The Openhanced take on MWC 2010

Posted in: Blog, Mobile by openhanced on February 21, 2010

Just back from MWC 2010 and my head is full of impressions and technology. This was the first time at MWC and probably not the last (next time a little shorter). Can we write down somewhere that the mobile (24) operators agreed on a kind of pact against Apple? It is clear, the mobile operators feel they are missing the AppStore opportunity and have decided to close a pact to bring….. another AppStore. Well, do we need it? I’m not sure if this is innovative, it is just copy cat behavior. There is an incredible gold rush happening right now and it seems everyone wants to build and sell native applications for iPhone but also Android. Interestingly most people I talked to gamble on a consumer application to get rich. To base your business operation on such a gamble is a big risk with a low possibility of success. There are probably only a few hundred developers worldwide that make very good money on consumer applications, that is not much.

I also doubt very much if the native route is the best way. The Gartner Group, but also Google and others, are very clear that mobile web applications is the market that will grow faster. On top of that, it is the only segment that has a kind of standard and that is WebKit and HTML5. The mobile OS war makes one thing clear, there are not many standards and I think that is bad news. If you go native your development team needs to be very skilled in several different languages and developers might be hard to get. WebKit on the other hand seems to be everywhere and the support for HTML5 is a real value. Let’s hope that Microsoft will fully support HTML5 or even decide to roll out WebKit as an option for device manufacturers.

Talking about Microsoft, they really surprised everyone with a very slick demo of Windows Phone 7 Series.

I really think they have done the impossible, redefining the mobile interface again and to me the iPhone suddenly looked old.  However, we still don’t know anything about the core code and other plans. They did not answer any question on the OS, they all save that for Mix 2010.

If we talk about other companies that got attention, we need to mention Google. Lots of Android phones but Google did the ultimate, 1000 developers got a Nexus One for free. And yes, I got one too! Google is dedicated to get attention and the developers behind them.

Overall the MWC event was a good place to meet people from the business but there was one thing I found really annoying, the lack of FREE and reliable WIFI. I must say, a big joke! Next time the organization should fix this!!

And what about the others? Well, saw Samsung Bada OS but they need to get back to the drawing board, not sexy and not interesting.

Luckily this year there was also AppPlanet, by far my favorite spot. All the hardware is nice but in the end it all looks the same and the software makes the difference. I would say a bigger AppPlanet next year!

And yes such a exhibition can make you very tired, sleep well ladies