Mobile Strategy

Mobile Customer Advocates

Jose HC — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:37:10 +0000

Time and time again I see one thing being overlooked in mobile.

Can you venture a guess?

Would you believe that organizations actually forget about the mobile user and the mobile experience somewhere between concept and implementation? This is not done on purpose or through some evil plot from the tethered zombies. It just happens.

Ideally a mobile project stems from a carefully thought out mobile strategy which began (hopefully) by asking relevant questions that revolved around the mobile user. Your mobile strategy is an extension of you, your brand, your products, your image, your reputation and even your people. It reflects you. It represents you. It is you.

But a lot can happen from mobile strategy… to mobile project… to mobile implementation (or mobile strategy execution).

Many times the mobile user is forgotten during those deep dive architecture sessions. As we talk about business requirements and time to market we forget to stop and ask the question: how is this decision going to impact the person we are doing this for? Does this impact the mobile experience? If the answer no… then great! Move on. If the answer is yes… then let’s at least talk about it.

It is almost as if someone should be present at every meeting representing your customer. Your mobile customer. You are doing this for him or her… why not have them integrated into your process? Of course I am not talking about just anyone off the street, but someone who will stubbornly represent the customer for whom you are doing this. Someone with a mobile angle and deep mobile user experience who will ask those sometimes forgotten questions. Let’s call these people (for lack of a better term) – mobile customer advocates.

If you are a small and nimble mobile development shop you don’t have this problem. You don’t have to read this (in fact go away). But if you are a large enterprise executing a mobile strategy make sure you don’t drop the mobile user from the project plan at any point.

But the business represents the customer you say? Yes … and no. Remember that your business units already have a full time role and are busy with their day to day tasks… plus they may be looking at that mobile application as a potential increase in revenue and are focused on that one point. Or maybe you just told them they needed mobile and they are simply complying with your wishes.

It may in fact be an easier process than you think… it may just be about asking the questions…

how do these decisions impact our customers when mobile?
how do these decisions impact the mobile user experience?

Next time you go into a meeting simply put on your Mobile Customer Advocate hat… and ask those questions. You may be surprised at the direction your project takes.

AOL Mobile Goes HTML5, Picks Android Over iPhone for New App

Jose HC — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:42:48 +0000

Longtime Internet pioneer, AOL today matured its mobile platform with a two new applications for Android handsets and an HTML5 version of the AOL Mobile website for smartphones. The new site — still found at http://m.aol.com — now supports richer content and media on handset browsers supporting HTML5. While it’s not surprising that AOL is looking to support advanced devices such as smartphones, the selection of Android over iPhone for the new software title is notable.

via gigaom.com

Speaking of Mobile Strategy…

It is an interesting choice and certainly not a bad one specifically due to the momentum of the Android platform. They can follow this with an iPhone app and not even miss a beat.

I like it because they are not following the crowd. It shows both leadership and independent thinking… Although we don’t have visibility into all the reasons why AOL chose Android over the iPhone it does put a marker on the ground and shows they are thinking things through and not bowing down to the buzz.

I like it.

A few years ago in speaking with customers their priority for development was:
- BlackBerry
- iPhone

Then it became:
- iPhone
- Android
- BlackBerry

Will it soon become…
- Android
- iPhone
- … and maybe BlackBerry?

Posted via email from Mobile Strategy

I think I am back… I hope I am back!

Jose HC — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:10:14 +0000

For many and varied reasons I have been unable to write. Some of it was time, some of it was money and some it (if you can believe this) was strategic.

Over the last few months writing on this blog took second place to many other things. Yesterday something happened that I believe will give me both the reason and the impetus to begin writing again. After a few weeks of being very close to signing with a reputable research firm as their mobile financial analyst … the door finally closed. What had been a roller coaster ride of emotions (from ‘this is the best job in the world‘ to ‘there is something not right in my gut‘) came to an end in a surprising turn of events spurred by a misunderstanding. I see an Invisible Hand who graciously spared me from something and where a veil was removed and suddenly I could see what I could not see before. It is amazing how that works!

So today I find myself 100% free to write but not about everything that you’d expect me to write about. I am currently engaged with a US Bank in executing a portion of their mobile strategy and I will stay away from talking about certain things. It is not at the level that I am accustomed to but it has been great to see the other side of the fence as I find myself deeply entrenched in IT. The good news is that since I will not be joining the research firm and I will not be writing for clients with a twist – I can now concentrate on writing on things that are of interest to me and I believe will be of much interest to you. Topics related to the engagement of the mobile financial consumer and the entrenchment of brands with such consumers. All fun stuff.

The doors are also opening up on a potential mobile health assignment… which could also be great fun. As you know I have been involved with mobile healthcare, hospital operations and healthcare IT in a big way in the past so to see opportunities opening up for me in that area is greatly encouraging.

The other reason I have been slightly unavailable is because of MSA Management Consulting; a firm I am heavily involved in and which we are building and expanding with a very strong team. A firm focused on generating measurable returns on investment of your current assets.

Expect to see much more over the next few weeks and for this place to once again turn into the hub for mobile strategy discussions.

So there you are… consider yourself updated.

Network As A Service: A Carrier’s Differentiator

Jose HC — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:57:46 +0000

I briefly interrupt my slumber to highlight an announcement from yesterday.

Over the years our attention has shifted away from the carriers/operators. We only remember them to complain about them or to comment on AT & T’s iPhone exclusivity. Shiny devices from iPhone to Nexus One to RIM’s devices have made our eyes sparkle. In some respects you may have even discounted or written off the carriers. But they are doing things behind the scenes… things that will impact the way you and I interact with our devices and with people across networks. Exciting stuff so they can finally shed the dumb pipe moniker.

If you’re a developer opportunities are already out there to be leveraged in this space. Be ahead of the curve and not behind it.

This is yesterday’s announcement as retold by TechCrunch Europe:

Aepona, the Belfast-based developer of a software engine that powers the “Network as a Service” (NaaS) business model for mobile operators, has just raised a $10M round, led by new investor BlackBerry Partners Fund, a Toronto-based global fund focused on applications, services and supporting infrastructure for mobile platforms.

Existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners, Polaris Ventures, Innovacom, Nordic Venture Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures also participated in the round.

The company provides the software engine that powers the “Network as a Service” (NaaS) business model for mobile operators allowing them to monetise assets and functionality within their networks – such as billing, location, messaging and voice communications – to open up new revenue opportunities.

Aepona, whose revenues grew 50% year-on-year from 2008 to 2009 with positive EBITDA, will use the new round to accelerate growth, and invest in additional sales and business development.

Below are portion of the Press Release from Aepona’s website:

Aepona is a market leader in the NaaS marketplace through its deployments with more than 20 Tier One mobile operators around the world, together with its pioneering work on the GSM Association’s OneAPI initiative and the launch of the Canadian OneAPI commercial service, which is at the forefront of the Mobile Cloud Computing market.

Commenting on its decision to invest in Aepona, Marc Faucher, Partner at BlackBerry Partners Fund said, “Aepona’s proposition is constructively aligned with the strategic goals of mobile operators, and the company is ideally positioned to capitalize on the major trends that are shaping the future of the mobile industry.”

Among these key trends are:
· Mobile operators looking for ways to re-assert themselves in the applications value chain to address increasing competition from web-based service providers.

· The proliferation of high-end smartphones enabling a new generation of applications and services that combine advanced device functionality with core mobile network functionality, creating significant additional value for the end-user compared with the device-only applications that are prevalent today.

· The arrival of Cloud Computing into the mobile domain meaning that application providers can now quickly and easily access mobile network capabilities across multiple operators. This reduces market fragmentation and is vital for driving mass adoption of applications on a global scale.

“Aepona’s solution directly addresses these trends, and it’s for this reason that BlackBerry Partners Funds believes the company is poised for significant growth. We look forward to working with Aepona, and providing insight and support that will help the company realise its full potential in the mobile eco-system,” continues Faucher.

“We are delighted to welcome BlackBerry Partners Fund on board as a new investor in Aepona,” said Al Snyder, CEO of Aepona. “The Fund shares our vision for the future of the mobile industry – one in which mobile operators can adopt a two-sided business model, delivering differentiated, network-enabled applications through their retail channels as well as directly monetizing their network and billing assets to open up new wholesale revenue opportunities from the Mobile Cloud. We especially look forward to leveraging the relationships that BlackBerry Partners Fund shares with the handset and application developer communities, to develop new propositions that combine the unique capabilities of the mobile device with the power of the mobile network.”

All this to say what?

Keep an eye on it… others are. If I get a chance I will try and write more about this (and if you are interested).Similar Posts:

The Google’s Nexus One experiment and its implications to openness

Jose HC — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:18:39 +0000

I was watching Nexus One very carefully especially it’s direct to consumer implications considering my emphasis on the Open Gardens philosophy. By all accounts, the reception has been luke warm and as the fierce wireless article says, when it is available, Nexus one is not in its original incarnation (through a direct to consumer web site), rather it is sold and distributed through Operators – making it similar to any other phone

So .. What does it mean for the industry as a whole?

Nexus One put Google directly in competition (and indeed conflict) with other handset vendors who adopted Android. So, in that context, I see Nexus One as an experiment and in Google showing what is potentially possible. This is similar to Google strategy of acquiring spectrum Google: Spectrum bid goal was openness, not winning.

These goals are commendable but also commercial in keeping up with the Google business model of advertising(more people use more content and more that content is linked- annotated , the better the advertising model works as long as Google can capture meta data for that content). That philosophy applies to spectrum as it applies to phones .. Others benefit (and some lose) and the customer gets services which they could never dream of before(example Google maps and Google street view)

Whatever you can say about that vision, it certainly works .. And it customers like it ..
This last bit ‘customers like it’ probably explains the Nexus One status ..
In other words, I see it as an experiment which customers(as of today) did not get (and don’t like as such) since they had nothing ‘special’ to look forward to

Remember that the Web players like Google , Facebook, Twitter and Apple are nothing without their customer fan base(a lesson telcos learnt only too late after the proverbial horse had well and truly bolted from the stable)

There are many factors already discussed such as ‘support’ by email only for Nexus one, iPhone comparison, not understanding the consumer device market and the experimentation angle ..

However, I would like to add two things to this:

a) Apple succeeded to some extent by the direct billing (through iTunes) which is a sort of direct to consumer strategy. That worked because they had the customer on their side by providing a truly superior product in the iPhone. To get concessions from Operators, we need a truly superior product – which Nexus One was not and nor were the many offerings from Nokia(which explains Nokia’s current soul searching).

In other words, the customer is the main driver. If you want to get Operators to change their strategies, get the customer on your side first.. That did not happen with Nexus One.

b) The second point is more subtle. There needs to be ONE main factor for the switch. It’s hard to convince customers about MANY benefits. One BIG benefit which MATTERS for customers will do. Most of us had hotmail accounts. Many of us(including me) switched to gmail in a big way. Why? It was more than ‘Google’. For me, gmail has one BIG feature which literally gave me something very valuable .. TIME .. And that’s the SPAM filter. Nothing else comes even close to it. That alone was enough to justify the move.

So, to conclude, I see Nexus one as an experiment .. But a valuable one in Openness where we can all learn the value of serving the customer.

via opengardensblog.futuretext.com

Posted via web from Mobile Strategy

Is HP’s play for Palm about tablets?

Jose HC — Wed, 05 May 2010 21:33:33 +0000

In fact, HP’s (NYSE: HPQ) 1.2 billion play for Palm is shaping up to be more about tablets than smartphones. The smartphone business, which is quickly becoming super saturated with the likes notebook makers such as Dell, Lenovo and Acer, is one both HP and Palm are separately struggling in. But as Technology Business Research points out, the tablet computing space hasn’t been well defined by any single manufacturer or operating system. Could Palm’s WebOS combined with HP’s extensive PC manufacturing expertise give it the leading position?

The scuttlebutt this week has to do with whether HP will drop tablet plans to incorporate Windows 7 and go with the WebOS. IMS Research principal analyst Anna Hunt expects HP to employ WebOS in favor of Windows 7 OS, citing the high cost and potential strain on the processor.

Moreover, Palm’s webOS, despite gaining little traction in the smartphone market, is liked by developers as it offers many similarities to Linux. The platform just didn’t have the volume to woo developers en mass. “If HP can create a compelling tablet offering that people are willing to buy, the barriers to entry for developers might be fairly minimal,” wrote IMS Research analyst Chris Schreck. Moreover, HP has a commanding presence in the enterprise market, which should be attractive to developers.

Jack Gold, founder and principal analyst with J Gold Associates, points out that since tablets are mainly front ends to the Internet, there is a big play for HP to deploy many cloud-based services from which it can generate revenue. I can only imagine the cloud-based services HP can dream up for the enterprise

via fiercemobileit.com

Think enterprise people. This was first and foremost an enterprise move by HP. Consumers are fun and it’s fun to write about and think about pretty things for them… but the big money is in the enterprise. The value add is for the enterprise.

Posted via web from Mobile Strategy

Carnival of the Mobilists #214 – the best of mobile blogging

Jose HC — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:50:24 +0000

Greetings mobile enthusiasts!

This week’s Carnival is hosted by mobiThinking and it is a BIG one with so many submissions that some had to be turned away.

Our post on making the most of mobile through partnerships made the carnival… but there is a lot to choose from some of the best bloggers and thinkers in mobile.

Go on and click right here!Similar Posts:

Carnival of the Mobilists #189

Zoompass Announcement Falls Short of ‘my’ expectations

Jose HC — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:17:11 +0000

I am not sure I get it at times. I know that the technology is limited and that a lot of the talk that sometimes goes around is more dreaming than real possibilities.

Today’s Zoompass announcement however strikes me more as a step backwards than a forward one. This is what happens when the initiative is carrier-lead instead of bank lead. I realize that these comments are not popular among some of my readers (I know where you work) but as a consumer I am still on the side of banks dealing with my money.

There are two things that dampen my excitement about this announcement:

The first thing is the following phrase: “payment is automatically drawn from the user’s Zoompass stored value account.” This means that you and I have to manage yet another account. However easy this may be for you… for me it is a hassle. I want the money to come out of my bank account directly! Otherwise for me it is just as easy to load my Starbucks card… or my Timothy’s card at the counter from my debit card. Am I missing something here?
The other thing is the little sticker… this could almost get me ranting a la Ewan on Foursquare. But I will not. A sticker to me seems like a step backwards. Although they talk about its attractiveness with phrases like “sleek and appealing sticker” … to me it just isn’t.

Bottom line this does not spell convenience to me.

Managing yet another account and plastering a sticker to the back of my phone.Similar Posts:

Is Microsoft’s Mobile Strategy better than what we give it credit for?

Jose HC — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:18:03 +0000

…buried in yesterday’s Pew Internet report, “Understanding the Participatory News Consumer” it appears that Ballmer has cleared a way to score a future goal. The survey indicated that more than half of US consumers already get news and other real-time information wirelessly via laptops. This is a field which Steve still has a lot of control.When Ballmer’s boys release Windows 7 for the Mobile it is likely to improve the links between the desktop and the the PC. Not only making the OS more attractive for business but also for those who want news on the move. It is starting to look like Windows 7 will be able to mimic a lot more PC behaviour on a mobile and thus Steve can use established behaviour on the desktop and put it onto mobile by offering similar capabilities.

Consumers should be able to sync capabilities and their behaviour from mobile Windows desktop to Windows Phone. “On-the-go-news consumers” are a better demographic for Redmond than say the iPhone user. According to Pew Internet: “The typical on-the-go news consumer is a white male, age 34, who has graduated from college and is employed full-time.” It is the same demographic which is likely to buy a bleeding edge phone.

Apple’s demographic is much younger and less interested in news or anything other than shiny objects and listening to Coldplay.

via fudzilla.com

The original title on this post at Fudzilla is somewhat of a misnomer. Or perhaps it was done like this as as an attempt to draw traffic (we all do it don’t we?).

However, it does bring up one good point.

Microsoft has had success in mobile longer than what most give them credit for. Where am I clipping this from? What am I using?

I am at a Starbucks three hours from home… and I am on my Windows Laptop.

More than we would like to admit… Microsoft already has many of our hearts and minds while mobile. Some (at least more than 50% of you) are also reading this from a Windows desktop or laptop.

How many of you are reading this on a laptop? Away from your desk? Away from home?

We should never underestimate the sleeping giant… no matter how many missteps it takes it is still there and close enough to get back into the game.

Or am I wrong?

Posted via web from Mobile Strategy

67% Of The World’s Population Are Mobile Subscribers – What are you doing about it?

Jose HC — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:08:09 +0000

A new report published yesterday by the UN indicates that 67% of the world’s population, or two-thirds total, are mobile subscribers- far outweighing Online access.

67% of the world’s population represents around 4.6B people, up from only 1B in 2002, indicating staggering continued growth. In developing nations, however, the uptake is even more substantial with 57% of the total population in these nations being mobile subscribers, even though other technologies are scarce.

via mobilemarketingwatch.com

What’s your Mobile Strategy?

Regardless of what you do… you need to think through this. How does it affect your business? Your constituents? Your congregants? Your members?

You don’t have to be a business to have a strategy… you just need to understand that you have them right there. They all have mobile devices … what are you going to do about it?

What’s your call to action?

Posted via web from Mobile Strategy

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