Just another Mobile Monday?

I stepped in at the last minute this week to do a keynote slot at the Mobile Content Summit when a colleague had to pull out, topic was on "Mobile Web 2.0 and Ecosystems", and i stayed to listen to some interesting presentations from Flirtomatic, Vodafone etc. I think the talks will be put up by the organisers, will link to it when that happens or if not will put mine up.

Coming hot on the heels of the Future of Mobile, it was interesting to see how the memes are flowing.

Now I am the first to be sceptical about Planet Mobile's overblown market projections (vs its Utility-arian ways), but in the 8 or so years I've been involved with Mobile Internet I'd say this is the closest I've seen to a tipping point emerging - mainly because:

- some very big players from outside, Google and Apple, have pushed new business and product models into an ossified industry - and started to gain users, which the industry understands and is what really changes things. They may not win in the end, but they have set off the gun.

- (In my opinion) the locus for innovation has moved outside Europe to the fresher minds of the US and Developing world

- The competition from WiFi is starting to drive more "non-zero" strategy pricing behaviour from Operators

But you've heard this from us before....but this article in the Economist today they made this point that the Mobile industry:

...is going through two important shifts that promise to generate much growth and profit in the years to come. First, even though overall sales may fall in 2009, sales of “smart” phones—those that allow you to surf the internet, download music and use other data services, as well as make calls and send text messages—are booming. According to Informa, a market-research firm, the market for smart-phones will grow from $39 billion in 2007 to $95 billion in 2013, by which time they will make up nearly half of the handset market by value (though only 34% by volume).

Second, and more important, as handsets get smarter the nature of the industry will change. It will be less about hardware and more about software, services and content. In fact, for the first time, more will be spent this year on such intangibles than on the handsets themselves (see chart). And this is why, also for the first time, a fierce battle between operating systems for handsets has broken out.

And that shift to Software and Services will make all the difference. Somehow, watching the industry memes at these conferences I sense a small but imperturbable shift in the forces driving Planet Mobile has occurred. It will still take time though, the Mob-Evangelists will still have to wait awhile for Coming 2.0