The Mobile Monday (MoMo) hosted by One97 Communications brought together mobile enthusiasts, developers, VC?s, entrepreneurs, service providers among others.
The theme of the event was Device OEMs and eco-system and the discussions at the day-long event threw up some interesting perspectives. Some of the key points of the discussion included:
? The race between Smartphones and feature phones is heating up the market. The killer feature of Smartphones is really the price point.
? New chipsets are being released for Android 2.1 at lower price ranger.
? Niche devices like Peek have taken a different approach to the market by focusing on a niche like Email. Being positioned as an email device for SMB?s gives Peek phones an advantage in the market.
? Samsung BADA was able to achieve a target of one million devices in less than a month riding on the high-end phone wave. It is targeting 10 million devices in the next few months. The company has also launched a bold new developer program, where the billings via the operator channel are available. BADA has a bold vision of Smartphone for all.
? Challenges for Android and other non-Apple app stores include very low penetration of paid apps. There are very few applications, which are monetized. There are a lot of applications but very little revenue. Apple is the only company to have an app store that makes money.