I won't hide that I am a long time member of Mobius, a private group primarily sponsored by Microsoft composed of tech enthusiasts/bloggers. MS holds an annual meet-up and invite interesting speakers to talk about the mobile industry, tech trends, and the future. I got invited to the group in 2003 when I was still running ClieSource, an enthusiast site for the once popular Sony Clié Palm OS PDA.

I wasn't part of this year's event but for those interested, Jason Dunn posted a summary of what transpired (here). I'm posting this since I found Jason's summary of Michael Gartenberg's (of Interpret) talk (here) really interesting. Here's a copy Jason's notes of Gartenberg's presentation based on research:

• Global Perspective on Converged Devices - Mexico 79% wants converged device, only 29% in USA, 25% in Japan. The more developed countries are OK with having multiple devices.
• In 2012 connectivity will be ubiquitous.
• The Kindle model was a huge breakthrough in the model of how connectivity can be integrated - there's no monthly fee for the customer, it's part of the purchase cost of the product
• The Kindle model has significant DRM problem; limited downloads per book, multiple downloads trigger download errors
• Technology should be used to unlock new business models, not to protect old business models
• Pandora and Spotify can't exist much longer - they don't make enough money to pay for the content that they're using, and consumers aren't willing to pick up the slack
• Apple hasn't moved into the subscription music business because they can't get terms that are favourable to them
• The phone market is still up for grabs - Motorola phone use is 24% in the US. iPhone? Only 3% world-wide, HTC 1%
• Carrier dissatisfaction? 72% of people like their carriers. It's not as awful as the digirati makes it out to be
• Companies are changing in role - Apple is moving from the home into the workplace with work -email and productivity, while RIM is moving from the business market into the home with better Web-browsing, communication, entertainment and media
• Consumers thought that, on average, $171 is the most appropriate price for their future handset
• There is no market for $500 devices - no significant market at least
• The consumer is not being driven by media centricity; it's the reliability durability of the phone (34%) unless it's an iPhone then only 20.4% care about it. 31.2% care about the shape/physical design of the phone, unless it's an iPhone then it's 14%
• Younger generations listen to more music on their phones
• 87% of teens own a mobile phone, but only 56% of them own MP3 players
• Consumers show a preference for short-form video rather than full-length movies
• 30% of consumers prefer free, advertising-supported video rather than paying
• Where do consumers go for content? 44% use iTunes, 32% of Limewire, Kazaa, etc. 14% go to Amazon.com
• What's driving the file sharing experience? 33% say it's because it's the easiest way to access digital songs, episodes of TV shows, and movies. 31% say it's because they can't afford to pay retail price for the entertainment
• Back in the day, when Palm OS was as its strongest point, 2/3rds of users had never installed a third party app. "Power Users" had installed 10 apps on average. 2-3 apps per device. iPhone and iPod Touch? 2 billion apps divided by 50 million total devices...50 apps on average per device
• Why do consumers pay for apps? 53% say because there's no free app that do they want
• Apple dominates the digital audio player market in the US: 26% Nano, Shuffle 15%, iPod Video15%, iPod Touch 14%, Sandisk Sansa 9%, Sony Walkman 7%, Creative Zen 6%, Microsoft Zune 6%, Samsung Yepp 2%...
• Apple controls the message, tech journalists parrot what Steve Jobs says
• You either seize the opportunity, or cede the opportunity

I haven't had any Kindle 'DRM problems', as mentioned above, and I haven't seen any mentioned either. Maybe I'm not watching the right forums.

*gasp* your sponsored by Microsoft!

Thanks for the informative post! Interesting that $171 is the appropriate price that consumers are willing to pay. I wonder if that's an average seeing as how it's not closer to the standard 100, 150, 200, etc..

I'm not. The group is. Just to be clear, I don't work nor am getting paid by MS. A selected few just gets invited to an annual Mobius get-together event.

Rafe Blandford, Matthew Miller, Ryan Block, Peter Rojas, James Kendrick, Arne Hess are some of the names you must have heard before. They are also in the group.

Sure, name names...



Good stuff BTW, thanks.