Tuesday, February 7, 2012

MobileMonday roundtable - where's the innovation?

Last night was MobileMonday Toronto's annual Meet the Analysts event at the MaRS Discovery District facility. I was invited to moderate, and fortunately, the weather co-operated. Last week I was at the ITExpo in Miami, and my flight back to Toronto yesterday came off without any delays - phew!

Joining me on the panel was my Frost & Sullivan pal, Ronald Gruia, and Mike Abramsky from RBC Capital Markets. We were there to talk about our outlook for the mobile market in 2012, and we could have gone on a long time. The turnout was solid - I'd say about 200 attendess, and Jim Brown's team at MobileMonday Toronto has done a great job to organize this community.

The event was not recorded, but there was plenty of on-the-fly commentary on their Twitter feed - #momoto - so, check that out to see what you missed. I'd say the big theme last night was innovation, and my concern was where it was going to come from.

We all agreed that the incumbents are not really driving this in Canada, and a lot will have to come either from the handset vendors - as per Mike Abramsky's view - or the developer community, which was where I was going. Ronald, being a globetrotter, added an international view, citing examples where operators overseas are doing all kinds of interesting things, especially with the two-sided business model. If you don't know what that is, you'll need to start following folks like Ronald and me more closely! Otherwise, if you missed it, you missed it, but if this space is on your radar, at minimum, you should plug into MobileMonday Toronto, and maybe you can make it next time.




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