Input on future mobile platform

[William Muriithi]

> I think there's not likely to be anyone that has a coherent idea as to
> what The Next Thing will be.
>
> Further, the notion that it's Mostly About The Technology seems
> laughable, because the customers that *buy* millions of mobile devices
> aren't about the technology.
>

Totally agree with you. Smartphone is a mature technology.  All those who
care about the interface, technology or features has taken a side already .

The rest will mainly be driven by only one attribute and one attribute
alone, how much will it cost them. So if windows can undercut the
competition, their future is great.

William

> The *major* customers that will be determining what sorts of
> functionalities are important in the next "remake" of the mobile phone
> are, like,
>   - China Mobile
>   - Vodaphone
>   - Airtel
>   - SingTel
>   - Telefonica
>   - Orange
>   - America Movil
> that is, the operators of mobile phone networks, who are the ones that
> purchase all but some statistically insignificant number of mobile
> phones.
>
> They're not particularly concerned about Java, or how much memory iOS
> saves over Android.
>
> Apple significantly disrupted their market, when they demonstrated
> that the mobile carriers could make *more* money by selling expensive
> iPhones, and giving up on the (expensive-to-manage) per-carrier
> application stores.  Android showed that this wasn't just a flash in
> the pan, but rather that it was a repeatable phenomenon.
>
> It is in the interests of the customers buying mobile phones for there
> to be competition between mobile phone manufacturers, for which reason
> Windows Mobile and Blackberry haven't been dropped; it's valuable to
> have options in the wings so that the carriers can, if provoked, bring
> them out as alternatives to iOS/Android.
>
> At some point, iOS and Android will presumably suffer from the same
> problem that various past vendors have had; the code is eventually old
> and somewhat crufty, and, more crucially, not flexible to cope with
> some disruption that will take place five or ten years from now.
> Symbian "died" because of that, as did PalmOS.  RIM seems to be in
> that phase; it will be curious to see if they survive, because a small
> niche isn't enough.
>
> But since it is quite likely that, ten years from now, the set of
> customers, namely China Mobile, Vodaphone, et al, will only have had
> minor demographic changes, the needs that mandate picking a new phone
> will likely still center around their needs in servicing their
> markets.
> --
> The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
> TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
> How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gtalug.org/pipermail/legacy/attachments/20130805/ac7df4e6/attachment.html>