Views on the new media market

Symbian Foundation tries another binary compatibility breaking experiment

Symbian Foundation is starting on a path to a brave experiment on the importance of a catalogue of applications in the mobile phone space.

The Symbian^4 release of the platform will break compatibility in a big way.

What does this mean?

Applications built for the 100m+ devices on Symbian before the ^4 release will cease to work, and developers will need to rewrite parts of their applications for new devices.

This is a brave experiment by the Symbian Foundation. While undoubtedly it will create open space to make great products by getting rid of legacy, it does level the playing field with other new entrants in the market. Symbian^4 devices will be a new platform, just as iPhone, Android, LiMo, Palm WebOS devices were when they first launched - so they better be great devices to attract developers.

Traditionally "consumer" platforms have been successful if they have maintained compatibility - Microsoft Windows is the iconic example of this, as each release software from the previous few releases - and with release cycles in 3-4 year windows, this means that 10 year old software continues to work. Other platform providers have learned from this - Apple provided an excellent compatibility story for consumers in moving from traditional MacOS to OS X and then from PowerPC to Intel architectures. Similar examples can be seen in gaming consoles from Sony (PlayStation) and Microsoft (XBox) and Nintendo (Gameboy -> Nintendo DS)

There are other examples where devices have chosen to break compatibility - and failed as they haven't attracted the software catalogue and consumers have chosen other devices as they cannot take advantage of their back catalogue of software. Sega's transition from the successful MegaDrive to the Sega Dreamcast was not successful for them.

Developer adoption is more mixed - developers will move to a new platform that provides them with sufficient advantages - the success of new product & platform introductions such as iPhone, Java demonstrate this. Once on the platform developers do expect a continued level of compatibility - developers don't value having to rewrite old code. Successful software platforms such as Java and Flash have understood this, and provide managed solutions to allow developers to reuse old code without changes - but when adding new code take advantage of new features.

There is one particularly pertinent piece of history here. Symbian has broken application compatibility once before.

In the transition from "EPOC" a PDA operating system that delivered high performance on 2 AA cells and a 18Mhz ARM7 core - Symbian moved to only supporting Unicode for mobile phones.

This meant that all software written for the old PDA products needed to be rewritten.

What happened then? The main licensee, and the originator of Symbian, Psion never made the transition to unicode products, and ultimately switched to producing Windows CE based products only.

So if history repeats itself with Symbian^4 with Nokia in the role of Psion, I would predict that future Nokia devices will be based on a non Symbian platform.

Of course there may be another lease of life for Symbian after Nokia - just as there was for Symbian after Psion.

A brave experiment indeed.

Chrome OS is an opportunity for Microsoft

Google's announcement of Chrome OS today - with precious little detail is still interesting. While the proof of whether Chrome OS will have a significant impact on the market long term will have to wait for key details of what a full implementation of Chrome OS, together with supporting applications and business models consists of it won't be a small undertaking. A complete consumer OS today needs to have

• An email client that supports POP and IMAP clients - Exchange support would be nice too
• Audio player
• Video player
• Word processing application
• Spreadsheet
• Photo management
• Contact management
• Calendar

All these need to work offline - while it's clearly possible to build these using web technologies making all these web technologies work seamlessly offline is harder - and the competition is a very mature, offline operating system.

The other critical question is - what is the business model for device manufacturers - even if these components are open any full OS has patent infringement risks, these risks need to be bourne by someone - whether the device manufacturer, or the supplier of the components. Google may even be more creative - and offer device manufacturers a revenue share of advertising traffic that comes from Chrome OS devices. Mobile phone operators are very comfortable with subsidising mobile handsets that generate voice revenue - why not web devices that generate advertising revenue?

All of this represents a challenge to Microsoft's operating system and Office revenues on the desktop - so how might this be a challenge?

Microsoft's strengths lie in creating great desktop applications, and they have the tools, skills, engineers and ecosystem to continue to do this. As Google embraces the desktop with Chrome OS their core skills in creating great, scalable server software don't provide as big a strategic advantage as before.

If Microsoft take their traditional approach of "embrace, and extend" - and provide a great HTML5 runtime in IE8, and great HTML5 developer tools to .NET developers - then add some .NET extensions to IE8 (and, being creative people add .NET extensions as downloadable plugins for other browsers) then Microsoft can take advantage of their traditional base of desktop developers, and focus on creating great productivity applications.

Microsoft Office Online, offline running on Chrome OS maybe?

The product or platform challenge

There is a huge attraction today in building a platform - whether it's a software platform competing for space on devices (Android, Symbian, LiMo, Java, Flash, WebKit, Opera), or an "in the cloud" platform on the internet (Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace) - what all the new media and technology upstarts want to be is to be a platform that has multiple great products from innovators both within the platform company and outside the platform company.

We've seen this evolution before - both in technology (the evolution of the mainframe platform companies like IBM, the desktop platform companies such as Microsoft and Intel) where the platform consisted of hardware+OS software and the products were software applications that ran on the combination and also in media with the creation of the TV broadcasting companies - where the platform was the (licensed) TV broadcast infrastructure, and the products were the TV shows.

In both cases the platform owners were able to leverage huge returns over a long period of time, and create large barriers to entry to competitors.

No wonder everyone wants to be a platform.

So how do you go about building a platform?

Platforms succeed because they have multiple, great, products that use them - so to create a successful platform you need to first create multiple great products. Sometimes in the rush to win the platform wars this essential fact can get lost - and people hope that merely by building a great platform automatically great products will get built.

Unfortunately it turns out that there is more to building a great product than merely starting with a great platform. While a great platform can help you build a great product - it doesn't stop you from building a mediocre product.

This is a challenge for anyone who wants to take advantage of a platform to create a product - how do you pick the right platform to build your product on?

My recommendation? Look for the platform where the people responsible for that product are focussed on creating multiple great products of their own using the platform.

Looking at the platform landscape today I see the following as clear winners

• Apple (Mac, iPhone/iPod Touch, iTunes Store are all great products, and can be used as great platform)
• Amazon (Amazon's store, Amazon Marketplace are great products, so I'll continue to use AWS as a great platform)
• Open Web and WebKit - WebKit's quality and performance across multiple devices shows potential, and where WebKit isn't there the web standards are a great platform to develop against
• Linux (server side) - for web services Linux has such a rich, flexible heritage, and such a broad range of technology available it's an great platform to build with

I'm also keeping an eye on the following - as they have great products and the potential to be great platforms

• BBC - iPlayer is a great product, if this becomes a platform it could be a global success
• Google - search is a great products - and they have the potential to be a great platform company, but it's still early for their other products and platform plans
• Cisco - great network products, but not yet clear how they are leveraging this to be a platform
• Adobe - some good products, some that are OK, but increasingly challenged by the Open Web

Android ups the game

With the latest release of Android devices such as the HTC Hero Android looks increasingly compelling as a platform for mobile consumers as well as being a compelling platform for developers.

A significant challenge to application developers has previously been that Android applications need to be written in Java - which is fine if an application is being developed from scratch, or ported from an existing mobile J2ME platform, but for applications that come from either a desktop, or a mobile RTOS platform the language of choice has long be compiled C code.

By enabling companies to port existing C or C++ libraries and wrap those in Android specific UI's (written in Java) Android have significantly reduced the barrier and cost to developers who are creating applications that run across multiple devices - from desktop through to embedded devices.

As we see more people experimenting with Android on different platforms (netbooks, mobile internet tablets, and I expect to see Android on set top boxes too) I'll expect to see more innovation from application developers.

Application stores and marketing

With the flurry of interest in application stores and mobile application distribution a couple of weeks ago I decided to try an experiment:

Can an iPhone application be designed, developed, tested, and released within 1 day?

(I further set myself a target of no rude noises - which reduced the scope for innovation somewhat)

The answer - yes - as within one day I was able to create the Inflation Calculator and go through the signing/release process within 1 day.

Sure enough 7 days later the application appeared in the Apple App Store - and, much to my surprise, has actually been selling (it's marketed internationally, and at the lowest price point £0.59)

We are now one week further forward, and I'm happy to share with you the statistics from a real application's release.

So far I've sold 12 copies, and in 4 different countries.

So, I've earned approximately £4.30 from application sales. I'll take care not to spend it all at once!

While this application clearly is not the ultimate killer application for a mobile phone - there evidently is some interest in the information. Which raises the next question for mobile application developers - how to effectively market a mobile application?

Apple have made it easy to get an application into the App Store - but how does discovery then work? With over 50,000 applications in the application store this is getting harder - however it's not unusual to have very large numbers of items in stores - Amazon has over 2.3m books in it's online store - so Apple's App Store has just 2.3% of the inventory of Amazon.

Thus the same challenge that faces a book author faces an iPhone App developer - how do I get people to discover my application, and buy it?

Some people think that a "recommendation engine" - similar to Amazon's is the way to go. Others think in application advertising is the route to success. Maybe the successful route will be sponsorship by large aggregators who can afford big marketing budgets.

The reality? It's likely to be all of the above - along with surprise viral hits dreamed up by innovative developers and agencies. Given the simplicity of creating applications today, the challenge in mobile application development and profit is no longer the development skills - it's the combination of those skills with the communication and marketing of the applications to consumers.

Others building application stores would do well to remember this challenge - and consider whether they really want to build their own "application store" - or whether they want to invest in creating innovative ways for developers to communicate and market to consumers. Will there be a "google" of the mobile application market - one company that delivers a better application discovery experience to consumers than others (just as Google delivers a better internet search experience than others)

I'm continuing my experiment with the Inflation calculator - next step? Look at using traditional search advertising on the internet to drive traffic to the app store.

Mobile widgets - who is the audience?

My colleagues over at Vision Mobile have just posted a summary of their latest research paper on mobile widgets.

One question that isn't addressed in their posting is - who are using, or going to use mobile widgets?

Mobile operators and OEMs love the idea of widgets - as they get to bring some of the technology from the internet to their platforms - whether they are handset platforms, or network platforms.

What is less frequently asked are the two questions:

• Why do consumers want mobile widgets?
• Who will create and publish mobile widgets?

From a consumer's perspective a mobile widget is indistinguishable from a mobile application. So the same challenges that face consumers in understanding why they might want an application, how they download applications, manage them, find them once they are downloaded continue to exist.

From a publisher's perspective the mobile widget platforms further fragment the mobile market - there isn't a consistent set of technologies that run across devices from different OEMs or across different operators. If your consumer targets don't self select to be either a single operator customers (hint, unless your offering sells through an operator they don't) or a single OEM (enterprise markets and blackberry are a case, as are early adopters and iPhone) you still have to manage the problem of creating, distributing and maintaing your mobile offer through multiple portals, stores, platforms, and operators.

While widgets have promise - there is still a long way to go to become a compelling offering to either consumers or publishers - and without growth in compelling content from publishers, or growth in usage from consumers - mobile widgets are destined to become another "also ran" solution in mobile.

Smartphone market share changes - for 2009 and beyond

Gartner released their latest update of smartphone market share statistics - it's interesting to look at the changes here and consider what this means for 2009 and beyond. Growth in smartphone shipments for the year was 17m units - 14% Of this 7m units were from the iPhone, and 11m units were from from RIM. Symbian impressed in bucking the trend - 4m units fewer than 2007.

Symbian still outsells it's next nearest challenger over 3 to 1 though - but with increasing competition in 2009 when we'll start to see the impact of Android and the Palm Pre will see that ratio change significantly - worse for Symbian.

So where will the smart money in platform development go for success in 2009?

• Great consumer products - Apple have this with the iPhone, it's an iconic device
• Device flexibility - from phones to netbook and MID devices - LiMo has this - with it's Linux heritage, and it seems that Android might
• Internet services - which will mean a great browser as a minimum (probably webkit based) and a rich set of plugins that give consumers an uncompromised experience
• A cool factor - to attract innovators to the platform

So how do I score the platforms on the above 4?

• Symbian - 1 out of 4 - good at the web but seems to be lacking elsewhere
• RIM - 1 out of 4 - RIM still have the "crackberry" factor here, but this may be at risk if twitter crosses the chasm to the real mainstream
• Windows Mobile - 0 out of 4 - though it will still stay strong due to it's simple enterprise offering
• Apple - 4 out of 4 - remember Mac OS is on apple desktops as well as phones...
• Linux - 3 out of 4 - Linux remains cool amongst the open source set, and it's web credentials are great - but will it get cool products?
• Android - 3 out of 4 - though much of this is unproven - will Google's cool factor be strong enough?

So I'd expect more growth from Apple, and growth from Android and Linux - primarily at the expense of Symbian and RIM.

BBC Canvas project - internet and TV collide

Last week the BBC published it's consultation on the Canvas project

So what is Canvas? It's BBC's vision for the internet connected to TV.

For my international readers I'd like a quick reminder on the BBC's business model. The BBC are a state funded broadcaster in the UK - their business model is simple they are a subscription TV service that charges £139.50 (about $200) per year, and they persuade UK consumers to subscribe by threatening them with jail if they don't pay up. Accordingly they have very high levels of subscription from the UK population.

So how do the BBC, along with their partners ITV (the UK's biggest free to air, advertising funded broadcaster - a company with a very broken business model) and BT (the largest incumbent fixed line telco in the UK) see this working?

The solution is built around video - and the key value proposition from a UK consumer's perspective is "get iPlayer on demand content on your TV". Given the success of iPlayer on the web - I've heard claims of 20m unique users - that's about 1/3 of the UK population who've experienced on demand video over the web, and the great success of iPlayer's integration onto Virgin Media's cable platform, this should be an out and out winner - if the BBC can marshal it's partners to get the solution to market.

The end result of this is likely to be a £100 set top box that integrates a broadcast (freeview or freesat) connection with an IP connection, and consumers will buy because then they get to watch on demand video content on a 40" screen rather than a 15" PC.

What happens next?

The side effect of the success of canvas is going to be interesting to all players - as more viewers become internet connected while watching video content this opens up new opportunities for content:

• TV has a "back channel" where consumers can speak back to the TV, and be heard - have a look at comments on YouTube videos for an example of this
• Broadcasters start to get live information on who is watching what (and who is not watching)
• Advertisers can start to understand more about their audiences

All this new information sheds new light on what consumers really want from TV - and is likely to make life uncomfortable for some of the existing players who are used to delays in reporting of TV viewing figures. It is also going to challenge the rise of poor quality media content on the internet - if people can get TV quality content when they want on a TV, does the entertainment of the internet look quite so good any more?

Mobile platform fragmentation as a strategy

Fragmentation in mobile platforms is a fact of life for mobile developers. It is often viewed as the result of healthy competition between platform providers, and something that over time will reduce as the better platforms win.

What if the goal is to keep the mobile market fragmented though?

Who might gain an advantage from this? It would not be the software developers - who in order to create a new product that is available to consumers must first create the concept, then port it across multiple platforms - each of those ports adds cost. This money could be better spent on improving the core product.

What about the mobile network operators? For them to deliver consistent services to consumers they have the same problem as the software developers - but they need to go deeper and customise the core look and feel of the device - again more cost for no incremental benefit.

What about the device manufacturers? Let's look at Nokia. On the face of things they seem to have been a keen proponent of platform standardisation - after all they were the first to deliver Java on their mobile phones, they created Symbian. However they are also have a long track record of creating multiple platforms - while they were an early mover in Java, when it started to show real platform power they moved their focus to Symbian. As Symbian grows they are also experimenting with Linux, and webkit platforms.

Maybe Nokia don't really want a single platform?

Nokia maintain their competitive position and margins by selling handsets - if they can persuade consumers and network operators to keep upgrading their handsets on a regular basis then this drives their revenue. Unfortunately for Nokia if consumers can extend the lifetime of their handsets with software it's bad news for Nokia's revenue. Nokia realise this, which is why they keep attempting to transform their business to a software business. The latest attempt here is Ovi. If Nokia can build a compelling value proposition for consumers here, then they can leverage their 40% market share to reach consumers faster than their internet competitors.

How do they make sure they keep this advantage? By making it hard and expensive for other developers to create software for their platforms - by fragmenting those same platforms.

So Nokia's strategy is clear - fragment platforms until they have an advantage, then they can consolidate onto the platform that they have the advantage with - and make things even harder for the competitors.

So how can you take advantage of this?

First you have to make a bet on whether you think Nokia will win in the long term - if you do then the answer is simple follow Nokia's Ovi technology implementation strategy watch what technology Nokia is using to deploy new Ovi services and use the same. (you'd better hope that it's not C ported onto an S40 API - that Nokia don't make available to you)

If you think Nokia won't win - then pick the winner out of the vendors who have a single platform strategy the candidates are:

• Apple - iPhone and MacOS X platform
• Google - Android platform
• SonyEricsson - Central platform, with Java + Flash (Cappuchin)
• Microsoft - Windows Mobile
• Web - using WebKit - available across multiple devices

The thing is - over the last 12 years, Nokia has been the right bet to place - can they continue their run of successes?

Flash on iPhone

At the World Economic Forum in Davos Bloomberg conducted an interview with Shantanu Narayen of Adobe. The inevitable question came up "When will Flash be on the iPhone?" - truly Shantanu must be bored with that question. The blogosphere seems to have widely interpreted the answer as "any day now" - but the actual wording isn't any different to earlier questions to Adobe staffers on the same issue "when we get it working"

Not withstanding the fact that it's hard to get Flash working on mobile devices (it's hard to move any "PC centric" codebase to a mobile device) it's reasonable to assume that it will happen. When it does happen it's bound to be like London busses - wait ages, and then 3 come along at once. (Nokia S60, Android, iPhone and Windows Mobile?)

So what will change in a new "Full fat flash" world on mobile?

Mobile video will become far easier to use

Flash has had a dramatic impact on video on the web. Flash is on every PC and in every browser. As a video distributor you can trust that consumers will be able to watch your video without needing to go through a painful install process.

Mobile video consists of many different formats - there is one consistent format, that used by 3G (h.324) - and even though any phone can access video in a consistent way by just dialling a number this hasn't taken off. Flash video will change this - firstly it will become increasingly hard for network operators to charge a premium for "video" - as Flash video can be delivered over normal HTTP streams. It is also likely to drive flat rate tariffs - after all few consumers are likely to be happy that they get charged extra for the on page video advert that uses up lots of bandwidth.

Rich Mobile Applications will be a real opportunity

Rich Internet Applications, whether delivered with Flash, AJAX, or another framework that builds on these building blocks will become a real opportunity. If you want to deliver a great, free application experience to smartphones today you need to build at least (if you are sat in London)

• iPhone application and register with the AppStore for free download
• Android application and register with the AppCatalog for free download
• S60 application, get it Symbian Signed - you can then distribute from your own website
• Blackberry application

Contrast this with building just one flash application and passing the URL out to people - simple to build and maintain. What will suffer here is native application development - as people will be able to achieve much using Flash & web technologies native application development will become more focussed on niche applications where native is essential - performance applications such as 3D games are a good example.