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Letter from the 3SGM World Conference

At 3GSM World Congress 2004, we had a great week and received a lot of positive feedback from people who saw and used our FlashCast preview. The service ran for several weeks, giving attendees the opportunity to view a personal, hands-on demonstration away from the bustle of the show.

Here are a few of the articles that Juha Christensen, president of the Macromedia mobile and devices business, published each day for the Macromedia Insights channel. This channel is a great example of how FlashCast enables rapid production and delivery of channel content to subscribers.

—Anup Murarka

Day One (Monday, February 23): Welcome to FlashCast!

The Macromedia Mobile and Devices team welcomes you to our FlashCast preview for 3GSM World Congress 2004. As you explore the various FlashCast channels during the next few days, this Macromedia Insights Channel will provide daily commentary about FlashCast and events around the conference. We hope this preview will provide some idea of the value of rich media and how Macromedia Flash will change the face of data services in the coming months.

Figure 1. The FlashCast News channel

Macromedia has produced five channels to be broadcast during the week of the conference. Each channel has content that will be updating during the course of the show. The FlashCast client will receive broadcast updates from the server, which, in turn, will acquire new data from feed servers in various locations. Some feeds (Macromedia Insights and The Pulse) are actually being locally produced in Cannes while others are produced in San Francisco and still others, such as Cannes Weather, use existing Internet infrastructure.

FlashCast channels use many features provided by Macromedia's Flash profile for mobile phones, Flash Lite. Animations, interface elements such as buttons and menus, text, and even audio are all supported and used. Here are some details on each of the channels we're showing:

• This channel (The Macromedia Insights channel) is an example of dynamically produced, text-oriented content.

• The Pulse lets users cast votes and delivers them to the channel producer through Short Message Service (SMS).

  

  Figure 2. The Pulse FlashCast channel

• Cannes Weather delivers local weather conditions by mapping small incremental broadcast data packets to high impact graphics.

  

  Figure 3. Cannes Weather FlashCast channel

• Cannes Map shows the power of Flash as a vector graphics engine with area maps that zoom in for street-level detail.

  

  Figure 4. Cannes Map FlashCast channel

• Cannes Concierge lists some of our local favorites and can connect a phone call directly from within the channel.

  

  Figure 5. Cannes Concierge FlashCast channel

Stay tuned to this channel during the week for additional information about FlashCast and Macromedia's initiatives for the wireless industry.

Day Two (Tuesday, February 24): Service Provider Versus Bandwidth Provider

Hello from Cannes! It has been just a few weeks since my start at Macromedia, and I'm seeing exciting developments on many fronts. Today's article and those appearing in this channel each day this week will provide some insight to our observations about the show and activities in the wireless industry. Even during the first day of the conference, a clear theme was emerging. Everywhere you look, data services are front and center while voice services and other hot topics from past shows are in the background. Richer data devices are being shown. Content and information services are being shown. And these services are being exhibited by large and small vendors alike.

It seems the majority of these new data services are messaging-based and extensions of existing offerings for SMS and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). This certainly makes sense as these are well-used, well-understood technologies. But these simple SMS and MMS data services aren't the only focus. Other deeper, richer services are also being showcased. Obviously the FlashCast channel you are reading now is one example. Other companies showcasing interesting technologies and demonstrating leadership in this space include Action Engine, Opera, Surf Kitchen and Trigenix. These companies seem to totally get the fact that multimedia content will be the most attractive content going forward.

I believe this activity is a direct response to all of the operators talking about what new services will drive average revenue per user (ARPU) higher. One way to drive ARPU is to tap into the broader consumer market with more approachable multimedia content. While good progress is being made in this area, I think there are still more questions than answers.

A final observation I will offer is that this activity and drive towards higher ARPU is leading operators to see their future role less as transport providers and more as true service providers. The increased number of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), including yesterday's introduction of easyTelecom, is a good indicator of this shift. The evolution in handset capabilities will further influence companies to change from bandwidth-oriented billing to service-oriented billing, not to just deal in the commodity of connectivity. With newer handsets and new networks, the cost per bit continues to fall when focusing on services. This transition will accelerate consumer adoption of new services because it eliminates one of the key pricing fears that exist today, the sticker shock at end of month. Consumers have already shown a willingness to pay for content as they consistently pay for sports and entertainment programming on their televisions, not the speed of the bit stream.

Tomorrow, we will take a look at the evolution of handsets at the show.

Day Three (Wednesday, February 25): Let's Get to Work

The beautiful weather Tuesday made it difficult to concentrate on the show. Am I alone in my observation that everything slowed during lunch as people enjoyed the wonderful outdoors? Certainly the nice weather made it easy to rationalize avoiding the crowds in the show that reminded me of a busy day at the Paris flea market. It seems indicative of the overall mood of the show yesterday that, despite the many more attendees, there still seemed to a lack of excitement.

I did manage to focus on the show enough yesterday to notice a lot of talk about future services but not a proportionate number of new feature/smart phones. Even with technologies like 3G, which has a lot of buzz, few major OEMs are introducing or showing handsets for it. Nokia announced a Wi-Fi–enabled mobile phone that I feel further reinforces yesterday's thoughts about service providers versus bandwidth providers. I also thought it interesting that Sierra Wireless and MBlaze introduced new handsets. These are good examples of designs that focus on what services consumers will use and less on the network interface they will use. Mostly the show seemed to feature lots and lots of low-end handsets. This only furthers commoditization rather than moving the usage model forward. The takeaway is less wow factor and more demonstrative of a lot of work that needs to be done.

It is becoming clear that the next generation of mobile services will not require the web model that people are accustomed to today. Everyone at the show seems to be saying, "Let's make this wireless data thing happen". We've been talking about these things a long time, so we're just going to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Day Four (Thursday, February 26): The Future of Data Services

Today is our last day at the show given tomorrow's travel schedule. I want to get one last topic into this week's channel. I've mentioned networks and handsets, but I haven't talked about the characteristics of actual services and what might drive adoption of those new data services. So this last Cannes-produced article is devoted to that topic.

I've paid particular attention to a number of mobile data applications this week. Accompanying those applications has been a lot of talk about how important the category is and the simplicity of the application. Unfortunately, the demos haven't lived up to the associated pitch. They've seemed consistently complex and hard to use. I will concede that they have been improvements upon past applications. But to really break into the mainstream, to bring mobile and wireless data applications to market and start selling them to the masses, we have to stop building technology for ourselves and start building it for the mass market. We need to move wireless data beyond the road warrior and into the realm of the general consumer.

Most of the applications I've seen focus more on overcoming technical hurdles rather than creating great experiences with broad appeal. Many take the shortcut of equating mobile data with mobile messaging. Yes, it allows the use of existing infrastructure but how many of us have really attempted asset management within an MMS client? Others have simply targeted "the enterprise" and so assumed complexity would be accepted.

But the enterprise and consumer markets overlap significantly. Despite the economic trends of the past few years, most global mobile phone consumers are part of an enterprise somewhere. And so I don't believe we can avoid simplicity and accessibility if we are to create services that appeal to a broader audience.

More advanced services that are simple to use are needed to solve this dilemma. I don't believe ringtones or clip art for MMS messages will solve it. We must deliver a broader range of advanced services from a much larger base of developers, authors, and designers. If a service is drawn from people who already know how to reach a broad audience, it is more likely to take off. Companies like Microsoft, Sun, and Macromedia have large existing developer bases to leverage. Thus the challenge to these companies and the rest of the industry is evangelizing the promise of, and potential for profits in, the mobile market to the content and developer community.

I wrote yesterday that we at Macromedia are rolling up our sleeves and getting to the business of making mobile data a reality. This year's conference and the many meetings I've had this week have helped codify my thoughts in this area. First, I am resolved to reach out to Macromedia's base of more than one million Flash professionals around the world. And second, we will work with operators to just "jump into the deep end of the pool." This means launching test systems for FlashCast services with operators as early as this summer. One of the recurring themes at 3GSM this year was that it is time to start doing something, so we're definitely going to seize that opportunity and help move the industry forward.

Thanks again to everyone who has read this channel at the show. We look forward to working with the community and our developer base to deliver great, compelling services in the coming year.

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