Express YourSelf !

Even after datacom, Internet merged to telecom, the need for perfection is as it is. It ensures by thorough testing for telecom equipment, before it got deployed. The emerging telecom standards are becoming complex day by day. Now, to implement such complex standard and that too with perfection, needs a specialized skill set. The firm having such skill set, (OEM) can also demands very high price for its product. This is not consumer market, it is industry market. So high price paid by service provider, is distributed among millions of end consumers like you and me. So far so good. All are happy. All are getting quality product/service at right price.

A software engineer working for OEM, got surprise by knowing the deal amount. He wonders, the piece of code which he wrote is so... much valuable that his employer got this much money? A young man, with so many dreams. Finance market has many Venture Capitalists. So now, this young man wants to become entrepreneur. He knows, the complexity part. He can concur it. He can form a team. He can develop a product. A quality product. He can get funds from VCs. However this is not sufficent to become successful in telecom industry. We have many such failure stories. The service provider generally does not trust such new company. The young man, does not have network with CxO of telecom firms. So even telecom industry is quite lucrative, it has intrinsic entry barriers for such new comers.

Over the time, open source community took some initiative like OpenClovis, OpenBTS, OpenBSC projects for network side. For handset side, Google came up with Android OS. In year 2007 Apple's iPhone changed the rules of game. Probably Apple is aware that even though iPhone is an excellent phone, the hardware is no longer competitive advantage. The consumer will pay for applications. It opens up the telecom industry for such new players, young entrepreneurs . Still it is not open for network equipment. Now it is open for mobile application development. Mobile application development does not need any big infrastructure, test lab setup that OEM needs. Apple invented a good hardware piece called iPhone, which has full potential to become popular. Apple has two choice. Employee iPhone developers, train them and make sure, they utilize all the features of hardware. It was not feasible. So they opened up the development tools for general public. First time, in the world history, any handset manufacturer provided the whole eco-system to developers community to build mobile application and getting paid for it. They deploy the online distribution channel for mobile applications. And it works ! The individuals were happy, as they got larger share in price of application. Apple was happy, as it got large number of mobile applications that helped Apple to make iPhone popular. It created history.

Thus the entry barrier for new comers is broken. So now, many young persons become entrepreneurs. They developed iPhone applications. They sold it. They made good fortune. They got rid of office, boss, performance review and all those corporate formalities. They are their own boss. They got work as per their interest to develop mobile application and getting paid for that. Later on many mobile manufacturers and even service providers followed the trend set by Apple. So over the time, many application stores emerged on Internet. All want to tap the potential of self-motivated individuals to make their brand popular.

The story is not as bright, as it looks like. Again many failure cases. Many youngsters just want to jump into mobile application development. They simply lost into so many options like many application stores, many platforms, many development tools, many design ideas, many jazzy GUI, many bugs, many interoperability issues. They are confused, how to make money? Which application will click the market? How to build a successful, popular mobile applications? Should they target latest smart phone or entry level phones? Which one will be more profitable? What are the tricks, tips? How to optimize the application for smart phone? Should they target enterprise users or consumers? Should they develop games or applications? ......They all collaborate to share ideas. At Bangalore, Mobile Monday provided that platform to share views and gave expert insights by organizing a whole day event called “Mobile Developers Conference”

I attended this event last Saturday. My next article will provide glimpse of the event. So stay tune to your own blog: “Express YourSelf !”

Ref:

http://momob.in/mobile-developer-conference-post-event-note/

http://picasaweb.google.com/momobdotin/MobileDeveloperConference

http://momob.in/videos/