The World that Is: April 2009

Mashups, 2.0, Enterprise Collaboration, Wiki, Blog, Silo, Cloud Computing, SaaS, PaaS, ISV’s, Social Media, Social MarketPlaces, Social WorkPlaces, Bloom, Web Solutions, Digital Media, 3.0, Social Collaboration, Mobile Media, Mobile Enterprise, Mobile 2.0, Social 2.0, Digital Assets, Digital Management, and the list goes on. It's more then E-Mail Management!

There are more buzzwords today then in the history of human kind.

What separates the word of the week from the fads? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. One aspect of technology that continues to amaze is mobility. Mobility meaning not just the individual who is mobile, but more so the individual who carries a cellular phone (simply having a laptop with WiFi does not qualify you as mobile in my books…sorry).

It should also be noted that this will not be a token post, which is so common these days, talking about Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin or ‘other’ social sites despite the ability for a mobile user to access content, people, and whatever associated ‘process’ they have linked with either of those two areas.

It’s about mobility, and more importantly the data, and even more importantly who is managing that data for you and how.

Let’s start with the obvious player, the mobile handset manufacturers. They are pushing the pace like never before with innovative hardware features (like iPhones 3-axis accelerometer), better batter life, more powerful cameras, increased memory, speed, size and weight of device, and it seems there is no end in sight.

Mobile handset manufacturers (RIM, iPhone, Motorola, Nokia, Palm) have played a tremendous role in how applications are delivered into the marketplace. Could anyone have imagined 10 years ago that Apple would be a substantial player in the smart-phone space?, let alone have an ‘online mobile applications store that would generate a BILLION downloads’? (Apple app store is currently sitting at 962 Million downloads and counting). Hard to believe they have been this successful when you look back at the business principles the telecommunication carriers previously managed hardware providers with.

Second part of the equation is the ISV or independent software development companies. They spend their life developing applications for mobile users of all walks of life. Some ISV’s develop their applications to support a particular platform or device, and leverage the native environment, and perhaps some loyalty with the hardware providers. Other ISV’s choose a more agnostic web browser approach and home to appeal to the masses as a result of their breadth of device and browser support. ISV’s have flourished in both areas, and it remains to be seen which end game delivery, the market will ultimately gravitate towards. Their primary delivery platform used to be the carrier portals. Well all that has now changed with the advent of the ‘app stores and viral social media sites’. Mobile users whether it is for personal use or business driven, are exposed to so much more information then in years past. I have to believe that adoption levels (downloaded over the air applications on mobile devices) have increased not solely on the fact that there are more apps available, but more as a direct result of unbridled access, and strong social recommendations.

Third part of the mobile trifecta is the telecommunication carriers themselves (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, Rogers, T-Mobile). Not one to be seen as a behind the curve old school institution, the carriers are frantically trying to manage an overwhelming amount of ISV relationships, online portals (building and managing), relationships with hardware providers who are bringing devices to market at an unheard of pace, and aside from managing towers and bandwidth constraints, they have the most difficult task of all, how to monetize this entire picture. It’s not an exact science and historical references for ‘this is how we used to do it back in the old days’ is just that, beyond dated. Pushing the pace is not something new, but keeping up with this flurry of exponential innovation that surrounds them in their current ecosystem, is new on more then just one front.

The question of who cares about ‘the data’ is multi-level. One, everyone wants you to consume it, whether it be on their network (carriers), their device (handset guys) or use their software (ISV’s). Carriers make money on the bandwidth and data plans. Handset manufacturers are just happy you keep using their device, as device churn is a bad thing for them, and of course the ISV’s only survive on the revenue linked to you using their application (whether through ads or direct license revenue etc..). But who really manages the data that you consume on the device?

When the next generation of bandwidth, devices and ISV applications allow you to search, find and retrieve much larger volumes of data for more then simple visual consumption, for example display data types via an optical lens or in a 3D hologram format James Bond style on your device, there will only be a few companies that will be able to sort the vast tags, secure the information, and allow you find/share/edit the parsed voice or data bits that you have created all from your device. The current line up of Enterprise Content Management firms would be the logical choice as they are the closest to this model, at least on the enterprise side. Open Text is one such company, that understands the enterprise complexities of records management better then anyone. Preparing for the unknown future data formats, not to mention the terabytes of data that are on the way and the medium in which everything is controlled and accessed, is a bigger challenge then most realize. We live in exponential times. Content is king and the masses have spoken.

We are only just beginning the mobile revolution. The first wave was mass adoption, at cost effective prices. Access has never been cheaper in some areas, while others would argue that the carrier monetization engine is broken. Despite the costs, and the economy the way it is, mobile is here to stay, not as a luxury, but as a staple. People will not give up their phones. The second wave of this evolution is the revolutionary way in which we use the devices to access people, content and our daily business or social schedule. If MySpace was a country it would be the 11th largest in the world, which means we are all probably a little less then 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon. Finding out who likes Larry King or follows CNN on Twitter is pretty easy to answer. Finding out who attended the CTIA conference in San Francisco last year from my company is a little trickier. Why should it be? The data exists. Who owns it? Controls it? And how can I get access to it? Transparent pervasive views to the data storage of choice, mobility users want it, the question in how soon can they get it.

So what does all this mean? It’s a complicated cat and mouse game of who builds, who promotes, who delivers, who is the bigger dog in the supply chain, and who makes money on what. Sometimes the status or relationship from one ecosystem member to another can change in the blink of an eye. Which is why it is imperative to stay focused on the bigger picture, as progress does not take a back seat to organizations trying to figure out their pecking order.

With content being king in the mobile space, the control and management of that data will prove to be more then just a lifeline. Companies who are up to the task of building the next gen data management and control (read: safe) environments, and they must get it right, will be the tipping point for something so much bigger: Mobile Part 2.