SHIV BAKHSHI discusses on the expected emergence of the T-shaped mobile phone which would be optimized for specific functionalities and the emerging landscape for operators, device manufacturers and third party content developers.

Shiv K.Bakhshi is currently the director in charge of mobility research at IDC. Dr. Bakhshi plans and directs IDC's worldwide research effort pertaining to mobility, including mobile phones, converged devices and mobile applications (both consumer and enterprise related). In addition to Mobility Markets, he directs and oversees IDC's Worldwide Handheld and Mobile Phone Q-Views as well as IDC's Mobility Metrics research. Along with his team, he provides research and consulting services in areas covering mobile industry dynamics, mobile technologies, competitive strategies of industry players, as well as the end-user needs shaping the handheld device market. Before assuming his current role, Dr. Bakhshi was the director of IDC's worldwide wireless and mobile infrastructure practice, with a special focus on the opportunities and challenges facing infrastructure vendors selling radio access and core network equipment to mobile network operators worldwide. Prior to joining IDC, Dr. Bakhshi was the Principal Telecommunications Analyst for Standard & Poor's Global Industry Insight (GII) group. In that role, he headed the group's effort at mapping the global telecommunications industry for S&P's web-based vertical product. Bakhshi has a B.A. in Economics from Calcutta University, Calcutta, India. He earned an M.A. in Telecommunications and a Ph. D. in Communication, both from the Ohio State University.

Future Perfect- The T-shaped Mobile Phone
The mobile phone has been evolving ever since it was designed. Over time, new functionalities and features kept getting added and developers have been working overtime to load the best possible features on the phone. But I have been saying that the mobile phone of the future will be T-shaped. Essentially, there will be 2 elements in the Tthe horizontal line and the vertical line. The horizontal line is going to denote a stage where every phone will have the same features like connectivity, gaming, some level of The T-shaped phone and emergent possibilities camera and music-based features, browsing capabilities, etc. The vertical line will denote some kind of in-depth optimization for a specific functionality like messaging or music or something else which will distinguish one phone from the other. But optimization will need a lot of collaboration among major players in the ecology.

To cite certain examples: RIM's Blackberry has all the broad set of minimal features, but it is really optimized for messaging. On the other hand, Apple's i-phone or the Sony Walkman series of phones are optimized for music. So while doing all the expected stuff expected of most mobile phones, the in-depth optimization feature or functionality is going to differentiate one phone from another. My belief is that any information function that you can think of will ultimately find itself on the device, as all the stuff that is possible on a mobile phone is really information -which can be reduced to 0s and 1s in the digital world.

Integrated Capabilities
Even as the phone becomes the unified and 'integrated' communication device in the future, there are two places for convergence. The first is happening on the mobile and the second is taking place on the network -where different mediums are going to meet. But irrespective of where the convergence is taking place, the mobile phone as against other media or consumer electronics devices always had the primacy, so to speak. It is the mobile phone and not the camera or any other device which is connected to the network. But because of various convergence and emerging technologies, a lot of other devices and appliances can now connect to the network. So what happens to the omnipresent phone in the future? The phone is likely to merge into a personalized remote which will be connected to all the appliances and consumer/media devices that you have at home. All this will be possible due to Bluetooth, Ultrawideband technologies and so and so forth.

Conflict or Collaborate?
It is when the emerging shape of alliances are debated about that the real issues begin and the attendant set of challenges. Everybody is talking of convergence. The media is converging with the Internet; the Internet is converging with the telecom network and the content players are ready to offer "converged" services. Bollywood is very excited about such happenings as that gives the major players the chance to package and sell content on the mobile phone. But this is where the potential conflicts as well as collaboration possibilities lie. The network operators will want the content and other offerings to be routed through them.

The Bollywood players will want consumers to use the Web browsing functionality on phones to browse through their Web-based offerings and buy stuff directly from them. As against the advertising subsidized content offerings prevalent in television, most of these players will be averse to offering free content on mobile phones and will demand their pound of flesh. So the moot point is not that technology raises one aspect or another but on the business models that are in place to affect such scenarios and possibilities. It is all about getting a justifiable or correct share of the revenues. If the players cannot come to terms , then there will be grounds for conflict and that will open doors for disruption or dominance by some players.

The disruption will come from the Webbased players who will say that as long as the phone has a browser on it, they can bypass the network. Players such as Google, Yahoo and others would want to reduce the network to a 'dumb' pipe and bypass the network to reach vast customer bases. But I don't see that happening for quite a long while into the future as I believe that the network operators will remain central to anything that happens on the mobile network and for various reasons. The operators are earning billions of dollars and 90 % of that is still coming from voice services. They control the relationships with the subscribers, their levels of interaction with customers in terms of knowing about billings, the usage patterns etc. is very strong. The network operators can make it quite difficult for third party players looking to monetize their service offerings without the right kind of partnerships in place.

The clash or conflict in the future will be between various players. But the positions that the device/handset manufacturers and the network operators take will dictate the shape of alliances and partnerships with third party content providers and the eventual acceptance of Next Generation Applications by a whole host of young consumers worldwide. The operators would want to control the network environment and make sure that everything that happens in the mobile environment translates into monetizing opportunities for them. The device vendors are trying to build capabilities into the device such as dual mode feature, Wi-Fi connectivity, GPS etc. that would look to bypass the operator.

In other words, the operators would try to control the usage environment while the device manufacturers will try to build more capabilities that would enable the usage environment directly. The third party players will look to strike alliances with either parties depending on emerging trends, technologies acceptance and players' positions in the ecosystem. In the near future, Web-based players will seek alliances with the operators before any real disruption changes the overall scenario. User-generated content which has proliferated in the online world will also 'showcase' itself in the mobile world and thus mobile consumers will no longer be passive content receivers. I think that user generated content is going to drive the networks of the future. This is primarily because the mobile phone is no longer a reception device but has many features which encourage sharing, creating and uploading of information. The mobile environment will depend on the availability of high-bandwidth networks, high resolution displays on devices, vendors' input methodologies etc. for the rollout and acceptance of Next Generation Applications.