Thank you to Jeremy Copp, CEO of mobile advertising and provisioning experts, Rapid Mobile. Jeremy has been in the tech industry for 20 years — and has been working with the mobile industry specifically for the last 10 (Beatnik, Symbian). He’s sent in this Android viewpoint:
The launch of the Google Android platform serves to reinforce our belief that the mobile device landscape is becoming even more diverse, rather than there being any real kind of convergence occurring. From the perspective of a mobile service provider it means yet another content and application environment to be supported and therefore that it is even more important to have platforms, such as Rapid Mobile Media’s ThinkPhone products, that are able to automatically deliver services and advertising to new device platforms and form factors without requiring additional investment in porting and testing from the service provider.
Capable mobile device platforms such as Android are having a positive impact upon the industry by encouraging consumer consumption of downloadable applications and in raising awareness of the opportunities mobile internet services provide for them. We are seeing significant growth in rich application and content delivery to mobile devices as end users realise that they can continue to interact with services that previously have required a PC and internet connection. This in turn is driving the need for monetisation through high quality display advertising delivered within deployed applications and mobile sites.
Google Android in itself is unlikely to change the mobile marketplace – there are after all a number of open mobile device platforms already available – but the aggregate effect of all of these platforms is one of increasing opportunities for mobile service delivery and revenue generation. Such enlargement of the market isn’t without challenges however, demanding that technologies are provided to make it easy for platform agnostic content, advertising and application delivery.
I’m excited. Very excited. Nice one Jeremy!