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This post is inspired by a presentation by Adobe’s Anup Murarka at South by South West. He talked about the future of Adobe Flash for the mobile platform. I’ll cover some of the highlights from Anup’s presentation but will put the topic in a different perspective, namely that of the mobile network operators.
Currently, 98% of desktop computers support Flash, but not even a tenth of mobile phones has Flash support. This is expected to change dramatically over the next couple of years though.
Smartphones are getting better, not only in capabilities, but also in hardware quality. Similar to desktops, notebooks and netbooks, a growing number of smartphones will also boast multi-core processors and graphics processors that can serve up rich media.
Adobe’s new version of Flash—version 10.1—will be cross-platform. Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Symbian, BlackBerry, Android, you name it—all will be supported by Flash 10.1.
Adobe expects to get around 10% of mobile penetration for Flash this year, but expect to grow that number to over 50% by the end of 2012.
This outlook is great for web development as it becomes possible to create and distribute rich media consistently across multiple operating systems on both mobile and desktop platforms.
Hardware manufacturers and consumers are looking to warm up to a richer mobile experience, but are network providers? With cable and telephony providers, there are many content providers (like Hulu and Netflix) that piggy-back on the infrastructure and services that are delivered by the network providers (ISPs).
Once these and other content providers expand to the mobile arena, mobile network operators will be in a similar situation. The traditional business model is already being disrupted by VoIP (applications) and WiMAX. Rich media and its content/service providers pose a threat to mobile network operators in the sense that (1) they cut into the mobile network operators’ value proposition and (2) widespread consumption of rich media could overload the network.
At the same time, the rise of rich media also presents opportunities for mobile network operators to add value to their service offering. On the one hand, mobile network operators can learn a lot from what is happening to the television landscape. On the other hand, I’d also like to see them proactively seek out partnerships that eventually add value to customers.
What do you say?
