Mobile Applications vs. the Mobile Web vs. ODP

There has been a lot of discussion around mobile applications this year. Certainly a good sign if 2008 is to be the year of open access. The predictions on mobile applications (web or native), however, range from death sentences to explosive growth. In this entry, I’ve taken a look at the three extreme perspectives and why they feel the way they do. In the next entries I’ll address what it is that they’re all missing and how (I think) mobile software will evolve.

Michael Mace and Elia Freedman claim in the “Mobile applications, RIP” blog post that native mobile applications are dead and the mobile web is the way to go. Freedman turned out to be a fellow Hillsboro, OR resident and so I had the chance to meet him and hear the story about his company. Without a doubt I understand exactly what Mace and Freedman were getting at, and I think they are both right…. and wrong.

At the opposite spectrum is Russell Beattie who sadly announced the closure of his mobile web startup Mowser. In his blog Beattie states, “I don’t actually believe in the ‘Mobile Web’ anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at best, and dying at worst.”

From another angle we have On-Device Portals (ODP). Scott Silk, CEO of Seattle-based Action Engine, mentioned in the April edition of Wireless Week that the ODP market is exploding. So from his perspective, there is an enormous opportunity for mobile applications.
 

It is interesting to note the divergent perspectives of Beattie, Mace, Freedman and Silk. So what is the reality? What is in and what is out? And what is sustainable? Unfortunately my crystal ball is broken and so I can’t give you an exact description on how the future is going to be. Instead I will give you my best prediction based on my 10+ years in the mobile space.

I agree with Mace and Freedman - native mobile applications are on life support. They aren’t quite dead and won’t be for a few more years, but the market will be limited to applications requiring “extreme” local horsepower or applications requiring real-time processing of native phone functions (one great example is BlackBaller from Killer Mobile). Closed platforms are opening, enabling third parties to address the customers’ desire for universal and ubiquitous applications. By definition, native mobile applications cannot fulfill this demand.

Despite what Freedman is seeing, I believe that mobile web as it is today is also dying (I’m even counting the iPhone, as I believe it is in a hype cycle). The main reason for this I will get into later, but it boils down to the simple fact that mobile devices are not the same as desktop computer; they are different. User expectations and requirements are different. The environments are different. The desired and required behaviors are different. It is my belief that any mobile strategy based on traditional web development models aren’t going to work in the long run.

Keep in mind that just because a technology is dead or dying doesn’t mean it can’t come back to life in a different form. There are other options and I will explore these in my next entries.

In the next few days I will post a blog entry for each of these three application technologies before I head into my prediction of why United States will take the lead in mobile application development but lag in technology adoption.