Mobile World Congress 2013 Takeaways

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013 Tom Truong, Product Manager

Walking all the exhibit halls and seeing the miniature cities raised for meeting centers left the impression that mobile is going to become even more interwoven in our daily lives. I’m going to recap the tech highlights of Mobile World Congress, but first I’d like to share some takeaways from the conference as a whole.

Every company wants a mobile play

And why shouldn’t they? That’s where their customers are. Here at MWC, the immediate impact of this idea can be seen in the effort and resources put forth by companies to seize the market and mindshare. Well-established companies and startups alike see mobile as a land grab opportunity to dominate and be relevant in the immediate and near future.

Here is one of many “hospitality” suites that built out like town centers at MWC. Amdocs would like to curb the support costs of smart devices with their on-device agents.

eBay states that $400 is spent every second on eBay Mobile. Shopping on mobile is going to be huge.

AirWatch managed one of the largest exhibit booths by also incorporating room for their partners.

Visa looks as much a technology company as a financial institution.

It’s about proliferation, not consolidation

As far as mobile ecosystems go, Android and iOS aren’t going to budge from their number one and two spots any time soon. The majority of smartphones and tablets today are ARM-based and it’s a good probability that the chipsets are from Qualcomm or Nvidia. Got a device from Samsung or Apple? You’re far from alone, across the planet.

However the atmosphere and evidence of everything here at MWC suggests that these footholds are transient. Microsoft, Blackberry, Intel, LG, and plenty others are gearing up for round two.

Mozilla just launched FireFox OS to compete in the low to mid-end mobile market. The OS was mostly fluid on the Telefonica devices, and seemed to be very solid for the target market.

Huawei’s expanding beyond the low-end market with some impressive devices like Ascend P2–a gorgeous screen and a 13MP camera!

From ultrabooks to a new emphasis on mobile, Intel is heavily promoting their Android-based device capabilities such as battery life and graphics performance.

Samsung continues its Windows 8 tablet foray with the Ativ Smart PC. I loaded the iPass Open Mobile client on it, ran our speed test, and wow, Wi-Fi here was blisteringly fast!

On the whole, innovation felt iterative, not disruptive at this MWC

While I’m sure I missed a few announcements, there didn’t seem to be anything disruptive in technology this year. New devices are typically slab-styled and made of plastic and glass. Display technologies now crammed with more pixels into bigger screens. Android is being introduced into more consumer electronics.

Device manufacturers seemed desperate to find a hook with consumers this time around. To wit:

Samsung: more screen sizes, advance the stylus, more CPU cores
Huawei: higher end devices, better screens
HTC: better sound, less intrusive homescreen branding
ZTE: more camera megapixels, higher end devices
Sharp: dual screens, thin design
Motorola: kevlar material, Intel inside
LG: Qslide multitasking, better screens

There were good advancements at this year’s MWC, but again it seemed iterative. I’m still waiting for new battery technologies that take us from single day use to week long use in the same form factor. Don’t get me wrong, by no means was it a boring MWC. There were a few standouts. I’ll get to those shortly. Stay tuned.

Tags: Android, iOS, mobile worker, smartphone, tablet