Mobile market slow down

The worldwide economic slump is predicted to impact global mobile market. 2007 was a successful year to the industry with 16% growth. This year global sales are expected to reach only 10-11%. Taking into consideration that most of the growth will take place in emerging market.

As per the devices, a large majority will be low - end mobiles for the low – end markets. The profit margins for those products are lower than the high- end products. It is becoming more and more a game of number.

From the manufactures perspective, the SME will struggle and it seems like the leaders will manage to leverage their dominancy in the market for the long run.

Goan beach vacation

After quite a challenging flight we have finally arrived… (Excellent flights, both aircrafts were half vacant but still need to complain about something :-) the taxi from the goan airport took us to palolem beach in less than 2 hours. At first sight you get a bit of shook – welcome to India – cows conveniently walking in what you may call a street, dogs, no exact roads and how can I describe the smell… after asking our driver to take us to a quite nice place he took us to Neptune Point which is just at the south point of palolem. Palolem Tranquil, idyllic and laid-back, Palolem is a beautiful beach in Goa so get ready here we are for the best vacation ever.

Neptune Point – beautiful sunset, great sleep, the ultimate quite but I was extremely determined to find even a better place as far as the hut’s concern and thought about getting the beach experience. Apparently it was a good idea and luckily found a nice, green, beachfront resort like – ciarans - http://www.ciarans.com/.

Ciarans – fabulous 5 days spent with new friends Ro & Mike from the UK and Paulina form Poland. Ocean-view Cottage - Double cottage with en-suite bathroom, outdoor ground level veranda seating area overlooking the beach and ocean! Amazing food, beautiful clean beach and pure fun, this is what I call paradise with IL…happy, happy, happy

One of the things that amazes me is the “me 2” approach of the micro business environment, they are all selling the same things, no differentiation, no branding/marketing/sales strategy (I probably went a bit too far). Very hard to make money if you are selling the same thing as your neighbor… one important basic lesson – be unique, different and create real value for your potential customers.

Startups management adjustments

While mature companies might have the experience, strong brand, successful solutions and most importantly deep pockets with ongoing revenues; start ups have innovative solutions, a vision and if they're lucky, an investment from a recognized VC . Obviously, this is an opportunity for the survived companies to lead the market naturally with fewer competitors and become a dominant player so what should be the KFS for accomplishing those goals?

Well like always it depends, depends on the stage of the start up. If the product development is in an advanced position, it is not the time to cut on business development and marketing resources. It is much recommended though to outsource certain positions and jobs and strengthens the focus of the organization. Obviously in a seed and early stage it is important to continue the R&D. But once again, being focused and align with the product/startup strategy while maintaining company's operation scope.

Most importantly, delivering the message of efficiency, responsibility and management control, is a key success factors for startups to survive hard economic times and even flourish and grow in the long term.

Execution, Execution, Execution

Understanding the importance of mobile operating system popularity, apple continues to penetrate into the mobile market with the 3G iPhone, that sold 1 million devices over the first weekend last month and with the new app store. The ability to download applications (1000 different application) is the integration of the mobile hardware and software and this is the real battle between the mobile giants: apple and Nokia.

Nokia also offers a wide variety of games under N-Gage, music stores, photo and video sharing and uploading for free, maps and navigation services. Having the platform of Ovi and Nokia software market, the company's aim is to build a third party developers community for the S60 Symbian platform.

The race between the two giants is not over as a third player is expected to get into the game with a new free OS Android by google. Once they all understand the market roles it's all about execution, User interface, usability and value for money, the real celebration for the consumers begins…

Italian solution to Parking and Amnesia

Mobile 3.0?

Gaming, mobile TV, social networking and Internet mobile are the hottest trends for the 2008 internet. It’s been around for a while now and the industry is now focusing on commercializing the long tail treat…following the Internet Com.vention today it seems like the industry entrepreneurs and decision makers (from the technology side) might be running at a speed world record whereas the mass market is left behind. While the innovation of the mobile and internet arena is boosting, the question left is how fast will the consumers adjust to the new invention and adapt the value added services…

Mobile Trends for Developed Markets in 2008

Mobile Operators facing Increased Competition on their Core Business:

• Increased competition: MVNO, Fixed Operators and ISPs
• Threat on revenues: Price pressure on SMS and voice, regulatory constraints
• Reducing costs and generating new revenue streams: 3G investment, FMC strategies

Mobile Operators aim is to generate higher Revenues from Mobile Services through Value Added Services such as:

• Internet Applications Entertainment – Video/Music/Images/Mobile TV
• Messaging
• Advertising/M-Commerce
• Gaming
• Navigation & LBS

Main trends that are identified are:

• Content Management Platforms - Users are consuming more content.
  Content and rich media are catalysts of ARPU. Solutions include: Management, Personalization, Content Adaptation, Marketing, Rich Media (Video, Music, Games).
• Device Interface and Usability Technologies - Users are adopting new sensor-driven technologies such as touch-panel displays, enhanced camera phones and gyros. All of these rising technological solutions are part of the drive to allow integration of advanced applications into mobile devices such as Gaming, Video & Music, Healthcare, Commerce and IT.
• Mobile TV / P2P / VoIP - The established communication platforms will remain the leading source of revenues. Emerging technologies and new business models are changing the way consumers pay for these services (VoIP) leading operators to develop more advanced services (MobileTV).
• Internet & Mobile Convergence - Internet and mobile convergence will change the way consumers use the two platforms. The consumption of media will no longer be the same in killer applications such as UGC, Social Networking, Advertising, Search and Instant Messaging.
• Mobile Advertising - Advertisers are offering new revenue-generating models in the mobile space led by new value added services such as Sponsored Calls, SMS, Search and Content.
• Personalized Services - Specialized features and phones designed for targeted services and applications will allow a segmentation of users.

Macbook Air - oops they did it again...

Thought size does not matter? Well, you might want to reconsider this cliché as Apple proves the world once again that size matter, big time. Steve jobs again breaks misconceptions with his size related remark "We are talking thin here, very thin". With the world thinnest notebook the Mac Company is redefining the size standard for laptops. Looks like it will become the benchmark for all small laptops. 16-inch thin front side and still has space for two pieces of hardware: an infrared receiver and the pulsating sleep light. With the full size keybord, full size screen, LED backlight display, built-in iSight camera, trap pad and multi – touch gestures support this is one piece of art.

Apple proves again the successful strategy of connecting Technology and Art. They set the trend of small, designed, white color devices with the iPod and now expanding the category to laptops while keeping the core values of the brand. I'm not going to be surprised if they are considering more colors for the air similar to the iPod…

On the downside I can see that the battery is not user replaceable, no dedicated graphics, 1 USB, Mono Speakers and the dear price of $1799 for 1.6Ghz and$3000 for 1.8GHz. Customers could hesitate after the price drop of the iPhone and wait a few months with their purchasing decision. It should be a warning announcement for Apple credibility if it happens again.

For design savvy, gadgets freaks and tech early adopters it's the ultimate laptop (until the next version of course) and I tend to believe that this is going to be a hit for Apple, oops they did it again…