Ewan continues to ponder on the ramifications of Mobile World Congress. How will the next year or so pan out and who will be the winners and losers? More importantly, in which direction is the smartphone industry heading?
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I think the stability is there in the phone market now, it's got so many people buying handsets that extreme trends tend to cancel each other out.
Supermarkets don't really have hot new products because so many people use them on such a regular basis, and phones (even smartphones) are heading the same way. Smartphones aren't experimental novelties any more, they're useful tools which let you do things like drive from one town to another, or video a special occasion, or pay bills through your bank's website.
Obviously the higher end phones will get tech writers writing, but in general, as Ewan says, it's a much more stable picture thanks to the maturity of the market.
I think its too easy to be gloomy about Motorola - I suspect they may have a few things up their sleeve. They have obvious problems, but behind closed doors I imagine they're working on it - they're not willing to tell anyone about it yet.
Moto's phone division isn't going anywhere although there are questions around its software platform strategy. In talking to them at MWC Moto seemed quite bullish about UIQ - and there's certainly more UIQ phones on the way from them. The more relevant question is perhaps just how significant is their involvement in UIQ going to be. There are those that think UIQ isn't going to last (pointing to Motorola woes and Sony Ericsson on Windows Mobile), but I would take a more optimistic viewpoint. I think there's a very real possibility that Motorola could make a strong switch into UIQ rather than dabbling around the edges. Sony Ericsson also has a long term visions and I think that will become clearer towards the second half of this year. I do think that the next 18 months are something of a do or die period, but the odds definitely point towards the good times.
Personally I don't see a problem with commoditization - more is always going to be better. The smartphone isn't going to be what it once promised (i.e. the third party install party), the original side benefits (operator, manufacturer cost savings and time to market issues) are bigger and are driving the growth of open software platforms on mobile. The idea of openness is all prevalent and it is a driving force.
But I do agree there's a certain maturity and stability (its all relative though this is compared to what;s been normal in the mobile world).