ExtremeLabs, Inc

Consider: this year, most of the telecom companies that haunted the world’s largest business tech trade show, CeBIT, pulled out. This left the landscape interestingly barren, but I contend it was also a cultural and business model departure. It’s onerous, and there is hope.

The history of personal computing has revolved around both usefulness and entertainment that can be provided by computers. In some ways, life is easier, in other ways, personal computing introduces problems into our lives. Cell/mobile phones were initially designed to take the place of landline telephony, a market that was at that time, a mess. The mess was created by divestiture by AT&T of its operating unit, the emergence of digital voice capabilities, and much flux in services associated with telephony.

While various initiatives and consumer demand evolved lots of applications on personal computer platforms, the form factor of the mobile phone didn’t bring about dramatic applications for mobiles until the early part of the 2000′s. Somehow, there became a jealousy– no a demand for revenue on the part of mobile service providers to cash in on applications. The mentality of carriers is far, even vastly different than those of personal computer and operating systems/applications makers in the PC ‘space’.

The developers of applications for mobiles are often at the mercy of the carriers. Many carriers actually disable phone features because they don’t fit the carrier’s business models or desires. I’ve owned phones like this; the Motorola RAZR line comes to mind. The operating systems behind phones can be prevented from full functionality at the carrier’s whim. Extra charges might enable these features for users of the phones, but some features are simply banned.

These banned features include things like tethering– the ability of a mobile phone to be used as an Internet access device for a personal computer, as an example. If this sort of feature was disabled on a personal computer, there would be hell to raise, and probably instant work around hacks. The telecom culture very much wants to control their playing field– at the cost of functionality.

Google’s Android operating system, an alternative offered for mobile phones and even netbooks, also has the capacity to limit certain features– even though it’s an ‘open source’ operating system, and ostensibly, open environment. Google’s losing mindshare quickly for this operating system on mobiles for numerous reasons, not the least of which is the lack of a product affinity store, such as the online/easy application purchase store originally championed by Apple for their iPhone.

Were I to guess about the relative market convergence between personal computing and mobile use, the biggest gap and problem to surmount is this culture shift. Users uniformly hate mobile providers, who in turn, spend lots of money trying to retain their customers because customer churn is so expensive. The service-focused revenue, monthly income, is a different business model than the one used in the personal computer industry. That mentality on the part of mobiles carriers will stunt their growth, and cause further consternation.

Long ago, it feels like, Apple released the iPhone and created a storm of sales and a cult of buyers. Apple likes building mythos, and their products have done well to meet the myth they create. As the ostensible second generation of iPhones emerged, it turned out that they were iterative released of the iPhone technology and by some critics, perhaps worse than the originals.

The originals didn’t stress AT&T’s networks very much and in the US, iPhones are now causing growth problems for AT&T’s infrastructure. The GSM-based iPhone also snubs the CDMA and W-CDMA networks. The Android phone, in a version soon to be released in conjunction with T-Mobile, tries to give the iPhone a run for its money. In its first release, it’s more of a curiosity and its sales numbers won’t be huge despite its highly evolved characteristics.

Before one judges the Android, the iPhone’s strengths are its UI, its apps, and its connectivity to personal equipment– mostly laptops or desktops. Apple’s developer network seems to have cowed iPhone developers into highly constrained developer agreements, which also allow Apple to decide what applications can be sold through Apple’s auspices, and Apple’s auspices are the preferred method– Apple’s own ‘channel’.

What then happens to applications that might compete with Apple’s own, are that Apple won’t allow them to be sold through their channel, and developers can’t openly explain that. In other words, they’re screwed.

The Android Google/T-Mobile world is less confined, and has no real channel except for T-Mobile. The US effort of T-Mobile has been bungling, and as a GSM carrier, they’re competing with the likes of AT&T and the iPhone hegemony. The apps today are primitive by comparison, or so it is said, with Apple’s. Yet the open model that Google tends to follow may help them still.

There is a domestic favoring of hot sexy phones. People haven’t used their features much because the UI has uniformly sucked. The iPhone conquers some of that, and the Android phone is attempting to do so, too. But carriers are awful software developers. They know to do two things: make money on CPE (customer premises equipment) and learned the mantra of services (as in charging us for decades for things like voice mail and Caller-ID) services. They positively salivate at the opportunity to sell music, videos, restaurant recommendations, and other components. No one should get a free ride on their networks, either.

Internationally, competition and carrier sentiments are often similar. Yet phones in Korea, Japan, and the EU are often fabulously sophisticated. Some say this is because users tend to favor using a mobile phone instead of a notebook/laptop/netbook as is favored in other areas. Yet many of those features never get used.

The phone that wins the competition will have two factors going for it: inexpensiveness and approachability. The iPhone has won in approachability, but its mind-boggling costs and poor service performance means that its mindshare is vulnerable. Android, and subsequent ‘open’ phones and networks might be able to crack the iPhone mindshare more easily than people think.

Motorola, in personal experience with a Razr V3C phone was simply horrible. Add to negative experiences an LG ‘Chocolate’. I’ve had Motorola phones (never again), LG, Treo 650 (hobbled by Verizon unless one desires to simply open their wallet and let Verizon vacuum it clean), Sanyo (mine broke), and have had only positive experiences with Sony Ericsson. The cheapened branding (IMHO) of Sony’s products and their proprietary nature makes me want to eschew them, too.

I’ll wait and see how the Android evolves. I have hopes for it.