User-friendliness and simplicity were keywords in Douglas Li’s main presentation at the forum, which was held in conjunction with the Mobile Application Awards. Li, CEO at SmarTone in Hong Kong, said increased network traffic must begin with the user and that mobile phone content should be like fast food – pre-packaged and easily accessible. This may seem obvious but rarely turns out to be the case.

Operators must package content appropriately and take time to understand the individual wishes of users. “If you want to get people to send more picture messages, then it needs to work and it must be easy,” Li said. “The pictures must arrive and be displayed in the right format regardless of the phone’s brand.

“People would not tolerate voice calls arriving late and with varying degrees of quality, or even not at all, depending on the operator or make of phone.”

To increase customer loyalty, SmarTone has realigned its distribution channels so that its retail distribution is now 100 percent own-controlled. “Retailers often don’t care about which operator the customer uses – all they care about is that they buy a phone. If a customer is not satisfied, most retailers don’t take time to analyze the problem or the need. One solution to establish tighter bonds with customers is to take care of the retail distribution directly.” Li said.

The ongoing issue between operators and content suppliers – and one that was also discussed at the Mobile Internet Forum in Vienna last spring –is how to split revenues. Scott D Lipsitz from Rainmaker Capital said large operators must help small content suppliers to survive. They must be prepared to assume some of the risks themselves.

“The bottom line is that if the operators demonstrate a real commitment to these smaller ecosystem players, content providers and applications services companies, the capital markets and financial community will support them by investing in these companies and reducing the financial risks associated with doing business with them.”

He says that the capital markets can only be supportive if they view the commitment from the operators and other larger ecosystem players as genuine: “Whether such a commitment comes in the form of pre-paid advances, direct equity investment, or more favorable revenue splits is not so important. Real commitment is real commitment regardless of how it comes.”

But there is also another important reason why small developers should be treated with respect. “Don’t forget that it is often small companies that are the most innovative and worth supporting,” Lipsitz said.

This year’s Mobile Internet Forum was held jointly with the Ericsson Mobile Application Awards 2003 and the Ericsson Mobility World Matchmaking Session. The event attracted about 360 participants from 36 countries.

Karin Hanson