Google's Mobile Phone Challenges Wireless Carriers: Great News for Mobile Commerce Growth

"Google is coming, Google is coming!!!"

In a similar fashion that US colonists cried out loud to rally themselves to respond to the British, albeit in a manner to save themselves from tyranny, I make the similar cry to all online merchants to heed this following story on precisely how large a play Google will be making to take everything wireless to the next level, be that devices, services, and anything else related to wireless (yes, that means mobile commerce) so to enhance and build upon your online presence into the future.

I have been touting mobile commerce for over a year now and many, if not all my blogger colleagues, have told me I was crazy.

At the end of the day, it does not matter what they think or what I think, when a company valued at more than Lockheed Martin, IBM, and Compaq/HP combined comes to the table and claims that they are going to make a big bet on everything mobile, including mobile commerce, and do it RIGHT (which they normally do), we might all just want (and need) to listen.

So for you all of you small to mid sized online merchants, learn mobile commerce for 2008 and stay ahead of the game.

If you don't, you may just find that without a mobile presence your online presence overall will suffer from being old school, passe, and customers will pass you by because others understand how important it is to cross sell across all commerce platforms and you don't.

If you want tips on what to do for mobile commerce, please click on the left hand side of this blog the category "E-Commerce/M-Commerce Soft Tools" -- there are several postings about mobile commerce and companies as iSave.com, mPoria.com and mShopper.com, and experts that can help you better understand the space -- and/or email me at chip@eTaildTail.com -- I am here to help.

-- Chip

Complete story by Mark Walsh, Online Media Daily

FOLLOWING THE MUCH-ANTICIPATED ANNOUNCEMENT OF Google's mobile phone initiative Monday, industry analysts and executives weren't quite ready to declare the end of wireless carrier dominance of the mobile industry.

But they agreed that Google's new open mobile platform will help accelerate expansion of the mobile Internet and pose a serious challenge to carriers' "walled garden" strategy of tightly controlling content on their phone menus.

While the full implications of the deal aren't yet clear, it will make Google a powerful player in the mobile realm as well as in the PC-based Internet world, they say. "This opens the door for Google to be the network for the operating system the way Microsoft adCenter powers MSN," says Jeff Janer, former CMO of mobile ad platform Third Screen Media. "So I think the impact will be major."

Others speculated that the move could have as dramatic an effect as the launch of Apple's iPhone earlier this year, by making mobile Web browsing a user-friendly experience. And as an operating system built on open standards, Google's Android platform could unleash a wave of new mobile applications and commerce.

"This could be the development platform of the future," says Greg Sterling, founding principal at Sterling Market Intelligence and a senior analyst at Opus Research, a mobile market research firm. In addition to Google's own heft, he notes that the alliance of heavyweight industry players including T-Mobile and Motorola lends the effort increased credibility.

While its partners stand to benefit from joining with Google, wireless companies need to come up with new business models to ensure their relevance. "The carriers need to start thinking of how they should play in the value chain so that they don't get marginalized like the Internet service providers," says John Styers, president of mobile consultancy Mobilico and a former Sprint executive.

Wireless operators have long feared that by giving up too much control over their mobile decks they could become "dumb pipes," like the Internet providers that get revenue only from subscriber fees but don't get a piece of content provider's ad revenues. Such concerns have led carriers such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T not to embrace Google applications, and likely played a role in their absence from the Google-led Open Handset Alliance.

During the conference call announcing its mobile platform on Monday, Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said he envisioned developing ad-sharing arrangements with alliance partners, although he didn't offer further details.

Opus recently released data forecasting that North American and European mobile ad revenue will surpass $5 billion in 2012--up from an estimated $106.8 million at the end of 2007, according to a new study. The North American market, primarily the United States, would account for $2.3 billion of the total.

Analysts say that Google could benefit in particular from increased local mobile search. "Google can't grow fast enough off the back of the PC-based Internet," says John Gauntt, senior wireless analyst at eMarketer. "It must extend search to new interactive platforms...and new advertisers who aren't currently online."

If Google and its mobile alliance partners are viewed as the big winners, companies that create proprietary applications for the carriers' mobile portals or handsets are viewed as among the biggest losers from the deal. These include companies such as JumpTap, Abaxia, Sky Mobile Media and Sasken. "Android increases uncertainty for these participants," wrote John Jackson, vice president of Yankee Group's Enabling Technologies group, in a research note on the Google mobile announcement.

Even so, analysts and others say Google's ambitious new mobile strategy isn't assured of success. Many questions remain about whether developers will flock to the Android platform, how consumers will respond and what types of business models will emerge. "Those of us in the business tend to forget that 85% of the population still thinks of a mobile phone as a communication device and a fashion accessory," says Styers. Mark Walsh can be reached at walsh@mediapost.com

For full story <<<CLICK HERE>>> by Mark Walsh