Mobile Trends in 2010

I think the current buzzword is, you know, app stores. I think, you know, you have app stores from everybody. You know, you have app stores from the handset manufacturers like, you know, Apple, Nokia, you know, whoever it is. And then you have app stores that are coming from the mobile operators. In our view, I think the ones who are going to win are going to be the mobile operators. Why? Because if you really look at it, there's not going to be one single handset that your customers are using. You will have multiple handsets that are being used. Apple is, I would say, a unique story, but I don't think, you know, it is something that can be repeated. By the rest of the handset manufacturers who are coming out. They will become more of a me-too. So the operators would have a kind of a very good opportunity to come up with some very creative app stores. You know, it is not just putting your apps on an app store and call, you know, I also have an app store now. No, not like that. You know, to be able to come up with a really very strong app store, you need to look at how the community can get involved. So community getting involved will have 2 aspects. You will see people helping to build some of these app stores through the community by, you know, like open source communities and stuff like that. Then you have the second part of the communities who are going to be the users of this app store where they will provide rating and comments and stuff like that, which itself will kind of start building that. So operators to look at is how do I build my communities to be more active participants of this particular app store? So I think what is happening in the industry is that from application stores, you know, like the open source revolution, we see application stores, you know, open source application stores coming up. You know, one is, you know, Vishma, which was launched at Mobile World Congress, which is an open source app store, getting the community to be a part of this particular app store. I think these are the things that will really take off and get in the community because they will start building it to their own interest. So if I don't have a particular phone support into that, let me build that and contribute that to the community. So you will get a lot of people who will come in and there will be a developer community that is built around these app stores. So that will have a future, I think, a very bright future because of that. A new trend that we have been seeing, and by talking to some of the operators, is the comeback of USSD, which is Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, which is used from the operator signaling channel to be able to send sessions back to the operator network, which you can actually have establish applications. So what is happening in this, this was earlier used for just for services like, you know, using your balance inquiry or, you know, rate plan changes and stuff like that. But now what is happening is that, you know, people are using into more application also. So for that you can look at USSD callback services, USSD roaming services, USSD SMS services. Plus, a new area is also drive application, web applications to be able to send it through USSD streams and then, you know, use that to kind of go and see new sessions-based USSD applications. So what is happening now with the new thing is a lot of marketing organizations of of telcos are using these services. Now they want more drag-and-drop-based application creation for USSD. So we are hearing quite a lot of interest from the operators saying that not the script-based USSD menus and stuff like that, we want more drag-and-drop because we want our marketing and others to be able to create innovative applications from this USSD. So a trend that we see is that, you know, people are moving into whole USSD menu-based services that, you know, will be— will take off within the next, I would say, maybe 6 to 12 months. The USSD services, that would be an interesting area to keep an eye on.