NGMN Report Card on Developers:  Consider ‘Absolute’ vs ‘Relative’ Risk

I had the pleasure of being asked to speak again to the NGMN Industry Conference, this one was held in Shanghai from June 2-4, 2010 at the Shanghai World Financial Center.  The last conference was held in June of 2008 in Frankfurt.  Both times I was asked to bring the developer perspective.

For those who don't know, the NGMN or Next Generation in Mobile Networks is one of the most significant organizations in our industry.  Their mission is to: to complement and support the work within standardisation bodies by providing a coherent view of what the operator community is going to require in the decade beyond 2010.   It is a C-suite group that decided that LTE IS the next generation mobile network the industry will use.  I am always flattered to get the opportunity to present to this group, which also included presentations by the likes of Jianzhou Wang, Chairman and CEO, China Mobile.  I am also impressed that they have made the effort to think about the developer perspective at the early stages of deployment.  We hope that this early involvement and thoughtfulness can go a long way in supporting mobile development in the next gen or LTE world  by reducing fragmentation and increasing innovation.

In 2008 when I spoke to the NGMN conference, my message  (see slide on Gaps for Developers that Must be Closed) was quite novel to most of them, and I think paved the way for some good thought and activity over the next two years (see slide on Report Card) with increased support for developer programs and other support mechanisms for developers (like sandboxes), changes to structure and fees in certification,  increase in app stores and just overall appreciation for developers.  Fragmentation of course continues to get out of control.

So here is the succinct advice I gave to them to keep up with the challenge! 

1.  Consider 'Absolute' vs 'Relative' Risk - the same sentiment we presented in our Open Letter to WAC.  A hundred million dollars to an operator may be the same relative risk as a $100k to a mobile development company, especially when payroll and the small company itself may be at stake.  We hope this understanding leads to increased payments for developers to reward their effort in risk taking, as well as a reduced time to payment for developers for that crucial cash flow.

2.  Open up the Clique and Mend the Broken Links in the Ecosystem - if 3rd party apps are so darn important to the ecosystem there are a few broken links that need to be fixed.  First, get developers involved with your program.  This is Marketing 101, getting customer and partners involved in strategic planning up front, not after something has been launched.  A few operators have implemented Dev Advisory Councils (WIP has one too), but I am still very disappointed with the WAC initiative who is 'not ready yet' to integrate developers.  How can you  assume you know what developers need, if you don't ask them.......    Second, why do we let developers fly in the dark with limited knowledge and tools?  We hope this creative class can come up with the innovative applications that our users need.  Many times developers do, in spite of industry support.  Wouldn't it be easier to give them some insight into who your customers are and what they need?

3. Become Story Tellers - this advice specifically went to NGMN in regards to LTE.  They need to become better story tellers to let developers know the potential and  capabilities of what LTE performance means to applications beyond all the tech hype - yes we know about higher speeds, lower latency, better QoS; but as we've known about mobile developers for a while, they have shifted their focus from 'cool tech stuff' to being a very market driven crowd (this has been confirmed in the recent Vision Mobile's Developer Economics Report). 

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