Ecosystems – the next big mobile battleground

Thursday 24^th April saw some of the mobile and internet industry's leading players debate the future of the industry for developers at the award winning Hillington Park Innovation Centre.

Hosted by Wireless Innovation, the speakers all agreed on one issue, the Mobile Operators need to consider providing ecosystems to give the developers the opportunity to create new, exciting applications and content for mobile - to bring mobile in line with the internet and PC.

The line up of speakers at yesterday's event included Nick Jones, VP Distinguished Analyst with Gartner, Gordon Povey, VP Research with Artilium, Robert Swerling, Principle New Business Development with Google and Joe Hughes, Insight Manager with Yomego.

To ensure these ecosystems are successful there needs to be rich and innovative applications and services for customers, a large customer base, business and technical support services as well as extensive foundation services for developers and the ecosystem owners need to have the potential to make a profit as well as the ability to make their system innovative. 

The market is showing signs of movement but no one has cracked this yet - there are still lots of opportunities for the mobile platform owners, network operators and mobile and web services brands.  Gordon Povey from Artilium made the point, "Network operators need to open the market to give developers the opportunity to develop the next ‘killer app', or there will be no real killer apps!"

Google gave a very interesting overview of where they saw the market in 2019.  There are key things that the developers of today need to consider to satisfy the needs of the customers of the future.  The future will see everyone carrying an internet enabled mobile phone in their pocket, which will be always on.  Ecommerce systems will be professionalised and systems need to be enhanced so that customers have exactly the same experience online or via mobile that they do purchasing items in a shop. 

By 2019, the web will be both personal and social.  The technology will be able to figure out who you are, where you are, what you are doing and who you are meeting, building up a social picture of your life.  The web will be the main media platform for marketing and utilising the data that is being collected on individuals marketing messages will become much more targeted and specific.

Yomego further highlighted the importance of social networking and how companies like BEBO, Facebook, MySpace, Ning etc need to start thinking cleverly about the advertising that appears on their sites.  The statistics show that already 812,000 Britons each month are visiting a social networking website using mobile.  Joe Hughes from Yomego highlighted that, "People who come online to social network are bombarded with adverts but they are not in these spaces to buy, they are here to interact with their friends and peers.  Advertisers will only make money online via niche social network communities built either by or with the help of corporate sponsors".

Alisdair Gunn, Senior Innovation Manager for Wireless Innovation said, "The debate around ecosystems and open source is fascinating.  We are working with a wide range of companies all developing highly innovative applications and content for the Internet and mobile.  These companies need the ability to be able to develop and test in an open environment, just like the PC, or the future of mobile will be inhibited.  Mobile Operator platforms without an ecosystem will struggle to survive in the future".  

Google met a number of Scotland's leading innovative developers following the event where they discussed the potential for these companies to work with Google as part of their innovation programme.

Robert Swerling, Principal of Google's New Business Development Team, said: "I have been deeply impressed by the creativity and energy of the Scottish hi-tech scene. Scotland has historically been a global leader in innovation, and its young companies are helping keep this tradition alive."

Tom Ogilvie, CEO of Innovation Centres Scotland Ltd (ICS), the organisation that runs the Wireless Innovation initiative said, "We were delighted to have such a prestigious line up of speakers at the event yesterday.  The comments from the speakers are very encouraging and support our commitment to help grow Scotland's leading, innovative, high growth potential companies.  Google are keen to revisit Scotland and meet another tranche of like-minded SME's and ICS are already in discussions with them to make this happen."

About Wireless Innovation

Wireless Innovation is the national initiative for Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Scotland.  Operated by Innovation Centres (Scotland) Ltd (ICS), on behalf of Scottish Enterprise, Wireless Innovation uses the extensive skills, knowledge and experience within the team to offer support and advice to help companies grow and succeed in this new and evolving marketplace.