Paul Poutanen

Testing of handsets to make sure they make the grade can be tricky and political.

From business week this morning..

For starters, Verizon Wireless will need to test any new device model before letting it connect to its network. The degree of openness will hinge on how difficult Verizon Wireless makes it for products to get a green light. Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, a leading proponent of wireless open access, points out that the old Ma Bell-era phone companies often used testing requirements as a way to control their networks. “There’s testing requirements and there’s testing requirements,” says Wu. “One is routine—and there’s another thing of deciding what products they don’t want on their network. It can become a black hole from which products never emerge.”

Developers have to have a clear picture of what will be accepted and what will not be accepted. If a developer spends 6 months on a project and then finds out a carrier blocks them on a technicality because it does not meet their business needs, this will further close the whole system.

Further more if the delay in testing handsets amounts to months, the same objective has been fullfilled. 

Openness is like being pregnant. There is no half being pregnant.

The problem with too many choices is sometimes you do not make any.

Take the existing mobile marketplace right now.

Do you want a smart handset?

Do you want a cheap handset?

Do you want emails on your  handset?

Do you want music on your handset?

Do you want to go to websites?

Do you want to only make calls?

Then what combos of the above do you want? How much are you willing to spend?

Then put yourself in the world of the mobile developer. They have to decide what the market will buy and choose as to what has been given to them. If they are selling to Verizon, the code better be in Brew, at Sprint J2ME.

If you are a Nokia handset you will likely need to crank out Symbian. Every type of handset is different.

Here is a synopsis of what is available

XHTML/Wap family
the iPhone mobile browsing family with native and objective C
Symbian
Windows Mobile
FlashLite
J2ME

Google has just announced Android While some people are heralding the
new SDK, others are not so sure.

One thing we know for sure right now, is it will take years to hit any kind of critical mass. There are too many manufacturers and software developers with their own special interests to make this happen too soon.

However do not underestimate Google. They have cash and they have power. What they do not want however is to be bullied by carriers….They want to be the carrier. They know the frustrations of the average user. And they want advertisements on the phone.

The Android Developer Challengeis interesting as it is a good way to jumpstart some developers. I think the more seasoned professional developers will wait until wait a while until there are more developments in the mobile space before proceeding. $10 million is a start but not enough to stop a paying gig. I think $100 million would have made a major splash.

Below are the categories that Google is suggesting…

Social networking
Media consumption, management, editing, or sharing, e.g., photos
Productivity and collaboration such as email, IM, calendar, etc.
Gaming
News and information
Rethinking of traditional user interfaces
Use of mash-up functionality
Use of location-based services
Humanitarian benefits
Applications in service of global economic development

One thing is for sure, things are not getting easier in the mobile space… They are getting more complicated.