Manoj Menon Gets It

In the Hutong
High on Benadryl
1026 hrs.

Manoj Menan, a partner at Frost & Sullivan, was just on CNBC from the floor at CommunicAsia 2007, and while I missed half of his interview because of a con call, I think I heard the money quote.

"Our ability as an industry to visualize [advanced mobile services] exceeds our ability to execute. Asia's carriers need to embrace the open innovation model, rather than take a walled-garden approach."

Well said.

As we've said here before, the biggest barrier between China's mobile phone users and really useful mobile data services is NOT technology: it is, rather, operators' insistence on owning any piece of the mobile value chain that might make a little money.

I see signs of hope, especially in entertainment. With music, the carriers looked into the nasty maw of copyright issues and recoiled in horror, delighted to allow partners to deal with the beast of selection, rights clearances, and the like and happy to partner in the revenue stream without having to own the deal.

Let's hope, for the sake of operators, their shareholders, and users, that this continues.

Comments

[Gary Sharkey]

As far as "advanced mobile services" will include user-generated content, whether one-to-many SMS/MMS, streaming video, or otherwise, I think this trend, at least in China, should prove pretty strong.

Had an interesting talk with some people from both main operators last week and while they seem keen to unleash the revenue-generating capacity of mobile UGC, if you think IPR was a sticky issue with mobile music, just imagine how hesitant they are to take any steps into the regulatory wasps nest of media and content control as would be necessary for UGC business models.

I foresee some balance emerging between SPs who will take the regulatory risks and operators who will provide the platforms, but I wonder how different policy evolution paths could tip this balance in one direction or the other...

[David Wolf]

That's a fair point, Gary.

As we both know, the greater challenge for user-generated content will be Fickle Finger of the Great Firewall. I wonder how happy the operators will be fielding angry calls from the unwitting victims of the Net Nanny, taking the heat for arbitrary government decisions.

[Gary Sharkey]

So that leads us back to Manoj Menan's quote it seems. Who are the operators internationally that are putting in place open media portals for VASPs to plug in (IP-protected, user-created, etc.) media content and who are the vendors designing and selling these portals? The example I thought of, Globe Telecom in the Phillipines, led me to content platform vendor Xiam.com.

Despite existing China Mobile-Google cooperation, I still place my money on locally-developed mobile media portal vendors finding a space in the China market before internationals like Xiam. Know of any local players working in this space?