Open, Schmopen: Wireless Networks Are Still Closed

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Consumer Access to Apps Is Limited

The final obstacle to achieving openness is the applications running on these devices. Because of the success of the iPhone, the BlackBerry, and other proprietary platforms, application vendors still have the burden of designing apps for at least three primary platforms and possibly five or six if they want to cover the entire marketplace. This is an impossible burden for the many relatively small vendors of innovative applications. Because of this, the handset world is far from commodity-oriented like the PC market is. As much as many profess to dislike the Microsoft hegemony, the fact that 90% to 95% of the world's PCs run its operating systems makes Windows very attractive for software vendors.

Will such a monopoly ever exist in the phone market? I don't see any major consolidation happening for the next few years. So inequality for apps will persist across the various handset platforms. Many of the app vendors will have to choose which platform to support as they probably can't cope with supporting all the popular platforms at once. So they'll concentrate on the most popular platforms, including the iPhone and Storm, and leave the rest behind.

The result of this "unopen openness" is confusion for many consumers, and even for some business users. The fact is, most consumers do not pick a phone for its OS; they pick it for its features and "coolness" factor. Business users, on the other hand, pick a platform, rather than a specific phone. They make a long-term commitment just as they do in many other technology choices. But the lack of openness certainly means the market will remain dispersed over many device and platform choices. And consumers will end up with access to only those apps they can get for their chosen device, and may not get something "hot" that is available on another device (e.g., Apple iPhone apps don't work on the BlackBerry Storm or HTC G1).

Openness and Revenues Will Go Together

So can we ever get to openness? Yes. But it will take a while. Market forces are pushing the carriers toward more openness. (Who would have thought even three or four years ago that we would ever have carriers endorse the concept of open networks?) It's likely that the best chance we have for truly open networks will come in the next three to five years as the next generation of 4G networks (LTE, WiMAX) are widely deployed. The advent of new device types (not just smartphones, but also Mobile Internet Devices and netbooks) will require a reevaluation of carrier testing and certification processes as well. Carriers will eventually be forced to abandon their current "open but highly controlled" philosophy.

More pressure will come as more data-capable devices are deployed and more data-based revenues are generated on carrier networks. Let's face it: Carriers and equipment vendors are capitalists, and more openness will equate to more revenues. That will drive openness far more effectively than corporate pronouncements and even regulatory intervention. Openness will come—but not without some hesitancy and barriers along the way.

Gold is the founder and principal analyst at J.Gold Associates, an information technology analyst firm based in Northborough, Mass., covering the many aspects of business and consumer computing and emerging technologies.