The development of firmware-over-the-air, or FOTA, lies at the intersection of several related trends in mobile devices and their management. The sector is growing and, already, several players claim market leadership.
As handsets are packed with features, they are packed with software-bugs and updates are inevitable, just as in the wired PC world. Unlike the PC world though, the disruption and cost of having mobile consumers visit a service center or mailing in their device partly drove the use of radio waves to answer the need. FOTA also reduces support costs for handset vendors and carriers and soon it will provide the means for sending new revenue-generating services from carrier to consumer.
The peace-of-mind factor may be “priceless.” For handset vendors, FOTA provides some insurance in the madly competitive dash to get new handsets to market quickly-fixes and updates can follow, as needed or available. For carriers, despite extensive testing of handsets on their networks, FOTA offers a similar reduction in risk for new launches. The technology is being touted to carriers as fostering improvements in customer loyalty as well.
According to an Arc Chart report relying on data from Strategy Analytics and sponsored by FOTA vendor Red Bend Software, the average cost of a handset recall is between $42 and $72 per unit. FOTA reduces that potential cost to less than a dollar per handset, a figure widely cited by FOTA vendors to illustrate their value proposition.
The number of handset models equipped with FOTA software has gone from roughly a couple dozen last year to nearly 200 this year, according to the Arc Chart report. In volume terms, the number of FOTA-equipped devices shipped has jumped from roughly 50 million last year to perhaps 200 million this year.
The wireless industry’s FOTA players typically focus on the client, the network server or both, often in a broader portfolio of device management services for consumers and enterprise. Red Bend, for instance, provides only the client-side software solution. Motorola Inc. has invested in Bitfone Corp., which provides the handset vendor with client software; the two partner on the network server side. InnoPath addresses both client and server software.
“Our primary objective in deploying FOTA solutions is to drive consumer satisfaction and revenue opportunities for carriers,” said Jim Eckels, the general manager of the XperienceWare software group within Motorola. “The first generation of FOTA is about bug-fixing. The second generation is about driving revenue-generating services. We think it will drive a preference for our phones among carriers and lead to more rapid turn-over in phone purchases by consumers. With new applications available over-the-air, consumers may realize that they need a better phone.”
Motorola provides a hosted service on the server side until carriers can get their own solution up and running. In carrier-centric markets such as the United States, Motorola will use the technology to back its carrier customers. In Asia, for instance, Motorola will use the technology to deliver its own content and service plays, according to Eckels.
Eckels said that FOTA should be thought of in two distinct ways, FOTA-capable and FOTA-enabled. Motorola is installing FOTA software into most of its mid- and high-tier portfolio; under Motorola’s platform strategy-one platform, many phone models-it’s simply cheaper to include it. For carriers that aren’t ready to provide FOTA services, the feature is turned off-thus the device might be said to be FOTA-capable, but not FOTA-enabled.
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications pursues a somewhat similar model, partnering with Red Bend for client-based solutions and offering smaller carriers its own network server-based software. Two philosophies govern the end-consumer experience: should carriers send FOTA fixes and updates “invisibly” as a push technology, or should the consumer be empowered to select a menu item and pull help?
“FOTA is becoming a `hygiene factor,’ most carriers are moving in that direction,” said Ken Brown, manager for software systems testing at Sony Ericsson’s Research Triangle Park facility in North Carolina.
Most players, including Brown, point out that the rising complexity of handsets makes FOTA activity inevitable and not just for fixing glitches. Brown said that FOTA activity might include new industry standards in security, perhaps a feature too recently developed to include at launch, or network changes that demand client-side alterations.
“We’re not using this as a crutch to be able to rush software out sooner,” Brown said. “I’d say it’s a safety net.”
Red Bend’s Morten Grauballe, a vice president for marketing, agreed.
“People are not keen to talk about `defects,”‘ he said. “In fact, a lot of so-called defects will never emerge to the consumer’s attention. But the sheer amount of software on mobile phones forces the issue. That’s why deployment of FOTA is taking off.”
Right now, Grauballe said, 80 percent of the FOTA market focuses on fixes and updates, but that’s shifting quickly to focus on revenue-generating services and applications as carriers realize the advantages of the technology.
“Previously, launching new services depended on the handset replacement cycle,” Grauballe said.
This opens the phone not just to carriers hoping to lure consumers into spending on wireless data, but would also allow the consumer to personalize their handset by, for instance, purchasing an upgraded browser, or other functionality that serves their particular needs.
The next trend is to drive FOTA capabilities down into the reference designs for mobile chipsets, something Bitfone has achieved already with Qualcomm Inc. and Freescale Semiconductor.
Sunil Marolia, vice president for marketing at Bitfone, said the shift from FOTA-enabled fixes to revenue-generating services may take two years as networks and devices require some advances, as do the mindsets of handset vendors, network operators and consumers to realize the technology’s potential.
As is typical in a rapidly emerging technology that promises so much, laying claim to market leadership is widespread. All three vendors-Red Bend, Innopath and Bitfone-explicitly claimed market leadership during interviews last week based on various criteria and metrics.
Now, there’s a sign that there’s money to be made in FOTA.
