Mobile Communications Industry in Flux

Taking a look at the past year, you can see at a single glance what has been keeping the mobile communications sector on the go: of course, the I-Phone. Anyway you look at this handset – it polarized. There were people awaiting nothing more eagerly than to finally hold it in their own hands. Others were bugged of all the hype around Apple’s product and raged against it. There was rarely anyone not giving a dawn about it.

No matter which view one might hold, it’s not deniable that the I-Phone set benchmarks in user-friendliness. With its high-resolution display it creates space for elaborate graphics and therewith, for videos, games, TV and flash animations. By this time, there are already some competing products being quite able to hold a candle to the Apple phone.

Those devices’ technical finesses pointed the way for the future of possibilities, in which way mobile applications could be designed. But still software developers were moaning about the myriads of slightly different mobile operating systems, making every enthusiasm about a new app fly away during the long test stage.

Their misery was to be solved faster than many a person had expected. By last fall, after lots of speculations about a Google Phone, rumors were growing that there should be a mobile OS of the search engine giant. These rumors were fast to gain substance. A moment later, Google announced his planned giant baby: Android. This announcement made an impact, we reported as well. The open source platform could become the darling of all frustrated game developers, for with it the highest hurdle, the test stage, felt as an agonizing waste of time, will be drowning in ground. That’s the point of view of Baris Karadogan, venture capitalist with ComVentures.

On 2007’s last day there was one real pleasant piece of news for all companies of the mobile gaming industry. The New York Times covered the strong growth of the European mobile games market. 33 per cent growth compared to the previous year, said Mark Mulligan, vice president at JupiterResearch. This means an increase in sales up to $550 million.

There’s evidence that this success will last, for the foundations to create good mobile games which also can be spread easily, have been laid. The rates of internet usage, those of fixed as well as mobile web, have decreased (in contrary to the general increase of telecommunication rates). Still not enough to keep on spreading mobile surfing, but the tendency is there.

Besides the industry giants, a small browser revolutionised quietly and with far less fuss surfing on „ordinary“ mobile phones with success: the fourth version of Opera Mini was downloaded more than 8 million times during the first week after its release.

The worldwide number of mobile phone owners is continually growing, mainly in emerging and developing nations. In February 2007 „Die Presse“ reported, among other things, about six million new customers in China per month. In some European countries there’s already a huge number of people possessing three mobile phones. And so the number of potential players is increasing, too. Baris Karadogan is even certain that more and more people previously not interested in console games will discover mobile games. According to him, the reason for this is, a.o., the current development of games to become „social“ – playing against friends instead against the handset or strangers.

Who and what will shape the year 2008, is obvious. Another important term of 2007, Mobile Social Networking, will become even more important in 2008. Particularly Android will make sure that this will happen. In the same breath with the networks mobile advertising will gain in importance. The I-Phone will remain a topic of heated discussion – we may already be anxious about Apple’s reaction to Google’s OS. In any case, they’ll carry on concentrating on the mp3 business with I-Tunes. After first Android was said to be available in the third quarter of 2008, the rumor mill has started buzzing again: some people are talking about a first release in February. At least it’s sure that on February Google will showcase his Android on the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

No matter when Android finally will be released – the year 2008 will be exciting in any case. Will there be a battle of giants or will they just divide the market up amongst themselves? Last week the third version of Yahoo’s platform „Go“ was released – does it have a chance to hold its ground or is it just a last, but hopeless try to compete with Google in a David-and-Goliath manner?