Those who have been in the mobile applications business since the PDA days have experienced the innovation and buying cycles many times. When we were at Palm’s first developers conference in 1997, a majority of the attendees were developing the next biggest game beyond backgammon. Individual or consumer based applications were a big hit until wireless data networks started working on PDAs. The industry forgot about games and rushed to the new frontier, business applications. The color screen was then announced, and a new wave of games and consumer apps flooded the market. Then the ability to synchronize email shifted industry focus back to the high ARPU promises of the small and medium sized businesses and the Fortune 1000.
Today, there are hundreds of thousands of ring tones, games, and personal applications in the market and it seems the industry has forgotten the business customer once again. The demands of the commercial market in each of these cycles is always lagging as the business customer has higher standards (security, version control etc.) and demands some ROI for the investment. With 100′s of millions of new Smartphone owners, the pendulum will be swinging back to the interests of the business user, and maybe sooner than we think. ABI Research just announced that 16.5% of surveyed Smartphone users spent between $100 and $499 on applications.
That seems like an awful lot of ring tones and $1 games from the app store. Something else is going on. Stay tuned.
I’ve been meeting with several different types of managed services companies around the country. The typical MS company is providing network, PC and email administration and 24/7 support for small crashes or major disaster recovery episodes. All of them are serving small-to-medium businesses who do not have a robust IT department, or maybe not one at all. The MS company has become a mission critical partner in today’s business operations. No PCs, no Internet access, no email usually equals no revenue.
Mobile workers are now introducing a new level of challenges as their smartphones, rugged devices, cell phones and wireless laptops make them a part of the mission critical profile in business operations. Yet, while talking through the technical capabilities, value proposition, understanding of the fragmentation of the mobile solution ecosystem and what seems like an obvious high margin value-add service for the the MS MS company, I don’t get the sense that the MS industry is fully prepared to extend its services to the mobile worker.
RCR Wireless magazine reported on a wide range of industry metrics yesterday. What caught my attention was the positive expectations coming out of the mobile application development industry and specifically the segment focused on business solutions. If you missed it, below is the link and a good summary paragraph.
http://www.rcrwireless.com/article/20090202/WIRELESS/902029986/1081
‘Evans Data last week released a report indicating an astounding 48% of enterprise-focused developers expect activity in the space to increase in 2009, and nearly as many (46%) expect the same amount of development as last year. Only 6% of the nearly 400 polled expect development in the space to decrease, and two-thirds of the developers expect data revenues to rise this year.’
Finally, some forecast data is appearing in the public media that is quantifying what we are seeing everyday within our customers and prospects. We are all now hooked on wireless data. We are just beginning to see the potential of what it can do for a businesses large and small while also improving our quality of life.
A recent Mobile Enterprise Magazine report indicates that the U.S. wireless industry will continue to grow despite gloomy economic conditions. Citing the Strategy Analytics Wireless Network Strategies service report, “US Wireless Market Outlook: 2009 Key Trends,” predicts that US cellular subscriber growth will remain strong despite the economic situation, although growth levels will scale back slightly from 2008. US cellular service revenues will also continue to grow, albeit at a slower growth rate of 3.9%, down from 7.5% in 2008.
