SAN FRANCISCO-Nokia Corp.’s development program plans to use CTIA’s Wireless IT & Entertainment show to unveil a worldwide initiative designed to make it easier for developers to bring mobile content and applications to market.
Forum Nokia will announce the launch of Preminet, which comprises a master catalog, service delivery platform and optional innovative client application. The initiative aims to streamline the distribution process for content developers, creating a blueprint for unified industry testing, distribution and delivery through carriers to end users, said Forum Nokia Vice President Lee Epting.
“Until now, the process of getting mobile Java and Symbian software from the creator to the end user has been highly fragmented,” Epting said. “Each operator has been responsible for maintaining hundreds of relationships with individual developers and sourcing, testing and certifying each application. With (Preminet), we now provide a single source for operators to acquire a comprehensive range of certified content, applications and services, and a complete platform for managing distribution to their customers.”
Epting said the initiative will include content from Forum Nokia’s 1.6 million members as well as other Java and Symbian developers and aggregators.
While carriers are hungry to add content and data services to consumers and drive average revenue per user (ARPU), they’re finding it difficult to deal with the countless number of providers hawking their wares. Creating a boilerplate certification and distribution process not only will result in a uniform, efficient system, it also will allow developers to create better and more marketable products, according to Mark Jacobstein, president and chief operations officer of game developer Digital Chocolate.
“Let me put it this way: fewer is better than more in terms of the number of partners we have to deal with in order to reach our consumers,” Jacobstein said. “The endgame for us is to be able to focus our efforts on building great applications that solve problems for our customers.
“Right now, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of distribution channels.”
Preminet hopes to take advantage of what it sees as a burgeoning market: Java is the leading platform for mobile software worldwide, with more than 350 million Java-enabled handsets in use worldwide, and Symbian runs on two-thirds of the world’s smart phones.
Research firm Ovum predicts that annual shipments of Symbian smart phones will top 100 million within three years, and more than 1.5 billion Java-enabled phones will be in use.
Because Preminet is air-interface agnostic, working across GSM, CDMA and other networks, the initiative could drive content uptake sky-high, said David Kerr, vice president of Strategy Analytics. “The size of the potential market for Java and Symbian software makes this a very significant initiative,” said Kerr. “Cost, complexity and fragmentation are the critical barriers to content revenue.”
And that market fragmentation threatens the livelihood of smaller developers who haven’t established the relationships with carriers they need to present their offerings. Preminet could give those smaller players a chance to compete with the big boys, Digital Chocolate’s Jacobstein said.
“It’ll give the guy in the garage a shot” in the marketplace, he said. “But you still have to build a great application, which is no small feat.”
Once the initiative is in place, certified content and applications will become part of the master catalog and will be instantly available to mobile operators around the world through a single channel. Operators can choose the applications they want to offer and present them in their branded portal along with applications from other sources.
But Epting warns that it will take more than a streamlined distribution process and great applications for carriers to drive up ARPU. For such content to be consistently profitable, it must be readily available and easily used.
“I would say the consumer awareness issue is the one nut we have yet to crack,” Epting said. “If we can do that-make it an experience where the consumer doesn’t have to go looking for content-it will ultimately drive the revenue that will come out of this type of model.”
