Mobile 2.0 – “…a second chance to get it right on mobile…”

As part of my role on a Mobile 2.0 panel at Thinking Digital 2008, I was asked for my definition of Mobile 2.0.

In the past, as a mobile industry insider, I would have repeated a pre-prepared statement, probably proclaiming a new era for mobile phones and mobile data usage. As an independent analyst and observer of all things mobile and wireless, I permitted myself a more accurate and overdue response: “Mobile 2.0 is a second chance to deliver the promise of Internet on the mobile phone.”

For years, technologists inside the mobile industry have had to bear the brunt of over ambitious marketing, closed handsets (proprietary handset operating systems,) closed mindset (the walled garden approach,) and closed wallets (no opportunities for revenue share.)

Today the situation is slowly changing but a lot of the issues still remain. Despite almost a decade since WAP was launched as a commercial service in the UK, with Genie (now O₂) spearheading the advance, we are no way near the kind of mobile phone internet use we saw in Japan with 2000, when i-Mode captured the imagination.

So what is required for Mobile 2.0 to really succeed? The answer is a number of things:

1. Open handset platforms – Symbian is a very good solution, but developers complain that application signing is too onerous and doesn’t allow open beta testing with large audiences. Microsoft doesn’t offer much of a structure around mobile application development, instead it relies on the completeness and relative maturity of its phone OS to woo customers. I won’t mention much around Java except to say that its fragmented implementation on handsets has hampered any success it could have had.
2. Open internet access – to be able to go beyond the constraints of the operator’s own network, no more walled gardens.
3. Open revenue models – these can be a predetermined percentage of the retail price (RRP) and they could also address shares of traffic revenue (a sensitive issue most operators are unlikely to address, despite iPhone getting a foot in the door.)
4. Open APIs – access to location, presence, billing, and other relevant and suitable APIs would make applications truly rich beyond what their PC cousins could achieve.
5. Support for the mobile developer – despite several developer programmes already in place, none truly support nor understand the needs of the mobile application developer. My own personal success in this space, Source O₂ (an O₂ business) died shortly after I left O₂, confirming to most that without senior level support and commitment, the programmes are destined to fail.

How long will all of this take to make Mobile 2.0 a reality? My own prediction is that we’ll be talking about Mobile 3.0 as “the third time lucky” opportunity to make things right.
Ironically, it only takes one of the large mobile phone companies to get it right, like NTT DoCoMo did with i-Mode, for a big shift to happen.