Roadblocks to Delivering Mobile Internet Applications and Services

[Rocco Augusto]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/20/HNmobiletough_1.html' target='_blank'>http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/20/HNmobiletough_1.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Unlike the PC-based Internet, companies often can't simply put up a Web site to deliver a service, such as photo sharing or Internet voice calling, to mobile users. That's because mobile phones are constrained by less memory and slower Internet connections than PCs and because browsers may not be able to interact with some phone functions that might enhance an application, said Tony Cripps, an analyst at Ovum."</i><br /><br />InfoWorld has posted a thought provoking article which outlines the challenges placed in front of mobile application developers. It would be nice if in the next few years carriers and mobile phone manufacturers would sit down and hammer out a standard that could be set in place for mobile web browsers. Who would have thought such tiny devices would cause such a headache? ;)

[Kris Kumar]

There are too many cooks in the mobile space to spoil the fun for the developers:
- the carriers, hardware manufacturers and OS developers put application locks forcing developers to bear huge certification cost for each release
- the Web site that sells software charges a hefty fee for hosting the applications

Then there are cool apps like Skype and SlingBox etc, which run into different kind of restrictions.

Carriers think that by giving you the handset for cheap, they own the handset and its operations, and like to control everything that touches it. :evil:

I agree they need to sit down and talk about it, and loosen up a bit.