New openness toward phone consumers! (Er, who wanted that?)
Posted by Charles Batchelor on August 7, 2008
Pity the poor family looking to buy new cellphones and reading how “in the last nine months, carriers, software developers and cellphone makers have embraced a new attitude of openness toward consumers,” as The New York Times reported this week.
Sounds great. Where is it in the store?
As the NYT explained, “The market for smartphones, which are really handheld computers, has quickly expanded beyond business users. They have gone mainstream, with teenagers and women finding novel uses for them — texting snippets of their lives to friends or tracking friends on maps. The carriers and the handset makers realize they have to make the phones adaptable to those new customers.
Super! So, therefore…
Well, deep into the article, it explains that “Of course, consumers should be careful what they wish for. Already there are at least six major operating systems for cellphones — Linux, Symbian and BlackBerry, as well as those made by Microsoft, Palm and Apple. And more are coming. Google expects the first phones in its Open Handset Alliance, which will use its Google Mobile operating system, to be out this fall.
“Consumers may find it confusing that some applications work only for certain phones because developers do not have the time or money to adapt projects to every operating system.”
“Consumers will also come to realize that “open” comes with an asterisk. The word means what the carriers, handset makers and software developers want it to mean.”
Of course, it’s even worse if you are a “mobile marketing” professional trying to figure out your next move.
