Mobile phone or life enabler?

In mid-2008, a popular Indian blogger asked his readers if they could ever live without their mobile phones, and more than 90 percent of them said no. It sounds far-fetched, but just a decade ago the idea of “mobile” telephones was a tremendous novelty to people – not just in India but also the Americas,  Europe and China. Now, most of us living in all but the most remote corners of the world could never imagine life without our mobile phones.

And internet access, too, has become essential to people – whether they gain access via fixed or mobile devices. One survey in 2008 found that respondents would rather give up sex for two weeks than internet access for the same period of time.

What’s more, in recent years mobile devices have replaced alarm clocks, wrist watches, cameras, photo albums, CD players, video cameras and monitors, address books, calendars, calculators, maps – the list goes on and on. And now these tiny powerhouses are even taking on such worthy opponents such as the PC and TV, leaving even casual observers to wonder if there’s anything mobile devices can’t or won’t swallow up in the near future.

And it doesn’t really matter to people how the technology works – they will connect their smartphones to Wi-Fi networks as easily as they will connect using 3G – implying that if their hardware will accommodate it they will also happily switch between WiMAX and LTE when operators rollout those standards in coming years.

In other words, the convergence of fixed-line and mobile networks is indeed coming to pass – though not in exactly the way that people thought it would. And it is also interesting to note that consumers are less aware about the technology and much more interested in the new services they can access.

The new Ovi Store, for example, launched by Nokia at the Mobile World Congress, brings together partners like Facebook, MySpace, Glu, Fox Mobile Group and Qik. Together, they will become an unparalleled media distribution network that will turn mobile devices into powerhouses for new services and applications.

Different people, different products and services

Already a few years back, a Time Magazine article noted that many people in developed economies are multitasking with different forms of technology, and even within the same family, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers each can use different technologies in different ways. This fact is important to note: operators which offer a wide variety of services may find themselves better placed for growth in the future.

Not just a one-way street

But consumers are very discriminating in what they choose to purchase. Only those products and services that really enhance the quality of people’s lives take root and flourish. The Nokia Comes With Music campaign in the UK, Singapore and Australia is a perfect example of this. Nokia gave buyers unlimited free access to millions of tracks by a range of great artists for a whole year. Once the year was past, the music was theirs to keep.

Open source – another source of inspiration

Another trend that’s helping to produce innovative new products and services that actually matter to people is the trend towards open-source mobile platforms such as Symbian and Android. These platforms allow applications to be created by the broadest possible range of developers, giving them the ability to develop exciting new applications that make mobile devices work better.

Developers compete for the opportunity to reach a truly global audience with their mobile applications. These range from simple games such as Tetris to elaborate, location-based applications like Skyhook, which utilizes Symbian’s location-based platform and Wi-Fi location mapping to improve upon traditional GPS location devices, which can cease to work in low-coverage areas such as restaurants.

The success of open-source platforms in helping a wide range of people to produce new mobile platforms, and consumer-focused goods and services like the smartphones show that people will help companies produce connectivity technologies that really make a difference to their lives. But their success also shows something a bit more subtle: no matter how connected people feel right now (via e-mail, voice communications, social networking, picture-sharing sites, and fast mobile connections enabled by flat network architecture), surely there are new opportunities waiting just around the corner for us to connect people even more, even better, in all kinds of markets.