I recently upgraded my mobile phone. Of course, that is no big
news, many people do the same on a regular basis, dividing the
world into several categories of phone ownership:
- People, like me, who choose a phone so small that there is a
danger it will slip between the atoms on their desk and disappear
into quantum space
- Those that go for expensive status symbols and make themselves
prime targets for muggers
- The '"size matters" brigade - streamlined executives who carry
bricks disguised as Nokia or Ericsson communicators
- The gadget man, also like me, who has a Pocket PC, a Palm and a
mobile phone, and can never quite make up his mind which to
use.
But wait, a solution is just around the corner and no, it is not a
DoCoMo iMode phone. It is a "Mintel", my nickname for the next
great leap for Windows - the cheap smartphone.
Why, asks Microsoft, is building a mobile phone so expensive and so
difficult? Why don't we have any real standards and why, God
forbid, is the mobile phone market dominated by a cartel of
familiar-sounding names? It's almost a monopoly!
Actually, Microsoft has a point. Why can't we walk into Dixons and
buy a cheap phone from Casio? The solution, according to Bill
Gates, is for Microsoft and Intel to collaborate on a template that
will let anyone build a smartphone - which, by happy coincidence,
will also run Windows.
Other than the Windows piece of the puzzle, Microsoft has a valid
argument. While you might be able to walk into Radio Shack and buy
the component parts you need to make a cell phone, getting it
through certification into production demands millions of pounds on
deposit and a friendly carrier. Mobile phone networks are quirky
things, so any device that plugs into one has to be "110% reliable"
or risk facing the wrath of a million unhappy teenagers.
Unable to make any real headway with the Nokias of this world, and
very much aware of the potential market for a billion or so mobile
devices over the next five years - not forgetting, of course, the
whole .net thing - Microsoft has decided to work with Intel and do,
very much what it did back in the late 1980s: define its own
standard and see if the world follows.
The problem is not functionality, but volume. Mobile phones are
often fashion accessories, and smartphones, unless they can be
squeezed into a much smaller and more attractive package, aren't
sexy unless you are a bit of a geek. While it is quite possible
that smartphone Mintels could squeeze Texas Instruments and
Motorola and come to dominate the "road warrior" PDA space in five
years' time, I can't quite see Nokia or Samsung being knocked off
their diamond-studded designer perches without a struggle.
Simon Moores is chairman of the Research Group
www.zentelligence.com