La Barca – is where the GSM Association, awarded its ”Oscar” prize for “Mobile Industry Person 2010″ to Apple’s Steve Jobs, solely for his I-phone revolution.
Steve - we salute you. Cheers and Well done. Geekdom wouldn’t be the same without You.
But there were hecklers in the crowd. A bit more than two dozen of the world’s largest wireless carriers struck back at the mobile innovators in Barcelona’s GSM world Forum and they got together in a hyena pack to ruin the party. They attempt to rain on our parade, by announcing that they would create a “Wholesale Applications Community” – to rival Apple and all – for a share of the consumer generated revenue.
WAC ? Holly-Molly. WAC -That’s the best they could come up with? Sounds to me like an abbreviation for What the Fuck?
They are greedy bastards… It’s not enough they nick You every month for more than your family’s food bill – they want more.
Apparently they don’t like doing just what they do best – being a good utility – and want even more glamour.
Well the glamour pussies have their work cut out for them… Their brilliant idea is that software developers will write their applications once, following a standard set by the community, which can then distribute them to carrier-run applications stores across the world.
Dream on… baby and I will sing you a lullaby.
Mostly the U.S. carriers Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA are part of the group, which has 3 billion customers globally are itching for a spot of good PR. What with the revelations that they listened in on all of your calls and like the grand Inquisitors of old – will make you pay for it – while they get Immunity and a Get out of jail card from Congress.
Do You have one of those for when you make your human transgressions?
Think Not. Ask your congressman next time you smoke that spiff and the copper on duty hauls you in by your ear… See if you’ll get any mercy.
But the bad boys of wiretaps and illegal surveillance and monitoring soldier on. They want to control your apps as well. They will use that control honestly as their past behaviour guarantees. Just share it with the coppers and the watchers – mind You.
This new fangled effort is foolish and of course it will fail as dramatically as it was announced… Applications giving more control to wireless carriers is as daft as when the Homeland dept rigged the One Laptop per Child goodwill project with tracking and reporting software…
And the US mobile carriers – well they tried this before – when they were sporting some pretty applications in their back office to track all of your communications illegally. A federal wiretap wasn’t needed because the idiot ex-prez and cheney bush asked for it.
The jury is still out if this was a good application or not…
Still some phone makers like LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson, none of which have significant applications stores, also said they would support the group. Fair weather friends.
Who needs them – as it remains highly unlikely that this announcement, will have a significant impact – or that it will even be carried forth.
A grand fanfare followed the announcement but inside talk – indicates - that they will let it die off a quiet death as is usual in the old Bob (remember?) technology world.
It’s more of a ”Me too” kind of response rather than anything substantial. After all there was nothing new or interesting in this year’s carrier or business unveilings.
Damn the Stupid Pipes.
Of course Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave a keynote speech that emphasized how important the mobile market is to Google. Duh…
Afterward, an audience member told him it appears Google wants to turn carriers into “dumb data pipes” — simple conduits to the Internet that don’t get to sell any added services.
I give him credit for not smiling. ”How will carriers afford to upgrade their networks to increase data capacity if they can’t be intelligent pipes?” he wondered.
Schmidt acknowledged that wireless carriers have to invest in network upgrades for them to profit from increased data usage.
“But I can assure you that you will get that money back in many, many ways,” Schmidt said.
While some carriers are indicating that they won’t go gently into that dumb pipe, they also want to keep their customers happy. They may not like Apple’s terms, but they can’t afford to pass up the chance to sell the iPhone. At AT&T, iPhone customers pay about twice as much in monthly service fees as other phone users.
The small price of Geekhood…
Silicon Valley is looking like a winner in the tug of war with wireless carriers over the contest of who will control the new world of mobile Internet-connected phones.
My take is none of the above… More on that later.
The tension among the largely U.S.-based PC and Internet industry and the world’s wireless carriers was palpable this week at the world’s largest cellphone trade show, Mobile World Congress.
Google was one of the headliners, and Apple was the ghost hovering over it all. While many wireless carriers are cooperating or working with Google and Apple, many are also signaling that they don’t want to cede power and be reduced to simple utilities.
For consumers, the reduced power of wireless carriers could mean more choices. Traditionally, the network operators tried to limit the content people could access on their devices, before the rise of “app stores” and Web-based services dramatically expanded ways for people to customize their phones.
On the other hand, Internet companies such as Google might crowd out other services, the way it already dominates Web searches.
Phones are becoming more sophisticated and wireless Internet access is spreading across the globe. These trends play directly to Silicon Valley’s strengths in software and the Internet. Meanwhile, voice service, the mainstay of the wireless carriers, is becoming less lucrative and less important.
Carriers are losing control over other phone functions as well. Ringtones are one example: Wireless-network operators used to pull in hundreds of millions of dollars a year selling those in the U.S. alone. But sales are declining as smarter phones allow owners to use their own audio snippets as ringtones, bypassing the carriers.
Advertising keyed to Web searches is a small but growing business, and one Google dominates, along with Yahoo and Microsoft. This worries the CEO of British-based Vodafone Group, part owner of Verizon Wireless and one of the largest carriers in the world.
Vittorio Colao said in a speech at the show that regulators such as the Federal Communications Commission should examine Google’s power over this market and see whether more competition is needed.
Sales of downloadable programs known as applications for smartphones are also growing — and forcing carriers to struggle to stay relevant.
When Apple took skills honed in the computer industry to create the iconic iPhone, it also created an application store where it gets a 30 percent cut of the sales, and the carrier gets nothing.
Google has followed the same path with its application store for phones that run the Android software it’s created. It is working well following that the technology company carries a generous amount of Street Cred.
Who would want to write Apps for AT&T so they can surveil you better and listen in your phone calls and turn them over to rogue government officials?
Me thinks NOT.
Yours,
Pano
PS:
If the carriers are concerned about being the damn pipes – they should revisit old Isenberg’s paper from the Bell labs days:
”The rise of the stupid Networks”
That should explain things amply for them.
If they have any sense that is – and don’t just want to be -
like another valueless glamour pussy…
Paris Hilton.
