It’s been two weeks since I returned from CTIA. During that time I had the opportunity to follow the post-show buzz and consider what was seen, as well as what was missed at CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment.
The first obvious observation concerns the ongoing entropy of CTIA’s fall exhibition. The spring show, held the last two years in Las Vegas, is a major show. I don’t know how large the last CTIA Wireless (as the spring show is called) was, but in 2007 I attended the event in Orlando and it boasted 400,000 square feet of exhibition floor space. It took me three days to walk the floor and I still didn’t see everything. Before this fall’s event, CTIA was forecasting 60,000 square feet of exhibition space; I walked the entire floor in about an hour.
The event is called Wireless I.T. and Entertainment, but there is really no theme on the floor. Whatever company has the budget and desire to exhibit will be sold space. It begs the question: does the industry really need both a spring and fall CTIA conference? By this time of the year, most medium to large players in the mobility space are already gearing up for Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona in February or the massive Consumer Electronics Show held in Vegas in January. My guess is that the fall CTIA convention may soon become a casualty of increased scrutiny of marketing budgets.
That said, it’s still a great networking event and there is a lot of fun to be had. And by fun, I mean seeing the new mobile and wireless gadgets, services and technologies coming to market. In such a small event there wasn’t a loud cacophony of news announcements competing with one another. In fact, there were only a handful of news announcements that could constitute buzz from the event. To me, just as loud as what was heard was the deafening silence from what was absent.
THE MAJOR BUZZ:
Smartphones
One didn’t need a gigantic blow-up Android balloon to inform attendees that Android was the major buzz of CTIA. But just in case, Motorola provided one anyway. Motorola was celebrating its new Android handset, the Cliq. Described to me by more than one person in the media as Motorola’s Lazarus (the man Jesus returns to life four days after his death), the Cliq is a handsome handset.
Motorola’s downfall has always been the user interface. In a discussion about Motorola I had with some industry colleagues last week, we discussed how cool initially the Motorola Razr was, until you flipped it open and tried to use it. In its sleek modern design the Motorola Razr was powered by mid-1990s era software that made the Razr not only challenging to use for some, but was also just plain ugly to look at. So the question that everyone seemed to be asking about the Cliq was “what about the user interface?”
Fortunately for the Motorola, Android comes off the shelf in a highly usable format that handset manufacturers and carriers are able to customize. But the underpinning operating system is graphical and intuitive, giving Motorola a head start. The major customization brought to Android by Motorola is “MOTOBLUR” which aggregates a person’s social media news feeds, Twitter and email accounts onto a home screen feed that gives users an at-a-glance view of their online world. I played with this phone for awhile, and I think that Motorola probably has a winner on its hands. Compared to some of the other Android implementations I’ve seen, I think the Cliq is a highly functional and sexy handset. This device will be made available in Europe first, but will be coming to T-Mobile in the States soon. Rumors are that the Motorola Droid coming to Verizon may be sleeker and more modern looking than the Cliq. So perhaps Motorola will be riding a revival on the back of Android.
Also making news during CTIA was Gartner Group forecasting that Android will leapfrog iPhone and BlackBerry to take the #2 spot in smartphone penetration by 2012. This forecast makes a lot of sense. Unlike iPhone, one OS on essentially one device carried by one carrier in any market, or even BlackBerry which is one OS on many devices from one handset manufacturer, Android is an OS that can be used by any manufacturer and is unencumbered by exclusivity deals. By the end of Q1 2010, there will be about 40 different handsets from eight major manufacturers spanning every major carrier around the world.
Down the aisle from Motorola was Microsoft showcasing their new version of Windows Mobile. Would it surprise anyone to know that the new WinMo 6.5 looks an awful lot like the offspring produced by the iPhone and BlackBerry operating systems? As a former WinMo user, I was always surprised by how awful that OS was, even in its interaction with other Microsoft software and systems like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Exchange. Microsoft probably knew it had a major problem on its hands when they first looked at the iPhone and saw how beautifully that device displayed Office documents, and how effortlessly it connected to Exchange. Their wakeup call, however, probably happened when they started seeing handset manufacturers replace Windows Mobile with Android in upcoming smartphones.
In the two years since I dumped Windows Mobile for the iPhone, the smartphone category successfully evolved from a business tool to a “lifestyle device” (as RIM now refers to their BlackBerry smartphones). The question I had regarding Windows Mobile was whether this OS reflected that evolution, or was it simply an icon-based version of the old WinMo? I didn’t get to kick the tires as much as I would have liked, but the interface was much easier to navigate than the old Windows Mobile.
But upon my return I had a conversation with some friends – all smartphone enthusiasts – and we wondered why Microsoft hasn’t merged their two mobile platforms, Windows Mobile and Zune. This combination would seem like a no-brainer, particularly in light of the fact that the iPhone OS is exactly that type of combination. Although there was no hint about that at CTIA, it appears that Microsoft is slowly realizing this very same thing, and Steve Ballmer himself has indicated the two platforms will merge.
Now if we can just convince Sony Ericsson to combine the PSP with their Walkman phones, we’ll really have something!
Health Care
Smartphones are fun, but to me the most significant industry developments at CTIA were seen in a new pavilion entitled “Wireless Health Care.” Hats off to Qualcomm for sponsoring and supporting this initiative. There were many companies all with vastly different implementations of wireless and mobility in health care services.
Some of these startups had services that sent data to smartphone applications so that doctors can have a real-time view of their patients’ waveform based data (e.g., EKGs, heart rates, blood pressure, contractions). Others had systems for patient self-monitoring and care. Wireless health care is a nascent field, and one that Mobility PR is particularly interested in following. But just as Intel was the driving force behind Wi-Fi and enterprise mobility, I see Qualcomm as the major force behind wireless health care.
What Was Missing?
There were two glaring absences at CTIA. At the first CTIA ever where there was more than one Android handset in the market, and more than one carrier providing them to subscribers, it was also the first CTIA in a few years where Google was absent from the show floor. Clearly this didn’t hamper their ability to promote Android, but I found it curious.
Also missing was WiMAX. WiMAX was the buzz at the spring 2008 CTIA Wireless event in Las Vegas. But now that there are multiple operators around the world rolling out service, why didn’t we hear more about it at this CTIA? Particularly relevant was that FCC chairman Julius Genachowski delivered the first keynote address in which he discussed net neutrality, an issue that will play a big role among WiMAX operators, particularly those that compete with telco providers to deliver wireless broadband.
More Analysis in Part II
In Part II of my CTIA wrap-up coming next week I’ll write about Net Neutrality and what the impact it might have on everything from service innovation to wireless backhaul.
