If you’re reading this, then my move to a new hosting company has been successful. I introduced a few tweaks in the process since the blog has been pretty much unchanged for over two years. As always, I welcome all comments.
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Now playing: Chris Taylor – Deep Reasons Why (It Just Is)
I’ve had a couple of hosting outages this week which has hindered my posting schedule.? Thanks for your patience.? I’m going to be looking at changing providers over the weekend.
Oliver Starr pointed me to this video of a flying car concept. Catch the closing sentence: “Unrestricted mobility means limitless utility.” Sure sounds like the Law of Mobility: The value of any product increases with its mobility!
Thanks Oliver!
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Now playing: Edwyn Collins – Home Again
I had a note yesterday from my friend Danny Briere. Danny’s making the rounds at CES. He told me that I had to check out GestureTek Mobile – said they had a lot of fun trying out the apps the company is demonstrating this week. As a Wii fan, if this video is any indication, I can certainly understand…
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Now playing: Jill Phillips – By A Thread
We’ve finally reached the end of 2007, it’s time to see how I did on the predictions I made twelve months ago.
(hit) 1. Cingular will disappear.
Cingular who?
(hit) 2. Sprint Nextel Corp. will launch WiMax in at least one market.
It may be a soft launch, but Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington are live.
(miss) 3. Verizon Wireless will start moving away from ?network? messaging.
Verizon’s still hanging their hat on that old tired “most reliable network” claim….
(hit) 4. Most cellphones will include at least a 2Mpixel camera.
According to a report from Strategy Analytics, 90 new handsets hit the global market in August 2007. Of those, 79 were cameraphones and 49 had at least a 2Mpixel camera.
(hit) 5. The breakout phone of the year will be popular because of usability, not style.
Dean Bubley recently called out the devices that he thought defined 2007. Most notable in his list were Nokia’s N95 and the Apple iPhone. Both are very attractive phones, but what Dean focuses on are features and usability. Clearly the iPhone has driven tremendous activity within the industry this year, with all competitors trying to match it – but unlike the RAZR in recent years, what was being sought was functionality and usability, not style. This one’s a solid hit.
(hit) 6. People watching TV or downloading/streaming music on their phones will no longer seem fantastic.
Mobile TV hasn’t yet been as big of a hit as folks had hoped for, but the iPhone has made it not only acceptable, but even cool to listen to music and watch video on a cellphone.
(hit) 7. At least one major consumer electronics company will announce mobile bandwidth built into a consumer product.
Thank you Amazon. The Kindle may not have received rave reviews when it was introduced in November, but it was acknowledged as “one the first mainstream consumer electronics device we’ve seen that is not a computer and not a phone but which still connects to a mobile broadband network.”
(miss) 8. Context will begin showing up in an increasing number of mobile applications.
Search, social networking, travel guides, etc. Momentum is building. Big bets were especially placed on location based capabilities. I can’t quite count this as a hit, but the momentum is in the right direction.
(miss) 9. Clearwire will offer mobile voice over WiMax in at least one market.
Portable is not the same as mobile. In an announcement earlier this month, the company described their service this way: “Clearwire Corporation announced today the official launch of its wireless high-speed Internet access and phone service to the Charlotte area with the introduction of its next-generation wireless broadband solution. The service eliminates the confines of traditional cable or telephone wiring, allowing customers to connect at home, a local coffeehouse, the office, park or virtually anywhere else in the Clearwire service area. Charlotte residents and businesses now have the opportunity to receive a fast, simple, portable, reliable and affordable alternative to traditional dial-up, cable and DSL.”
(hit) 10. This blog will be significantly higher profile.
I set the goal that blog traffic for December 2007 would be triple what it was in December 2006. I use FeedBurner to track subscribers. For the first 19 days of December 2007, there 3.9 times as many average daily subscribers to the Law-of-Mobility blog as the average number of daily subscribers for the same period last December.
Bottom line: Seven out of ten ain’t bad. I hope I can do as well this coming year!
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Now playing: Monroe Jones – Christmas Scratch
So what’s the big deal?
For the past couple of years I’ve been talking about the Law of Mobility – that the value of any product or service increases with it’s mobility. I’ve hypothesized that the falling cost of adding wireless technology into products and the increased value provided by mobility would lead to wireless technology being built into virtually every information-rich product, just as microprocessors have been built into so many products.
And that’s exactly what makes the Kindle so exciting. The product has mobile broadband connectivity from Sprint built in. Amazon customers select what books, magazines, newspapers, and blogs they want to read, pay for them through their Amazon account, and download them directly to the Kindle.
This is the first mass market consumer electronics device with mobile broadband built in, but it won’t be the last. A big part of Sprint’s 4G Xohm plans are to similarly mobilize consumer electronics products. And it appears that Verizon similarly wants to play in this space, announcing this week that they will open their network to certified devices. A Dow Jones story recently discussed this emerging trend.
One of the interesting aspects of the Kindle is that the eBook Reader is not yet a successful product category. If the Kindle becomes a hit, it would be a powerful validation of the Law and the Mobility Revolution.
Of course, mobilizing the eBook isn’t a simple process. In The Power of Mobility, I describe the seven steps that a company must take as they mobilize a product, service, or process. Amazon has done a great job of addressing the first six steps and has historically been one of the best at learning from customers, so I have confidence they will make the most of the Kindle opportunity.
The Kindle is definitely one to watch!
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Now playing: Art Garfunkel/Amy Grant – The Annunciation
GaGaGooogle has an interesting set of posts [1,2,3,4] on Google’s Mobile Strategy and on “The Laws.” I took notice because part 4 of the series argues convincingly the Law of Mobility. I recommend reading the whole post, but here are some quotes from the series:
Today Google is a pure money machine. The company has done a phenomenal job maximizing ad revenues. They also know they need to think, plan and executive for the long term. …
As Eric Schmit puts it:
“Mobile, mobile, mobile — it’s probably the most wide open space out there right now.”
Google has benefited from several universal “laws” and will continue to benefit from them. Let’s take a look:
First, Metcalfe’s Law – which states that the value of the Internet increases with the square of the number of nodes or end users on the Internet. … Anyway, Google benefits since more people continue to connect and ultimately use Google’s search and other products. And the fact that their products are free and intuitive, only adds to their growth.
Second , Moore’s law – which states that every 18 months processing power (and chip density) double while the cost is cut in half. Google benefits in many ways because they can add more storage and processing power to their network for less money (also using less storage/rack space in their data centers). Simply put, their data centers are getting smaller (physical size) yet their capacity is growing.
Moore’s law also applies to handheld devices, which Google will leverage for it’s Gphone. The mobile revolution we are about to see is a result of Moore’s law. But there is also a third law that ties nicely into Google’s Mobile Strategy: the Law of Mobility.
The law states that the value of any product or service increases with its mobility, where the value of mobility is realized as availability and contextual relevance. From Russ McGuire’s (he coined the term) book The Power of Mobility:
… Bottom line for Google: More profit.
Mobile advertising will be twice as profitable as landline/PC-based ads. …
Erick Schmidt:
“[Mobile] ads are twice as profitable or more as non mobile ads because they are more personable” Bingo! Speaking of their KDDI partnership in Japan at the D conference.
Note that Chad makes a number of predictions in his posts that are not substantiated by official announcements by the referenced companies (including my employer). I think his conjecture is creative and wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of his predictions end up being on-target, but you’d be wrong if you thought my reference to his blog represented any kind of validation of his claims. Most of what he’s predicted I have no idea if its true or not, and some of what he’s written I’m pretty sure isn’t being pursued by the companies listed. But I look forward to keeping an eye on his creativity – we might all get some good ideas from him.
MediaPost’s Marketing Daily has taken a very insightful view of the recent Mediamark Research (MRI) study on cellphone versus landline use.
Here are some quotes from their article:
What implications will this dramatic shift have for businesses serving consumers?? Any thoughts?? Submit comments with your ideas.
My neighborhood has been awash in a sea of orange fencing for the past several months. Apparently, U-verse is coming to town as part of AT&T’s Project Lightspeed. The company has hired local electrical contractors to dig up yards and roll out huge spools of conduit. The contractors spent a whole day in my backyard (without so much as a courtesy knock on the front door, much less advance notice) and dug up the corner near AT&T’s existing pedestal. To their credit, except for a 3’x2′ sinkhole that will be easy to fill, they did a decent job of replacing the dirt and reseeding that has resulted in a healthy crop of bright new grass growth, even in these hot, dry days of summer.
But what amazes me is the amount of investment in this one neighborhood. The orange construction fences have moved from yard to yard over the passing weeks, but they are still here, and as I drive around town, it’s obvious that my neighborhood isn’t the only one where AT&T is dropping a boatload of cash.
The most amazing aspect of the whole project has been the company’s challenges installing the main neighborhood node. This new big box is going in about as non-obtrusive location as they could find. It’s just outside the fence on the side of a house, so it’s not in front of anyone’s house and not even an eyesore for the residents looking out their window. (Well done, AT&T).
Here’s what’s amazing. It appears that perhaps AT&T (or perhaps their contractors) are having challenges getting power to this new node. It looks like there’s an existing node of some kind on the other side of the street. I’m sure there’s also some duct tape and baling wire involved, but what is most apparent is the cord (which looks just like my orange outdoor extension cords) running from the old cabinet, strung up on a tree branch to drape “safely” overhead of folks walking on the sidewalk, then down into a street sewer, under the road, out another street sewer, up over the sidewalk again, and over to the new cabinet.
I could see such an approach being a decent way to perform a short term test of the new node. But this arrangement has literally been in place for well over a month. Over the past few days, I’ve noticed an increasing number of AT&T and contractor vans parking all day near the new node (it was four on Friday), so apparently this challenge has gotten the company’s attention.
Bottom line, wireline broadband deployments may deliver incredible bandwidth and entertainment options, but they involve incredible levels of investment and pain to all involved (including folks like me that don’t and won’t subscribe to their services). We consumers, communities, and investors were willing to put up with this once, when the cable companies built and upgraded their networks. But can we justify it a second time, especially when wireless technologies are advancing so rapidly and can deployed more quickly, more cost effectively, and offer the added value of mobility!
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Now playing: Delirious – Spontaneous VII
via FoxyTunes
Both of these deals are exciting and I believe are foundational to accelerating the Mobility Revolution.
I’m going to mostly draw from others in setting the stage for why all of this matters.
IMPORTANT NOTE: By including these quotes, I am neither endorsing them nor validating the opinions expressed by these individuals, companies, or publications.
Who cares about WiMax?
Padmasree Warrior recently did an excellent job explaining why WiMax matters. Here are just a few quotes from her posting:
“Building the wireless revolution from WiMAX offers considerable efficiencies – estimates are, three times the bit rate, twice the spectrum efficiency, and half the cost of 3G.”
“In addition, the lack of legacy licensing agreements makes the WiMAX landscape even more favorable for the entire industry to innovate collectively.”
“WiMAX could therefore be a viable strategy to enable a nation wide and global wireless broadband network that is unencumbered by closed, proprietary technology and taxation.”
“From an architecture and network perspective, WiMAX provides flexibility in multiple usage models with advanced security, QoS, support for low latency applications like VoIP and multimedia streaming. It is optimized for high capacity IP-based packet services and internetworking with both cellular and wired networks. It has the potential to enable ubiquitous broadband access for home, enterprise, surveillance and public safety.”
“WiMAX will not replace or compete with today’s 2G and 3G protocols for voice services, even though it supports VoIP efficiently. Cellular networks provide the extensive coverage that circuit switched voice services require, and WiMAX is not optimized for this. Although the WiMAX PHY specification defines Full and Half-Duplex FDD (Frequency Division Duplex), these are not part of the initial profile being implemented. It is likely to be included in a later profile or as part of the 802.16m specification. FDD has better low latency performance for applications such as voice. However, for non-voice applications such as high-speed data, multimedia and internet mobility, WiMAX scores over 3G.”
An article at Telephony covering a recent report by the Boschulte Schnee Group LLC included these quotes:
?It is a technological platform that supports converged services,? [Alfred] Boschulte said. ?WiMAX is post convergence because it is possible to offer a service that doesn?t require two networks ? wireline and wireless. It is a platform that can serve you in your home, deal with your desire for nomadic behavior, onto the patio, handle your mobile phone and iPhone and other things.?
?If you look at what people are paying right now for broadband Internet access and for voice and for mobility, you quickly get to ranges of $90 a month to $120 to $130 a month,? he added. ?You can run a profitable WiMAX business at far, far less. This business can make a lot of sense at ARPUs [average revenue per user] that are within the $60 to $70 range.?
The Sprint/Clearwire Deal
The Sprint/Clearwire announcement included these quotes:
“This arrangement will result in stronger competition in the rapidly growing market for broadband services, and will provide consumers, national enterprises and other businesses, educators and public safety agencies greater choice and faster access to a revolutionary mobile broadband technology,” said Sprint Nextel Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gary Forsee. “It will further our objective of delivering mobile WiMAX service across the country and help fulfill our vision of delivering mobility products and services across all our networks.”
“Our joint efforts will result in customers benefiting from a more extensive network, operating sooner and using our respective spectrum more efficiently than either company could have on its own,” said Clearwire Chief Executive Officer Ben Wolff. “Our companies share a vision of doing for the Internet what cellular and PCS networks did for voice communications starting more than twenty years ago. Based on this shared vision and the expected benefits to each company and our respective shareholders and customers, it is natural that we would work together,” Wolff said.
A Kansas City Star article on the Clearwire deal included this quote:
?We are now sharing in the vision, sharing in the capital and sharing in the resources required to take on such a significant initiative,? Forsee said. ?This is a very efficient and smart way to run our business. We expect savings.?
An article at xchange online noted:
“From a network perspective, the two providers will join forces to bring a deeper footprint than either would be able to achieve on its own, which will include urban, suburban and rural markets.”
TheStreet added:
“Joining with Clearwire will add scale to Sprint’s WiMax push, and will also give the company the Craig McCaw stamp of approval. McCaw is the wireless industry pioneer who founded Clearwire.”
An article at International Business Times included this quote:
“Many people figured that Sprint and Clearwire’s alignment with competing entities cable operators and satellite companies, respectively would prohibit a partnership of this sort,” Philip Solis of ABI Research said. “However, it has always been apparent to us that the synergies in a combined Sprint and Clearwire would allow formation of a unique service provider that would enable 4G capabilities ahead of its competitors.”
And InternetNews included this quote in their coverage:
“It is about time that this happened,” Yankee Group analyst Philip Marshall told internetnews.com in an e-mail. “It certainly makes sense and creates greater capital concentration for the network roll out, which is critical for WiMAX at this stage.”
An article at Unstrung offered this observation:
“The deal also makes it less likely that other operators will be able to offer nationwide licensed WiMax services, since Clearwire and Sprint now have a lock on much of the broadband suitable for WiMax outside of the public bands in the U.S. “
The Sprint/Google Deal
This week’s announcement included these quotes:
“Google and Sprint will optimize the Internet experience for the digital lifestyle,” said Barry West, president, 4G Mobile Broadband for Sprint. “This collaboration brings what will be the best mobile Internet network together with the leading Internet search company. It allows us to capitalize on the powerful mobility and Internet trends, and create wireless services and applications that take advantage of each company’s history of product development innovation.”
“Google shares Sprint’s vision for enhancing the consumer’s mobile lifestyle and is focused on greater access to information through a variety of channels,” said Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager Google Enterprise. “We look forward to working with Sprint to bring to market a rich and compelling broadband experience for WiMAX customers.”
A Reuters article at the New York Times website on the announcement included these observations:
“Some analysts had questioned the wisdom of Sprint betting up to $2.8 billion in 2007 and 2008 on an unproven technology, but JPMorgan analyst Tom Lee said the Google deal should ease investor concerns about WiMAX.”
“‘It really strengthens the legitimacy’ of WiMAX, Lee said, adding it would also help create interest among consumer electronic companies to make WiMAX compatible devices.”
A Dow-Jones article at Cellular-News added these observations:
“Google and Sprint have been independently championing the idea of an open network opposed by incumbent telecommunications companies like Verizon Communcations and AT&T, and now appear to have found in each other a common ally.”
“Beyond the current deal, WiMax – a high-speed wireless Internet-access technology that covers a greater distance than its cousin wi-fi – could become a common bond and tool for making their open-network vision a reality. Sprint is already backing the technology with a multibillion-dollar bet; Google could do the same with the spectrum licenses it has set its sights upon. A Google-Sprint alliance, if successful, could pressure the incumbent carriers to reconsider their own closed-network approach.”
“‘I think Sprint’s made it clear they intend to make WiMax more open than traditional cellular networks,’ said William Power, an analyst for Robert W. Baird & Co. ‘Google is a logical partner with their heft in the Internet space.’ For the record, both companies said they haven’t committed to anything beyond the current agreement.”
“‘It looks like they are putting together a pretty formidable team,’ said Scott Wallsten, director of communications policy studies at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a Washington, D.C., free-market think tank. The Sprint-Clearwire-Google alliance appears to be ‘trying to develop a new business model that hasn’t been tried yet’ that could enhance competition and benefit consumers.”
“Google has said it doesn’t intend to get into the wireless-service business. Instead, if it acquired the spectrum licenses, it would likely wholesale or lease spectrum to third parties willing to accept the open-network philosophy. Here, Sprint, with its experience in customer service and building networks, is seen as a likely partner, said Philip Solis, an analyst at ABI Research. He added that others may also be involved.”
“While AT&T and Verizon Wireless prefer to maintain their ‘Walled Garden’ mentality – in which the carrier largely determines what consumers can see or what services they get – Sprint’s more open approach may shake things up. If the WiMax service is popular and steals subscribers, it could force change in the way other carriers approach wireless data, said Tole Hart, an analyst for Gartner Inc.”
An article at Converge! additionally noted:
“Sprint also confirmed plans to provide open standard APIs (application programming interfaces) to its go-to-market partners and the Internet developer community to create customized products for browsable devices, facilitating the delivery of personalized and interactive services to consumer, business, public safety and government customers. These services will be available in a variety of WiMAX embedded devices, including connection cards, stand-alone modems, laptop computers and consumer electronic devices such as personal media players, mobile Internet devices, gaming devices and phones. Eventually, the WiMAX service will be available in vehicles for navigation information, news and entertainment.”
Jonathan Spinney at Maperture said:
“An indicator of Sprint?s confidence arrives today in form of a teaming announcement with Google [despite the noise] to launch a suite of mobility and location-enriched applications that will run across a myriad of connected WiMax devices [not just phones]. It?s an early indication of what to expect from Sprint during this intense build-out phase. Plus, with LBS apps accounting for 1/3 of total data revenues today up over music and others, it?s also no surprise that Sprint also has plans beyond Google Apps with continued commitment to enable their existing developer community with APIs needed to build broadband mobility and location smarts into applications spanning consumer, business, and government super-group horizontals.”
John Dvorak in a commentary at MarketWatch had this to say:
“But more interesting is the deal brewing between Google and Sprint Nextel Corporation, along with the 700-MHz spectrum grab that may occur. What do you get if you combine the spectrum with Google and Sprint? What you get is AT&T Inc. put in a headlock. Hear me out on this one; it’s a gem of a strategy.”
“…AT&T could develop its own search engine, for example, and degrade the Google connections while enhancing connections to its own service. Phone companies have a history of such shenanigans….”
“If the duo can roll out national service, it could protect Google from any onerous action by Ma Bell. And if the service was popular enough, Google could actually limit what it offers AT&T customers — making its most premium search services only available to the Sprint-Google network. If Google maintains dominance in search (as appears to be the case), it could turn the tables on AT&T and demand that the company pay Google for carriage of its services. This would make the original AT&T threat an ironic reality, with diminished services on the AT&T network. Wouldn’t that be funny?”
My Closing Thoughts
WiMax pushes the Mobility Revolution forward. It provides network performance beyond what has previously been available, at a cost point that was previously unimaginable, and with an intellectual property licensing model that realistically enables mobility to be built into all kinds of products.
However, if WiMax were only available in limited locations (e.g. “hotspots” and “hotzones”), then it wouldn’t much matter. Product manufacturers wouldn’t risk building products that didn’t work well or at all in most locations, and companies couldn’t get the benefit of WiMax in mobilizing their services and processes if they were constantly failing-over to 3G networks with lesser performance and cost penalties.
The Sprint/Clearwire deal enables nationwide U.S. coverage and builds to the momentum for mobile WiMax deployments around the world. By splitting the country and agreeing who will build where, capital and time aren’t wasted building networks that compete with each other in popular geographies. The full capital plans of each company can be working together to accelerate and broaden availability faster and farther than either company could achieve on its own.
Creating a single branded offer means that the two companies will avoid typical broadband battles (“my ADSL is better than your SDSL”) that just confuse potential customers and slow adoption. And taking a unified approach to the market means that technology providers can also focus their development time and money on bringing the best products to market as fast as possible. Because all the development and manufacturing resources of those technology providers will be aligned to one standard, customers of both Sprint and Clearwire will more quickly enjoy the scale benefits that will come.
Finally, the entire ecosystem of technology and service companies aligning with the Sprint/Clearwire architecture will create the de facto standard that can accelerate deployment and adoption around the world.
This is good.
But Sprint’s commitment to open APIs for developers like Google to innovate on top of the Sprint (and Clearwire) networks is even better. We have a sense that increased availability (because products and services are fully useful wherever you go) and contextual relevance (because they will adapt to the context in which you’re using them – where, when, with whom, etc.) is what will drive new value in the Mobility Revolution. But, we can only guess at how that new value will actually be realized. Only by putting this power into the hands of innovators will the full potential of mobility be realized.
Google is a relative late comer to the Internet party, and yet has become the most dominant player, capturing incredible value by figuring out how to tap the Power of the Internet. Their position within the economy and their mindshare as innovators, make them the perfect partner to introduce the Power of WiMax Mobility to the world. However, it’s quite likely that the company that will become as dominant in the Mobility Era as Google has in the Internet Era (and Microsoft had in the PC Era) has not yet been formed or even imagined.
But Sprint and Google both, in this announcement, are clearly signaling their commitment to enabling the kind of innovation that can truly revolutionize how we interact with the world, how we do our jobs, and how we run our businesses.