John Linton
......where is Android going.......... and is Exetel being inexorably drawn in to an ever greater reliance on in house software development?
Exetel has been working on developing MoIP apps for use on its mobile data offerings for almost two years with many frustrations and recently some increasing success. We have 'narrowed' our focus to the Symbion platform to be able to offer a solid 'product' and have pretty much got a good set of apps based on that platform. We will also offer an iPhone version when/if we can untangle the issues with Optus legal obligations to Apple which has not been possible so far although we have the software and firmware to provide these services on iPhones we haven't been able to convince Optus to let us do it.
We looked at Android version of of our MoIP, SMoIP and FoIP applications but all the technical advice has been about the variety of Android 'versions' and the support issues that entails. The problem is summed up in this article:
http://gigaom.com/2010/04/27/googles-android-fragmentation-problem-persists-admob/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OmMalik+%28GigaOM%29
Our MoiP app has been popular with our more mature (maturer?) residential customers who helped us debug and add features to it and we will continue to do that. As we slowly build our corporate wireless business we are using 'uncopyable differentiators' to allow us to compete with the "free hardware" approaches of the carriers and the service ineptitude of the 'shops'. We also have two other unique advantages (the back end 'control room' and the ability to spread usage over multiple users) but the real advantage we are seeking is providing mobile voice and SMS services over IP which allows us to provide unmatchable per call pricing to business users.
We really need to offer the services over all major handset types but our difficulties with Optus 'legals' on the iPhone (which I personally don't believe but I'm too polite to say that) and the problems with multiple Android 'versions' as spelled out in the article are major barriers.We need to resolve this issue in the shorter rather than the longer term. As a poster on a previous blog noted there are an increasing number of "gadgets" becoming available based on the Android versions and these new devices find a ready market in IT sections of large companies and this represents an opportunity for a company like Exetel.
MoIP and SMoIP are not offered by any of the carriers (for all the obvious reasons) and therefore also not offered by any of the carrier's shops or distributors.Depending on any future change of view by the carriers, it is unlikely that they will ever offer MoIP or SMoIP to corporate customers - though never say never in the technology business is even more applicable than in the spy business Mr Bond. At the moment the usual reticence is evident about using MoIP by corporates even though the rebuttal that if it is ever a problem simply switch to GSM is blindingly obvious. I am of the opinion that over the balance of this year the ability to reduce a company's mobile telephone bill by a minimum of 50% will become more compelling. Perhaps I'm being too optimistic.
One of the advantages, to us, of developing Android versions of the MoIP and SMoIP applications is that the large carriers simply won't do that - either because they are 'tied' to their contracts for handsets to Nokia and/or Apple or simply because the 'support' issues are almost insoluble for their methods of distribution. We will make up our mind on how to address the Android problems once we get 'finality' on how to provide our services on Apple hand sets.
The issue that is really concerning me is how much additional resource our in house software development is requiring and as we take the first look at an FY2011 business plan how greatly the future budgets for R and D and in house systems development have grown over the years. This is partly inevitable because of our decision in November 2003 to 'write' all of our own software required to run the company across ten different products/services but over the past two years or so the amount of programming we are doing that is unrelated to our core systems or even our own operations continues to grow steeply.
It signals a change in direction for Exetel which is neither unwelcome nor a surprise but when it is reflected in future figures it becomes clear that Exetel has diverged from the path it was on over the first five years of its existence.
If my maternal grandmother was correct - a change is as good as a rest.
I would really like a rest.
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