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Monday, December 7, 2009

Mobile Opportunity: Mobile applications, RIP

Mobile Opportunity: Mobile applications, RIP
I have been part of india's leading media portal and now working on mobile content delivery system, I am expressing my views on deciding a technology or platform for content delivery. To decide anything, we answers few questions, i start with this first one:
First Question: Do I need a mobile app or mobile web site (WAP site)?
Answer to this question is very simple, what are the most used application on the desktop for consumer. My most used applications are One browser, one email client and one document editor/viewer. Unless there is very high specialized requirement consumer doesn't use application. Browser suffice most of the requirement now days.
Would this be the same behaviour on Mobile? I will say yes, first thought is always a browser, first level of mobile user experience will come from mobile browser only. If it is very rich customized user experience on mobile, then only it would be Application.
Still problem is someone has to develop the content for mobile whether is Browser or Application. I define content as any information, product, service which can be consumed by a mobile user.
A Mobile content can be a game, service, news etc.
Second most important question is how to deliver it to mobile user, how user discover your content. It is Very simple, marketing, search, or through specialize content aggregators. On mobiles, operator controls lot of content. Where on desktop content which is free, on Mobile most of the content is paid due to operator controlled network.
Problem of delivery doesn't get solved easily, since mobile user who going to recieve it, s/he is may be using Nokia, windows, Blackberry, iphone, android, samsung, LG or any other mobile phone. And obviously, touch and different screen size issue would be there.

So, there are two main problems, content creation and content discovery / delivery.

We in Spice Labs http://www.spicelabs.in try to solve above two problems how easy to create content (minimizing cost) and discovery.

MITR is one technology provided by Spice Labs on similar lines of Sun's J2ME. J2ME doesn't provide framework for writing applications for various screen sizes and different OS having different key boards.
J2ME polish somehow solves problem of creating rich J2ME applications. J2ME and J2ME polish doesn't solve problem of build, discovery and distribution on various devices.

I came across Nokia web runtime (Nokia WRT), it looks quite promising as develpment is javascript framework based, for this technology mobile browser should support WRT. I developed one N97 prebundled application in 2 weeks, but works only on N97. But same application content can run from any web server similar to any mobile website, but won't give the same user experience of Nokia N97.
I developed one VoIP calling card application for Blackberry where application runs as a service and intercepts the call and disconnectes it, and then connect it to VoIP access point using AP number send the original call's detail using DTMF. Such type of applications cannot be done in J2ME, or WRT, For these type of application developed on Native apis of devices only.
Same application was developed natively for symbian, and windows mobile. From concieve to delivery of this application took more then 9 months.
Any enterprise application developed on J2ME, Nokia WRT, Opera Widgets doesn't run on Nokia 2630. On low end phones like Nokia 2630, how to do EAI, webservice integration etc. MakeMyTrip MITR mobile application runs on Nokia 2630, MITR takes care of EAI and webservice integration through their own network RPC.
Other than Nokia WRT, style sheet similar support is available in MITR. I don't know how to do in J2ME polish.

In spice labs, their applications were developed on MITR, number of applications delivered in last 18 months is more then 25, total number of developers 4, qa/test engineers - 2, product managers - 2. And applications runs on Nokia, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericksson mobile phones.
All these applications can be downloaded from http://m.spicelabs.in or http://wap.mobisoc.com.

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