The communications industry is experiencing unprecedented change. Intense competition, consolidation, margin pressures and having to invest in new technologies is driving the need for new ways to improve efficiency and scalability, while achieving a fundamentally lower cost structure. At the same time, consumers have become far more discriminating about their services and devices (often called the "iPhone effect"), user experience trumps technology and price as the key driver behind purchase and adoption. One of the main catalysts for improving user experience is the shift to mobile platforms that leverage such open source community software as Google Android, Linux Mobile (LiMo), and Symbian.

The promise of open mobile platforms is compelling: better subscriber experience, more money for carriers and a bonanza of new applications. In other words, the walled-garden view of the Internet is tumbling down.

The business model is also compelling for ecosystem participants. In such countries as India and Africa where PC penetration is still considerably low, the mobile phone is becoming the ubiquitous device for Internet access. This shift in usage resulted in the rapid development of new applications including electronic payments, ticket reservations and mobile banking.

However, with all of the promise, the emerging open mobile ecosystem faces a number of challenges, including security, interoperability and diverging next-generation technologies. This article will cover the relative strengths of open source mobile technology, anticipated barriers to growth, and how the entire mobile community, including carriers, handset manufacturers, application developers and component providers, must adopt a holistic approach to allow the open source mobile revolution to realize its greatest potential for success.

The Current Landscape
In 2011, smartphone shipments are expected to exceed 320 million, with mobile advertising revenue poised to explode to almost $13 billion from less than $2 billion in 2007. One analyst forecasts mobile data revenues will increase by a compounded annual growth rate of 16 percent from $24 billion in 2007 to over $100 billion in 2017.

With open mobile devices now hitting existing and emerging markets, equipment manufacturers, application vendors and service providers are tackling the steak of this sizzle--solving the technical and operational challenges to enable a new world where mobile devices overtake desktops for Internet access.

Access to new technologies including Wi-Fi, femtocell, WiMAX and LTE, combined with the need for legacy infrastructure and existing billing and operational system integration, add to the complexity of widespread deployment and adoption of open mobile platforms. These technical and product lifecycle challenges are faced by semiconductor companies, handset manufactures, independent software vendors and service providers alike. These challenges can be logically grouped into the following:

• Creating a compelling user experience and user interface
• Maturation of complete solutions based on open operating systems like Android and Symbian
• Deployment modeling, network engineering and performing the complex testing;
• Billing, provisioning, operational and business system integration
• Ensuring adequate security for mobile devices and applications;
• Enabling a smooth migration to future wireless technologies like WiMAX and LTE

Experience Engineering
Today's consumers expect more from their mobile device. One of the first priorities for meeting that expectation is to conceptualize the ideal user experience. A user interface should be compelling, easy to use, and able to be implemented given the technologies that must be managed, such as power consumption, screen resolution, access technology, security and more. This step has long been the responsibility of the device manufacturer and solutions were dictated by the unique characteristics of specific hardware and software. Because of the technical challenges faced in just meeting functional requirements, creating a satisfying user experience has too often been a low priority, resulting in usability compromises. Inconsistency exists across a carrier's product lineup, which can result in lost dollars for the carrier. Industry research shows that 55 percent of potential 3G users abandon value added services (VAS) due to basic usability issues such as difficulty navigating through menus, inability to find downloaded content, or a forgotten password.

New, more flexible mobile platforms such as Android promise to reintroduce creativity and invention into this process. An external community of developers can create, iterate on, and refine modular software components. Designers and engineers can spend more time envisioning new products and services, and less time struggling to make the pieces work together. This will allow carriers and handset manufacturers to differentiate their products to meet customer demand and get them to market faster. Interfaces and interactions can be harmonized across the product line, not only for core applications, but also for sourced applications as well. And devices become endlessly customizable over the entire lifespan of the product.