HAREESH RAMANNA explains the importance of the context framework that would help enable targeted and relevant information teaching mobile subscribers and the catalyzing forces to potentialize the opportunities .

Hareesh Ramanna is Senior Director - Mobile Devices Software, Motorola Software Group. He is responsible for the delivery of Software platforms, features across GSM, 3G, CDMA and iDEN devices and instrumental in delivering product software for millions of phones having a sizeable group of software engineers working in India, China, Italy, and Malaysia. He has undertaken initiatives to drive feature roadmaps and participate in the advanced technology programs in close partnership with Business CTO and Labs. Ramanna also leads the newly formed iUI Technology Group and presented this Group's activity and strategy in T2 and is the Board member for the India Innovation leadership Team and member of the Country Council.

Currently, we are passing through a phase wherein people would like to rediscover what they would like to use the ubiquitou mobile phones for. Many features like MMS the Web browser etc. have gone through different peaks in terms of usage, but still there is still no pull factor for the people. People are using mobile phones for clicking and sharing photos, but how much of APRU that is generating for operators is debatable. It is all about the value that the mobile/device manufacturers are able to derive and to ensure that they are able to monetize some of these features. The difficulties of navigating through the browser to make airline and hotel bookings have been well documented.

We need to discover the context in the case of a mobile phone. And this context has to be part of a structured and well-defined framework. If we look at the Internet, there is a lot of context there in terms of search capabilities and user-friendliness for a whole mass of users. That has made acceptance of various new services and features much faster. The key is to make usage and navigability.

very simple and easy for the mobile phone users and that can happen by engaging the users so that they are always hooked for sustained use. So basically, useful and helpful tips have to be given to users so that they can navigate quite easily through the browser window, access useful links and make better use of various new services that are offered by the operators or third parties. It's a question of flattening the hierarchy of navigation so that clicking on useful sponsored links does not become cumbersome.

Information, sponsored links and advertisements has to be made available based purely on the context of what the user seeks or is interested in based on his psychographics and device profile. For that, the device also has to be 'intelligent' and filter information based on the context. It should know or gauge most aspects about the person, the lifestyle patterns and habits, preferences, usage dynamics etc. So there are the context relevant structures and the context relevant push mechanisms which enthuse and push a user to use his mobile more often for a variety of activities. It boils down to the push that engages the subscriber and goads the users to do more of a pull for the services being offered.

Once the engagement happens through the push mechanism, then the discovery of various services or engagement drivers can be activated. The operators will be happy with the increase in data traffic and will channelize their new set of offerings based on usage patterns and demographics. But the relevant intelligence has to come from the device which should provide the necessary hooks and levers so that navigating becomes a pleasure rather than cumbersome. Critically, the navigation hierarchy has to be absolutely flattened for a slew of next generation applications to be acceptable in the long run. As a result, the relevance of content cannot be understated.

Players like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. are able to create content but they are not yet configurable for mobile phones. There are still a lot of idiosyncrasies in terms of the device capabilities, in terms of the rendering capabilities of the devices, form factor etc. Therefore, there has to be a sort of a backend server that will actually take all the information, synthesize and make the filtration of information more seamless. The integration challenges will be huge because of the different standards that are prevalent. More spending cycles just cannot be allowed as they can prove to be unproductive. But commercial exploitation will take time because the amount of engineering that is happening is huge and intricate. And it is happening without the necessary content aggregation or syndication taking place at the same time.

Motorola is definitely attempting to evangelize all the key aspects and shape the trends that will enhance and elevate the context framework that will drive the acceptance of services by a large base of customers. The open standards platform that we have adopted will go a long way in helping a host of content developers and third parties to configure services and according to the varied needs of different sets of subscribers. Motorola is trying to reduce the cycle time of backward integration and that would be critical in the timely rollout of services.

Back-haul alliances become crucial and will drive the speed and delivery of such services. Billing and subscriber /database management holds the key to push relevant, targeted information and advertising to users and that can only come about with predictive, backend intelligence systems that are in place.

The mobile is a highly personalized device and has mass reach and tremendous acceptance. The engagement with the subscribers is going to be critical to the whole process of pushing them to navigate through services which are pushed onto the phone. Then, we will have the whole polemics of revenue sharing coming into play. But the ecosystem-whether we talk of portals, content developers, device manufacturers etc. - has to play a bigger role than is happening currently. .