Executives Point to Mobile Music Evolution, Not Revolution[转载]
九月 21, 2005 – 7:40 am |Tags: No Tags
Executives Point to Mobile Music Evolution, Not Revolution
While mobile phones could eventually become a dominant platform for enjoying music, most executives see a very young, developing sector. "This market is in its very early days," commented Microsoft mobile executive John Pollard during a recent Digital Hollywood panel in Santa Monica, CA. But the push for new mobile technologies is coming at a rapid rate, and carriers are helping to subsidize the growth with cut-rate phones. That draws new customers, while also helping to lower the barrier to new technology adoption. Compounded with heavy product rotation, wireless has become a rapidly developing market. "400 million phones will be thrown out this year," commented Jay Samit, general manager at Sony Connect.
While several players must come together to make the mobile music market click, carriers exert a high level of influence. According to Alberto Moriondo, a top executive at Motorola, there are two forces at work for operators. The key question is whether carriers are pursuing "an ARPU [Average Revenue Per Unit/User] story or a customer acquisition story," according to the executive. In the case of the recently released iTunes-enabled Motorola ROKR carried by Cingular, the phone was a customer acquisition play, as tunes are ported directly from the PC to the handset. But other carriers have been reluctant to grab hold of the iTunes device, choosing instead to launch OTA services that will increase subscriber revenues.
The mobile phone is a rapidly evolving animal, and key elements for growth will be battery life and storage capacity. But the panelists did not project a major breakthrough in battery duration anytime soon, rather they pointed to big advances ahead in flash memory. 8GB and 16GB flash-based capacities could soon become the norm, offering heavy storage without the moving parts that drain batteries. The end result will be a much more robust phone that doesn’t need to be constantly recharged, offering a level of freedom on par with portable MP3 players today. While that could finally shake a stick at the dominant iPod, executives also emphasized that simplicity, not power, will be the biggest catalyst for market growth.
