Apples vs Oranges

The sales assistant in the downtown NYC TMobile store was effusive to say the least. He shrugged at my hacked Hong Kong iPhone, and pulled out the new Google phone and waved it at me. 'This changes everything', he said. 'I can check an address on my map, zoom into 3D street level and then actually see a picture of my own shop. And even better, I can scan the SKUs of my products, and see if they are cheaper down the road'. I nodded politely, thinking that if anything was going to change with the new Google phone, it may simply be the number of people spending money at his overpriced shop.

But it did provoke another thought. What we are seeing now is what you might call the third phase of the mobile evolution. Phase one was about transforming eighties mobile bricks into slick, design lust objects. Phase two was about figuring out how to make mobiles impersonate your Walkman and personal video player. Phase three, in my opinion will now pit Apple, Google and Microsoft against each other as they all attempt to control the ecosystem for cloud based applications.

I won't speculate as to the odds of who will win that, save for making two observations. Firstly, cloud based platforms are, in the end, a winner takes all game. It comes down to scale. More users means more data, more data means more value, which in turn increases your ability to play dirty to win even more users.

Secondly, the rise of the mobile data cloud is (another) big wake up call for Telcos. The more that value is delivered as a result of cloudware rather than software, bundled content or product design - the more commoditised the simple act of providing a data pipe becomes. Unlocked handsets are the future, as are unlimited mobile data plans that allow the dreaded voice over IP. As the pools of fast WiFI expand across urban areas, and geeks figure out how to make mesh networks easily run on mobile phones - the days of being able to charge monopoly rents for merely plugging holes in people's network coverage will draw to a close far swifter than anyone on the executive floor may realise.

Comments

[chris simon]

Hey Mr Walsh

Good to see you’re travelling again ‘n writing a very interesting piece, no less.

Mate, has it not always been about Apple, Google and Microsoft pitting against each other? Or even what used to include Yahoo as well?

As long as there are phases in any digital or mobile evolution, which there will be forever, there will be competitive attempts to app and data control!

If only one of the corporations you mentioned could truly see cloud based platforms as win, win rather than the winner takes it all. I just had a vision of Meryl Streep and it wasn’t pretty :-) I think the current Australia Idols doing Abba tonight will be a tad more pleasant :-)

Scale, of course, means everything, but at what cost to potential market erosion as ‘the winner takes it all’. Remember how a majority ‘felt’ about Microsoft or Telstra?

It would be an awful pity if these type of brand personas migrated to Google. I’m not naive enough to believe that all things Google are as truly consumer altruistic as they kid themselves, but I have been pretty googalised this past decade.

However, the erosion, albeit on my own little small scale is already setting in. Here’s a quick example of my little small scale erosion that really annoys me and millions like me called customers:

I work with some of the 5 million bands and DJ’s that have MySpace profiles and cloud kind of comms are pretty important in making ‘art’ together. Me grabbing their MP3’s and transferring them to my phone or cam video edits on bracketboys.com.au which in turn become links to my social media on YouTube and other spaces, and so the wheels of creating, collaborating and making social media keep turning. But, recently, MySpace-without even informing their millions of users changed formats and players and I have witnessed many users not even being able to download their own MP3’s off their own players because of bugs admitted to by MySpace. Sounds very old fashioned ‘Windows Winner Takes it All’ to me. These altruistic ‘Tom says this’ and ‘Tom says that’ letters are bollocks. It’s News or Fox having a spat with Google and open networks being nothing but closed in what has to be truly shared content to truly improve consumer scale and win, win. Get your act together MySpace…So the millions of artists who create brilliant music who also want it accessible to other networks can have it accessible to other networks! Get your act together now!

There’s a fair amount of data I’m talking here and yes, absolutely, wakey, wakey Telcos with the move to more open mobile usage, but also wakey wakey Social and Open Networks in not becoming a part of the monopoly rent cycle, from artists having to go broadband crazy on or off their phones or computers, just trying to simply move their own content quickly. WAKE UP!

Mike, I’ve accused you of being a tad idealistic in the past and its my turn today. But mate, even UNWIRED is just like a Telco with broadband deliveries on prepaid an absolute disgrace in Australia –v- worldwide data-pipe FREE deliveries. The executive floor is still trying hard to monopolise, even at MySpace. It’s all about…..Oh no…..Oh no…I feel another Meryl Streep coming on:

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY …..(Thx 4UR grt article that inspired this response).
CHRIS.