future:
• As mobile and Internet converge, even small companies or individuals [1 guy in a garage] will be able to provide complex telecoms. services
• Open Source Community will be increasingly important in telecoms software
– development. API standards will open up the network.
– The need for revenue generating services will ensure interoperability and/or standardisation.
I was definitely playing it safe but I don’t think those were too far off the mark. It will be interesting to see how technologies like pico/femto cells create further disruption to network operator’s business models (despite the intention to do the exact opposite).
I can clearly remember the opposition and scorn to/for the idea of open source developers and over-the-top telecoms when I suggested it. Mobile browsing in particular was viewed as “ridiculous because of the small displays”. Of course, other commentators were saying similar things but it still felt fresh and had the whiff of controversy. 2004 may be only a few years ago but the mobile landscape was changed dramatically when Apple launched their iPhone. Now every mobile company is competing in the mobile app market.
Anyway, it got me thinking and I’ll be adding a list of predictions for 2015 in the next few weeks.