Richard Wong of accel partners wrote a nice piece on this topic:
Mobile data is on fire. Despite a few false starts, we are now in the midst of a transformative “Open Mobile 3rd Wave”
(remember WAP, and J2ME?). We are just in the early swell of the wave; the iPhone itself is not even three years old, and thanks to continued improvements we’re now seeing in smart phones, mobile OS platforms and 3G/4G networks, the raw ingredients are just getting better every month.
Per the views of many mobile denizens and thought-leaders such as well-known internet analyst Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley, I certainly believe there will emerge new industry-transforming Facebooks, Googles, and Yahoos in this mobile wave.
FRAGMENTATION & COMPLEXITY
However, a key topic discussed by us mobile geeks and startups is the challenge of mobile platform fragmentation. There is an alphabet soup of protocols, standards, and regional differences by country which can be daunting for any entrepreneur. Just look at the range of technologies on handset platforms alone, from iPhone to Android to Blackberry, and even new platforms announced in last 30 days, from WinMo7, to MeeGo, to Samsung Bada, as if we need more platforms to deal with . . .
THE MAGIC BULLET—IT DOESN’T EXIST
One of the worst myths floating around the blogosphere is the wait by some for a “unifying technology” that will make things “simpler and easier” to develop services and apps for the global mobile market. At times, some have claimed that Java (J2ME) was the answer, then Flash Lite, then Webkit browsers, and most recently HTML5. While each solution has its merits, there will not be any unification anytime soon. Even as HTML5 richness has improved substantially, browser support will still vary and many, many phones will not support HTML5 for 7+ years.
Anyone who is waiting for a single silver bullet to solve fragmentation issues in mobile will be waiting a very long time, especially if they want to go after the global mobile opportunity. As such, it is important for mobile entrepreneurs to wade in and sort it out for themselves. No one is going to flatten the industry such as Microsoft did in the PC-era to make it simple.
