The mobile phone has an amazing potential to put location based services and applications in the hands of a huge, world-wide audience. It's not surprising that this fusion of mobile telephony with geographic and navigation technologies has spawned a development arena brimming with innovation and entrepreneurial energy. It's not always an easy road, however. A developer may start out tinkering in their garage on ideas for a new mobile application, but to deliver a successful product they must negotiate a dizzying array of challenges. These include meeting the demands of various carrier requirements, standards, APIs, and handsets from multiple manufacturers, as well as contending with a range of business plans and sales strategies.
Russell Beattie from Yahoo! Mobile moderates a lively conversation with a panel of experts representing the developer, data service provider, and mobile carrier perspectives. Despite the challenges, the panelists report that services such as wireless Enhanced 911 (E911), travel and roadside assistance, turn-by-turn driving, and photomarking are starting to flow to consumers on their GPS-enabled mobile phones. Businesses are also harnessing the ubiquitous mobility of these and other services such as inventory tracking, timesheets, supply chain and dispatch management.
Given the complex and rapidly evolving landscape, the obstacles for development on the mobile platform extend beyond those on the desktop. Moderator Beattie raises an interesting question: open platforms and networks can often be beneficial to developers, but how open can they be in the wireless world? A careful balance of innovation and monetization must be struck between developers and carriers.
Russell Beattie joined Yahoo! in early 2005 and focuses on creating, discovering, and evangelizing innovative new mobile products and services. Yahoo! Mobile is focused on extending the company's core services beyond the desktop and offering engaging services with leading wireless providers and device manufacturers. Yahoo! is the #1 mobile web destination and the #1 global internet destination.
Peter Distler has been engaged in technology deployments and business development for the telecom industry with AT&T and Sprint since 1984. Functional experience includes Bell Labs R&D assignments, advanced university research sponsorship, venture advisory boards, strategic technology alliance partnerships, M&A due diligence and enterprise investment management. Recent projects include large scale deployment of optical networks, VoIP softswitch systems, high speed wireless mobile data and advanced computing infrastructure planning. He is currently the senior enterprise architect for Sprint.
Mary Foltz, Director of the Location Solutions Product Line at Nextel, manages a portfolio of products and services that improves productivity for businesses and individuals, as well as enhancing their lives. Nextel handsets and devices equipped with location-based solutions help customers improve operations by locating mobile resources, navigating to a destination with turn-by-turn driving directions, and tracking location and status information, including time-sheets, tasks, inventory, detailed activity reports, vehicle status, and more. As part of Nextel's original wireless internet services team, Foltz built and launched the Industry Solutions and Developer Programs that helped drive the fastest data services adoption in the industry. Nextel boasts the most robust suite of business applications for GPS phones, PDAs, and specialized data devices.
Carl Shimer's expertise is in architecting and building mobile applications for the Orange group device portfolio. He has experience with a wide variety of mobile platforms including Symbian, Windows Mobile, and J2ME. He is currently involved in designing new location based services for a next generation mobile phone from Orange. In previous roles Carl has implemented and designed enterprise OSS software and a distributed file system product.
Hassan Wahla has over 13 years of experience in the wireless and information technology industries. He currently serves as Senior Director of Business Development at TeleNav, Inc, a leading provider of location based services. His responsibilities include managing partnerships with wireless carriers, content providers and other strategic partners. Prior to joining TeleNav, Mr. Wahla managed the GPS Tracking Product Portfolio at Nextel Communications. He has also held senior management positions at Wireless Multimedia Solutions, MicroStrategy, Inc, and Maritime Power Corporation.
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