Opinion: What's next for Asia's mobile industry?

Open wide
During our Asian tour there was a breath of fresh air in the form of Android and the Open Handset Alliance, which both LG and Samsung are involved with. While neither manufacturer would confirm when it was going to ship an Android device, there's no denying that an open platform presents both manufacturers with an invaluable opportunity -- to properly copy the iPhone.

That might be a cynical way of looking at it, but nevertheless what the iPhone has shown the rest of the industry is that by allowing third-party developers to create a proper app ecosystem, the consumer experience becomes much more meaningful.

The idea that an open consumer platform increases a handset's worth, both locally and globally, was strongly emphasised during our time in Japan. Music phones, camera phones, phones that test your breath for alcohol or help you exercise -- you name it, you can find it in a Japanese phone shop. But an abundance of handsets combined with inflexible platforms makes for a confusing marketplace that doesn't ship well to other countries.

On the second lap of our Asian tour we met with NTT DoCoMo, one of the largest operators in Japan, which candidly explained that it saw simplicity and openness as the way forward, at least in Japan.

So what's the big deal? In Japan, mobile phones seem to be getting too hard to use, or they're packed with features people don't need, which is why an open platform offers the best solution. The fact is that while hardware, including 3G chipsets, is still very important for the industry, it's going to be customisable software and services that will add meaning.

In the same way that Nokia stormed the market with exchangeable covers in the 90s, allowing the masses to individualise their phones, 2009 is going to see 'exchangeable' apps play a key role in making the mobile Internet and location-based services digestible.

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