Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Practical innovation, Radical innovation and Incremental innovation at the Mobile World Congress



There has been a lot of coverage of mobile world congress. I have said before that the event was a success and also that we, as an industry are adding value when there is so much economic chaos around us. GSMA also validates this trend by their statistics and attendee numbers GSMA Releases Congress Visitor Stats

If there was an underlying theme for the event, then I think it was 'practical innovation' i.e. innovation designed to solve problems. This is a more interesting trend which I genuinely like. However, there is also space for radical innovation and also incremental innovation. Hence, I will discuss innovation in these themes below. By 'incremental innovation', I mean changes that take a few years to manifest but are significant. Most changes in the devices, networks and infrastructure will be in this space. The challenge for incremental innovation is: Customers may be overtaken by more nimble/sometimes imperfect. And then, there is radical innovation which may be a game changer

I will provide a series of links to announcements that caught my eye in the show (and afterwards). But first, a note of caution: Let's not forget what happened to Palm AFTER the MWC. Last year, Palm was an 'innovator' with much talk of its 'comeback'. Today, there is an overall doom and gloom around Palm. . Palm's products may be good .. But does it matter when the industry is moving so fast and customers have so much choice? Will developers continue to support a waning platform? Today, we see excellent new devices from Samsung, Microsoft, HTC and others which were not present a year ago. All this means that the rate of change has increased. This is a matter for optimism but also caution as the woes of Palm demonstrate.

Firstly, before we discuss further, some of the big announcements. Again, I provide links so that I don't duplicate much of what we have seen before.

Major announcements

Carriers Connect to Rival Apple's App Store

Moblin + Maemo + Linux Foundation = MeeGo

VOIP and Skype. See the white paper written by me and Chetan on the tipping point for VOIP

Wholesale Applications Community

Vodafone calls for tiered mobile-bandwidth pricing

Windows Phone 7 Series

Also see my talk as well: Is Twittter the glue for the Internet of things?

Practical innovation


Orange Healthcare joins the mHealth Alliance to develop mobilehealth solutions in west africa

Telefónica Internacional selects NEC as strategic partner to promote Cloud Computing solutions in Latin America

GSMA Announces Winners of the 15th Annual Global Mobile Awards

RIM to offer free BlackBerry Enterprise Server


mHealth potential: More questions than answers


Radical innovation

Access SIM-Based Services Just by Tapping or Shaking the Mobile Phone

An Accelerometer 1,000x More Sensitive Than the iPhone's

Elsemobile

Growvc launches with an innovative model for mobile startups


Incremental innovation which could be pointers to bigger trends

DEVICES

Huawei and Acer add high-end phones to Android mix

Microsoft to let you install apps on memory card sticks

Huawei unveils first HSPA+ Android phone

Samsung Wave review

Adobe joins LiMo Foundation, adds Flash support to LiMo platform

10 things the iPhone can learn from Mobile World Congress

Qualcomm's Dual-Core 1.5GHz Snapdragon: Smartphones Are About to Go Hyperspeed

The best phones, stunts, and demos of Mobile World Congress

Motorola milestone

LG Licenses Push Email from Good

Layar Looks to Create the App Store of Mobile Augmented Reality


Nokia chief: we want to be all things to all consumers again

The Android Who Cried Wolf

Vodafone To Sell Sub-$15 Phone in Developing Countries

RIM shows off the new WebKit-powered BlackBerry browser

Gallery: Biggest Smartphone News From Barcelona

LG: No plans for a proprietary OS

The Puma phone
Samsung's Wave Is Bada-Full

Samsung's About to Own More of the TV Market Than Any Company in 60 Years


NETWORKS

Alcatel-Lucent beefs up carrier apps strategy

Movial Selected as LG-Nortel Partner to Provide Rich Multimedia Communications Application and Touch Screen Optimized Mobile Browser

Gemalto Innovation: Gemalto Launches "Device Service Link" to Facilitate Access to Mobile Broadband

OneAPI Gains Momentum as GSMA Announces Commercial Pilot with Leading Mobile Operators in Canada

LTE-Advanced specs to be published in 2011

Huawei show first triple-mode LTE modem

GSMA Outlines Progress with RCS Initiative

40 Companies Back GSMA's Voice Over LTE Fix

OneAPI Standardizes Carrier Billing APIs Across Networks


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Zahid,

I think you make some interesting points here definately worth expanding on. One of my key areas of interest is femtocell vendors. They have marketed their products through all stages of your innovation- Practical, radical and incremental. It seems that after it being seen as a radical innovation by some the reality is that it is a practical innovation. Its main selling point is enhanced coverage, not all the bells and whistles that vendors like to trumpet. As '07,'08 and '09 passed it seems '10 will be the take-off year. A practical innovation taken on board "incrementally" by operators.
Great blog, keep them coming.
Rob Symes
rob.symes@campbellblack.co.uk