Caroline’s Predications: Mobile Development in 2012: The Dichotomy of Speed
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As it’s time for predications and reflections I always go back to my previous predictions to see how I made out. And contrary to the belief of Strand Consulting, they are not the only ones to publish their previous years, so you can see how I made out too!
Here are the highlights and links to those predictions:
2011 – Year of APIs, Growth of Discovery, Less BlackBerry, Less Android, More iPhone
2010– a Thibaut/Caroline combo here. I declared: More Android, More BlackBerry, Less iPhone, More Innovation/More funding
2009 Tough economic times, Access the new open, Less US centric, yet more fragmentation...
2008 The Rise of Tools, M&A, and ‘Open’
2007 More fragmentation, newbie developers, Usability; and Location, Location, Location.
It was pretty right on for last year, especially the bit about API growth and where I predicated More iPhone, iPhone being the easy choice for developers as I saw “ developers abandoning BlackBerry and Android and heading back to iPhone. BlackBerry developers are getting frustrated with the technical challenges and the expense of working on that platform and Android developers are getting frustrated with not seeing any revenue.” That seems to be borne out by the stats from Distimo and reported by TechCrunch.
I’m summing up my 2012 predictions as a Dichotomy of Speed. In different areas it all depends on the race, whether growth will continue unabated, or whether it will slow down.
SMS
Slow speed: SMS will continue its decline in P2P communications as IM and social media apps like FaceBook take that space.
High speed: SMS will grow, as it is being embraced by the mobile marketing/consumer brand crowd, the easy way for them to communicate with their market, based on the lowest common denominator handset and platform.
LTE
High Speed: We will see more operators turn on the new high speed (LTE) networks.
Slow Speed: The rollout won’t be a fast as many hope, as spectrum acquisition is still an issue in many jurisdictions; operator hold back as they desire to continue to milk their 3G networks. And from the developer perspective, there aren’t alot of apps yet, as the LTE story of promise has yet to be told.
Devices
High Speed: I’m really bullish on the Nokia/Microsoft devices as we talk to many users and developers who want a real alternative to iPhone and Android; and to the many Enterprises who have been loyal to Microsoft for years, finally finding a solution to work with their existing experience and legacy technology.
Slow Speed: Painful as it is to say being a hardcore BB users and a Canadian, I continue to see RIM on the wane this year. They have a new team in the developer program that has a better understanding of developers but the ship is really hard to turn around. For the first time in a long time, I am considering a new phone others than a BB.
Mobile Advertising
High Speed: Mobile Advertising revenue will continue to grow as more developers include it in their apps, and more brands test out mobile.
Slow Speed: Consolidation will take place with Mobile Ad networks – there are just too many of them (over 200 according to GoMoNews) around in one form of the other to all be successful; and others continue to pop up.
Search & Discovery
This is an area I hope to be better every year. We saw some inroads in 2011, with companies like Chomp – but there is much needed room for growth.
High Speed: Expect more search functionality in the apps stores, and watch for more curated stores
Slow Speed: I just don’t see most stores really getting how important this is.
The Cloud
High Speed: Expect to see more companies and operators offer ‘cloud services’ in various forms. This is an overused term, so I hope for clear marketing prose as the year progresses and some extra attention to security.
Speed Bump: Expect some major bumpiness in the clouds in 2012 with some type of major outage or security leak. The fanatic cloud proponents will realize how much a time and security threat it is when you have no control over your own data (says she who lived through the pain of mainframe days).
Thought I would also share a few Caroline travel stats from this year (not accurate to the mile!). According to Air Canada, I collected 82,495 ‘Status miles’ this year (20k more than last year) and 39 status flight segments (10 more than last year). But unfortunately not enough for Super Elite Stats . As a status mile only gets booked on a certain dollar value of flight, and I tend to take the cheapest fair possible, I’m not sure of my exact number of actual miles flown this year. It is also doesn’t take into account those flights on BA, Cathay Pacific, Czech Air, All Nippon, Westjet and Porter. (TripIt doesn’t calculate multi city trips, just to and froms so not so accurate either.) Then there were road trips to the US, a few train and ferry rides too. A heavy year of travel for sure – and I predict a similar schedule for 2012 as our mobile ecosystem continues to moves in a global pattern rather than a regional one.
Happy New Year everyone! I can’t think of a more dynamic and exciting industry to be part of; or more interesting and wonderful people to work with and bump into as we speed around the world of mobile.