7 Comments
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Michelle Connealy
I have a more general comment about the conventional wisdom that operators are being marginalized – I quickly looked at the article to which this question links, Philippe and I think these are good questions. However, operators cannot be dismissed. They are going to win the app store war simply by virtue of their easy billing and real customer service relationships with subscribers – and this will bring profit back into the app world (pun intended?). I also think that OEMs will stop short of becoming real service providers and have to limit their FOTA aspirations to those that the operators do not care to own or those that offload cost (like bug fixes) off the operators.
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Michelle,
I respectfully disagree. What’s easier than when you have an account set up with the handset manufacturer where it’s directly charged to your credit card (a la iPhone App Store)? I still feel as if fundamentally, the carriers are not “there yet” in terms of dealing with app stores for smartphones. They are used to the walled gardens that are being slowly erradicated by the platform manufacturers. 0 0 -
This could be a good thing for the carriers. More times than not I hear someone say, “this (insert carrier) phone &$#!&”. It is not the carrier’s phone, it is some manufacturer’s device. When your X type laptop breaks, does one blame the DSL provider? This could be good for the carriers, if the device has issues, the customer can separate the manufacturer from the carrier and the carriers can promote their connectivity strengths rather than their device partnerships to give us all better coverage. The carrier could potentially build a better service reputation by working out the bugs for the non-carrier manufactured device rather than being accused of selling a bad device.
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David,
I think you have it right. Carriers want the control over when a device updates and how large that update is. Pushing large FOTA updates over a wireless network still requires coordination to ensure the update works on the target devices, they won’t negatively impact the user, they won’t swamp the wireless network with data traffic, and the carrier customer support organization is ready for support calls. We’re along way from a carrier just letting the software vendors or device manufactures update these when they want to. 0 0 -
Doug,
I’m not sure I agree. What do you call what Palm does? Correct me if I’m wrong but Android does the same thing, no? Apple certainly updates (via iTunes) things when they want…. 0 0 -
Android has already gotten into hot water with some of those updates. I’m not saying it can’t technically be done, I’m just saying operators are very leery of ceding control to 3rd parties as the resulting support call for issues comes to the operator. People are less concerned over application updates like iTunes but when you’re talking FOTA it’s different. The packages can literally brick the device or swamp a network if they are not managed correctly.
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Of course they’re leery…I’ll argue it’s ultimately unavoidable though.
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Can FOTA Further Marginalize Carriers?
Note: Shame on me for calling it FOTA per se – because that’s an OMA protocol. I’m talking more about the principles of the OS manufacturers taking more control of their devices’ destiny.
Historically, you bought a device and that was basically it. There were few, if any, updates to the device’s OS and that was fine. You bought a new device and you got all the greatest bells and whistles…along with the latest bugs. While OS manufacturers, including Microsoft would provide updates to existing handsets (on occasion), they were at the mercy of the carriers (and the OEMs) in terms of deciding whether to provide the update to users. That all changed with the iPhone.
Apple completely changed the playing field for smartphones – on so many different levels – but most notably as it was able to instantly dictate how ITS device/platform was going to function, as opposed to being at the mercy of myriad carriers’ whims.
Android and Palm followed suit, to the point where Palm will push out the update whether you want it or not (not the worst thing, by the way). So now Microsoft is rumored to be joining the game…much like it does on the PC side of things. OEMs can add whatever they want to differentiate their PCs, but it’s Windows Update you see most often, and not your PC manufacturer’s update tool.
So what does this do to carriers? A lot actually. Their grip on handset manufacturers is slipping even further. App stores are also marginalizing the role of carriers. Now mind you, carriers are launching their own app stores, but why would a user go there as opposed to the one created by and tailored for the handset maker? While carriers are creating their own app stores, I can’t see how this will work unless it’s for “feature phones” and if you believe most pundits, smartphones are going to grab more and more market share over time. (Note, I believe it because my colleagues say so)
So if there are going to be more and more smartphones in the market, and it’s the handset manufacturers that are going to have more (most) control over their devices, where does that leave the carriers? What about all the extra “features” (read: bloatware) they put on devices? My sense is savvy users will want less and less of that.
Hmmm…is this the (very) beginning of the non-carrier dominated device sales channel? That wouldn’t be a bad thing in my opinion. The extreme perspective is that carriers will have to create applications for each vendor’s app store and get them “approved” along with iFart and all the other applications out there. Now wouldn’t that be a change in tide?