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What do you think the future holds for mobile devices?
What do you think the future of mobile devices is going to look like? What are some other already new things that we are starting to hear about?
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In my opinion, the next big thing is cloud-based mobile computing.
There's little disputing the fact that the average consumer is demanding more and more from their handsets. This is driving up the average cost of handsets for more computing power to handle the load. On the business end, handset subsidies have to increase to offset these costs to the consumer while at the same time, the service is more and more commoditized (driving down prices). This is a lose-lose for the carriers.
Enter cloud-based mobile devices.
Today, most devices have IP connectivity to the internet at data rates more than sufficient for a reasonable screen refresh rate. Instead of processing data directly on the handset, many applications would get a performance bump by being virtualized on a cloud based back-end.
The technology will be similar to remote desktop solutions like VDI. In this scenario, the mobile device would access its "virtual image" on the cloud. All of the heavy lifting would be handled there (in the cloud) and the screen output would be delivered to the device. The device itself would require little more than a good radio and basic processing/memory. Of course it should also have the capability of caching things like games and certain functions to use off-line, but most things are done online anyway.
There are also several security advantages to this approach that would be very attractive to corporate customers as well. When a handset is lost or stolen, all of the important data is actually on the cloud so it is as simple as de-authorizing the previous device and authorizing a new one.
Mobile application development, distribution, and support become simpler by several orders of magnitude, and the list goes on.
On the business side, handset capabilities are less important and commoditization extends to handsets. This should drive down handset costs and help carriers in the long run. All of this enables lower costs to the customer which drives up demand.
I believe the first carrier to embrace and employ the cloud in this way will have a big win.
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