Analyst Chetan Sharma Sets the Roadmap For Mobile In 2012

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By consensus, the top story was the rise of Android and its dominance over the ecosystem. A close second was the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. The Kindle Fire, intellectual property battles and "other" issues round out the top five. Who will succeed in 2012? How will developers make money? What will be the breakthrough category in mobile in 2012? Sharma's results are below.

Joke to most many industry followers

This may come as a joke to most many industry followers, nevertheless Sharma's insiders vote Google the "most open player in the mobile ecosystem" for 2012. Granted, the options are not that much better, yet Google rocked the competition with a little less than 70% of the vote during no other player, including Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, the carriers, OEMs or Amazon got more than 10%. This is the fourth year that Google has been the most open in the mobile according to Sharma's polls, even though the percentage has been decreasing since its peak in 2010.

Really, there is a lot more to being "open" than just the vague espoused by the so-called "clopen" argument - that Android is open to developers however not particularly so to users. Google has made the entire Ice Cream Sandwich source code available online to anybody that knows how to use it. Are there problems with the update process? Truly. Yet, you do not see anybody trying to put iOS/webOS/Windows Phone on the Kindle Fire or HP TouchPad.

The insiders are all in all high on mobile payments as the breakthrough category for 2012. There were a lot of advancements in mobile payments in 2011 however the thought of paying with your smartphone is in spite of everything more of a dream than reality for most consumers. About 23% of consumers have now warmed up to the notion of mobile payments according to a recent report. The then and there breakthrough category is mCommerce followed by mHealth, enterprise and nearly field communications. Sharma's insiders are not almost so high on mobile advertising as they were a year ago.

The survey predicts that the financial sector will be the leader in mobile payments. This fits in with what we have seen in the latter half of 2011 where the innovation and financial sectors started to merge. No other company or industry vertical got more than 20% of the vote, with the cellular operators and startups competing in the space.

The most influential person in mobile last year

The most influential person in mobile last year was Steve Jobs, followed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Android creator Andy Rubin came in fourth behind ... Angry Birds?!

Mobile cloud computing will increase in 2012. That includes people tying data services to their smartphones however also developers tying their applications to the cloud. Enterprise is the leading use-case for the mobile clouds with storage and media each taking 20% and apps close behind at 19%.

Overall, we can use Sharma's survey as an accurate roadmap of what to expect in 2012. More mobile Web, more cloud, more disruption during Android and Apple dominate and the rest of the ecosystem has to play catch up.

Foundation of cooperation

New telco business models must be built on a foundation of cooperation and partnership with third party application and content providers who facilitate the development of advanced applications and services end users want. In such an ecosystem, network providers are best served by encouraging developers to create new applications, just as mobile and multi-screen video, visual messaging, user-generated TV, and multi- player gaming, because their success drives network providers' success.