Mobile Internet devices. What and Why? Pt.2 of 2

In part 1 of this overview of my thoughts about the mobile Internet device market, I talked about what a MID is in technical terms and what it is to end-users. The mid is the ‘complete Internet device product’  that’s going to enable mobile Internet features through the Internet connected browser facility. Lets take a look at it from the other side now. A good concept is worth nothing if it’s of no value to the manufacturer or reseller.

Advantages for the manufacturer.

For OEMs and resellers the mobile Internet device has a lot of very important and desirable advantages and opportunities.

Same hardware, new markets. MIDs will enable the diversification of the personal, pocketable computer without competing with smartphones, notebook PC or UMPCs. Its a new market and that’s obviously an advantage if you can exploit it using your existing technology and partners.

Short-term life-span. Gadgets have shorter life-spans than PC’s. They are simpler, cheaper and importantly, related to the world of fashion. A year-long life-span is an accepted part of the gadget ecosystem and in some cases it could be more profitable to move UMPC-like products and developments down into the MID segment purely to benefit from more churn.

Low-cost software development. PCs, be it small or large, rely on a rather heavyweight software architecture called Windows. Quick and flexible software development based on existing open-source Linux project or other existing cores shortens the software development time. This is perfect for a gadget market.

One core, many interfaces. Just like a single VW chassis is used on the Golf, Seat, Skoda and Audi cars, so existing software cores can be re-used for different end products just by overlaying a targeted user interface and enabling/disabling features.

Highly targeted niche audiences. This is the consumer market. Different types of people exist so there’s an opportunity to develop multiple flavors of a device for different types of customer. This isn’t a one-solution-fits-all market.

Creative marketing. By creating a new segment you create a blank sheet for marketing and advertising companies. There will be no more need to focus on memory and processor specs. Agencies will be free to come up with completely new concepts and ideas for usage without having to fulfil pre-determined ground-rules.

New revenue streams. Finally as I mentioned in a previous post, enabling new revenue streams by partnering with wireless operators introduces a new model that can reduce the shelf price of goods. Carriers only play partnering games when a device is locked down to their specifications and are easy to support.

There’s a lot in it for manufacturers. But there are others that can benefit.

Advantages for social Internet sites.

Facebook has 500 million in its back pocket and a user base of 30m. Most of those users sit are sitting on their bum when they use Facebook. Facebook could actually build, tailor and brand and subsidise a MID and sell it to millions. Those millions would double, treble or maybe even more, their Facebook use. What would that do to Facebook’s ad revenues? Huge things. MIDs enable Facebook to achieve this tailored and targeted mobile Internet device.

Advantages for advertising agencies.

Again, i’m no expert in the mobile advertising space but a lot of companies are getting excited about it. Google have already extended their advertising product to small screen spaces and with location-aware MIDs, the possibilities to target a user with advertising become quite interesting. This is an area I am going to monitor over the coming months and years. As a blogger/site owner I’m someone that could potentially benefit from mobile advertising. So far I haven’t optimised any of my sites for small screens but it’s something I will do as soon as the need grows.

When will the MID market start?

It already has. The iPhone and Nokia Internet Tablet are mobile Internet devices although maybe not by Intel’s ‘MID’ definition. There are others that could be put into the bracket too but most of these aren’t being marketed as such.

Many more devices are planned for 2008 though. Intel has shown prototypes. VIA too. Google is rumored to be working on a mobile Internet core, ARM are raising their hand and there will be a lot more people in the ring very soon. Back in 2006, when Origami devices launched, no-one could see further than the end of the year but there’s now a huge amount of planning going into platforms and products for 2009 and 2010. I don’t think its a case of ‘if’ it will happen any more.

Will the mobile phone converge with the MID device?

I don’t see this happening for at least 5 years and the reason is that consumers want small, stylish phones as their 24/7 comm’s device and are already used to carrying a second device – a media player. The small mobile phone presents major design challenges for screens and input mechanism which maybe resolved in the future though roll-out screens and keyboards but I don’t see that moving into the consumer segment for a long long time yet. What is more likely to happen is that the music player, video player and mobile Internet device could converge into a jacket-pocket sized device. There will always be a market for a single specialised device but the the music, video and Internet industries are building close ties now and the technologies and social connections between them are also very closely linked.

X86 or ARM? CISC or RISC?

Right now its impossible to say. The ARM ecosystem has an advantage in that it is already in the consumer space and is focused on small, low-power devices. x86-based devices have an important processing power advantage. In the early years (until 2009) I think the best mobile Internet devices will come from the ARM camp purely because size and battery life are incredibly important benchmarks but after that, when Intel’s Moorestown, VIA’s mobile-itx and AMDs system on chip solutions are more advanced and efficient, there could be a leveling of the playing-field. If the processing power demands go up through advanced video codecs, p2p video/ip and complex web techniques then x86 could have the advantage. It remains to be seem what features get picked-up as favorites by the newly emerging mobile Internet customer base.

Summary.

Mobile Internet Devices are all about ‘consumerising’ computers and smartphones and using the Internet connected browser/application to ‘facilitise’ exciting and compelling ‘features.’ Hardware manufacturers have a lot to gain along with large customer-base Internet sites and Internet advertising agencies. The market has already started but 2008-2010 should see the results of a huge amount of development work that is already going on in the background. The ARM ecosystem has a great advantage in the early stages but if customers embrace higher-end video and highly advanced Internet technologies, there could be some real opportunities for x86-based platforms.