A Report on MAC India 2009
I had been to Mobile applications Conference India last week since I eager to check how much the enthusiasm is, for mobile apps development locally in India? There were around 800 people and there were also 15-20 exhibitors. Sun Startup Essentials & Forum Nokia were present but we were missing an operator presence – the organizer SiliconIndia should make sure that they bring in an operator – they are many now – to hear their point-of-view. I am happy to see a ‘critical mass’ developing here in this area. There were:
- Arvind Rao from OnMobile which is one of the leaders in this space currently.
- Prakash Sayini from Forum Nokia.
- Bakshish Dutta from Sun Startup Essentials.
There were other speakers from TCS, InMobi, TeleDNA, MChek, Navteq, Satnav, MapMyIndia, etc. The event was well organized by SiliconIndia. I have summarized the key points for start-ups in this space, as advised by the various speakers & panel discussions:
I have shared some of the keep points that were brought out by the speakers & also during the panel discussions:
- Indian consumers are value conscious and there are very few people using high-end phones. Understand the needs of the target niche segment of users for your mobile app first – instead of just developing a ‘me too’ app.
- There is no one killer app, there are many killer apps for different user segments.
- Speech and not data is the lowest common denominator for most of the phones & users. Main reason why OnMobile started to develop speech based apps first. Their techies had experience from Philips & Nuance projects in Infosys.
- Be patient – OnMobile was not successful immediately. At one point they were even thinking of closing the shop but fortunately they had VCs funds.
- Time-to-market is critical since lifecycle of apps is short. Also need to constantly think of improving the app. Developers & operators do not need to worry about micro-billing & micro-promotions since network-side platform provide those features.
- UI and UX are the two main factors of apps to create user ‘stickiness’. Arvind indicated the Phone Back-up product for cumbersome UI.
- User roles, identity & profiles is also important.
- ‘AppStore model’ has created a level-playing fields for developers. But whether we need to share revenue with operators even for apps which require the network only for download is to be questioned!
- Which kind of applications? Amit Mehta of TCS talked about ABCD – Astrology, Bollywood, Cricket & Devotional. LBS applications still hold some promise. Whether video-based apps hold any promise was a question from audience but it requires 2.5/3G adoption which has not got much usage in India yet!
- Last but not least – give ESOPs to make the whole team part of the company growth.
Of course, there was a separate panel discussion on LBS – Navteq, Interchain Solutions, Satnav & mapmyindia executives. I was interested in LBS based apps for Elderly Caredomain back in my days at Inst. for Infocomm Research (I2R) in 2002. BUT security & privacy are THE MOST important issues still to be addressed, this WIRED magazine article is an interesting read – covers both the good & the bad sides of LBS & also some incomplete solutions!!!
