I was checking out some pre-Mobile World Congress coverage the other day. I won't say who by. It involved a gaggle of analysts all talking excitedly about handsets: form factor, screens, blah blah blah. And they were only talking about handsets. This set me thinking. Has MWC really come down to this? Handsets. And that's it.
MWC is an event that is ostensibly run for the benefit of mobile network operators, being organised by their trade body, the GSM Association. And the biggest (in many cases only) talking point is the biggest source of the leaching of value out of the sector, i.e. those $500 smart phones. I realise, of course, that handsets are important, but there are a million and one things that operators and others are doing that are innovative and worthy of discussion.
If I were a mobile operator doing great work developing new products and services and all the analysts (and the seekers/aggregators of analyst opinions) were focusing on handsets I might wonder why I bother and particularly why my tradeshow had become hijacked to that extent.
MWC is an event that is ostensibly run for the benefit of mobile network operators, being organised by their trade body, the GSM Association. And the biggest (in many cases only) talking point is the biggest source of the leaching of value out of the sector, i.e. those $500 smart phones. I realise, of course, that handsets are important, but there are a million and one things that operators and others are doing that are innovative and worthy of discussion.
If I were a mobile operator doing great work developing new products and services and all the analysts (and the seekers/aggregators of analyst opinions) were focusing on handsets I might wonder why I bother and particularly why my tradeshow had become hijacked to that extent.
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