I am not so sure about thie operators becoming ISP, and I would almost
say that the trend is opposite,
whatever the OS inside the mobile.
It can be observed that western operators - Vodafone in head - are now
more willing to take their share
of risk, which used to be the burden of manufacturers (the "catalog"
policy versus the japanese/korean
commitment on quantities in exchange of specifications) in order to
regain grip on the user interface/experience.
Operators may be slow but they are no dummies.
Recent moves in mobile music in Japan with chaku-uta and Korea with
ring-back tones' future licensing scheme
shows that operators and Intellectual Property / License holders finally
found strange that companies owning
nothing more than a download platform were taking all the profit from
the mobile music business, while
the critical parts (namely : the content itself and the network for
distribution) got a relatively small share.
I do not believe the flat-rate is making poor cellcos a mere data tube,
it is finally enabling users to use the services
without fear of a huge bill. Also, remember that for the access to
mobile internet, it is almost as if you had a
"Google button" on your PC keyboard, and this makes a huge difference !
What is happening now in mobile music is a sign of changing times, and
manufacturers, which are increasingly
dependend on operators for their sales in Europe (see Samsung / LG
progresses vs. Nokia) will probably
prefer to stick to their business than try to upset operators too much.
My point of view is probably biased due to my Korea/Japan location, so I
would be delighted to hear other's (^_^) /
Cheers,
Benjamin
Jofre Palau wrote:
>You are right Giovanni, but not only the current Series 60, but all Symbian,
>Microsoft or Linux based are going to turn mobile operators in mobile ISPs.
>The question is how fast that will happen.
>Jofre Palau
>
>
>
>
>>This note is very interesting... The Economist forecasted some time
>>ago the possibility of mobile operators becoming pure bandwith
>>providers while being pushed to a marginal position similar to ISPs.
>>
>>Looks like that competition and operators errors are bringing the market
>>to this.
>>
>>In Europe phones based on Series 60, and not only those, are
>>capable of using a full web browser like Opera in this way making
>>you able to access a lot of free internet based information by using
>>a GPRS or UMTS flat rate (usually around 19 euros right now).
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>This mail was sent to address benjamin@newtgames.com
>Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Fri May 28 05:15:09 2004