Presentation Technologies
It's astounding to observe all the industry noise about customizable phone software that's risen to a crescendo since we launched Openwave Phone Suite V7 at 3GSM in 2003. Among the many purveyors, recently I've been impressed with Macromedia's progress. Even six months ago it was hard to imagine Flash's current arc of succeess, but recent trends and wins indicate Flash is for real and probably leads the pack in viability.
Their current lineup of demos crisply illustrates the story of how Flash has progressed from animated entertainment to become the basis for a device user experience and yet beyond that to facilitate "content solutions."
In the past six months Macromedia has inked significant deals with Samsung and Nokia building out of their commercial projects with DoCoMo and KDDI in Japan. It looks and feels a lot like how Openwave built its browser franchise years ago, taking the world's first color mobile browser to Sprint and Vodafone after deploying it to KDDI.
With the wireless industry's march to ARM9 processors that began in 2004, the mobile user experience for hundreds of millions of phones in 2006-07 won't be gated so much by technology as by channel and delivey dynamics. Sure, the UI demos from Macromedia and others really are cool--with new effects and obviously improved design values. The consumer certainly will see the difference on their 160x120 VGA screen, and brands will appreciate the new opportunities to express themselves.
The reality of our market however is one of great impedence between consumer demand and delivery. This is the real reason my smart money's on Macromedia first and embedded browser vendors second. The former brings at long last a legitimate and relevant design authoring toolset & community to mobile, while the latter offers the porting and delivery channel into mass market handsets. Those are the real keys to sucess here.
OMA's drive to standardize ECMAScript Mobile Profile lags Flash's proprietary application to phones by at least a year, but there will be room for both technologies. Like Flash, ESMP can "mobilize" a large developer community and avail itself of existing toolsets. If the tools lag compared to those Macromedia can drive itself, at least mobile browsers have built channels that are already established. Those channels are ready to move product behind early adopters Sprint and Vodafone, whose phone specs are already calling for ESMP in some phones for 2005.
Our meetings with Macromedia and ACCESS today really underscored how much momentum those companies have built for technologies that will soon provide much higher fidelity, more mobile device-appropriate user experiences. Look for Flash and ESMP to have a huge impact starting 2006 and beyond!
[Posted from my Treo 600 with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]
Their current lineup of demos crisply illustrates the story of how Flash has progressed from animated entertainment to become the basis for a device user experience and yet beyond that to facilitate "content solutions."
In the past six months Macromedia has inked significant deals with Samsung and Nokia building out of their commercial projects with DoCoMo and KDDI in Japan. It looks and feels a lot like how Openwave built its browser franchise years ago, taking the world's first color mobile browser to Sprint and Vodafone after deploying it to KDDI.
With the wireless industry's march to ARM9 processors that began in 2004, the mobile user experience for hundreds of millions of phones in 2006-07 won't be gated so much by technology as by channel and delivey dynamics. Sure, the UI demos from Macromedia and others really are cool--with new effects and obviously improved design values. The consumer certainly will see the difference on their 160x120 VGA screen, and brands will appreciate the new opportunities to express themselves.
The reality of our market however is one of great impedence between consumer demand and delivery. This is the real reason my smart money's on Macromedia first and embedded browser vendors second. The former brings at long last a legitimate and relevant design authoring toolset & community to mobile, while the latter offers the porting and delivery channel into mass market handsets. Those are the real keys to sucess here.
OMA's drive to standardize ECMAScript Mobile Profile lags Flash's proprietary application to phones by at least a year, but there will be room for both technologies. Like Flash, ESMP can "mobilize" a large developer community and avail itself of existing toolsets. If the tools lag compared to those Macromedia can drive itself, at least mobile browsers have built channels that are already established. Those channels are ready to move product behind early adopters Sprint and Vodafone, whose phone specs are already calling for ESMP in some phones for 2005.
Our meetings with Macromedia and ACCESS today really underscored how much momentum those companies have built for technologies that will soon provide much higher fidelity, more mobile device-appropriate user experiences. Look for Flash and ESMP to have a huge impact starting 2006 and beyond!
[Posted from my Treo 600 with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]
posted by Brian Dally at
7:15 PM
