It's only been 2 weeks since Orange and O2 in the UK displayed anger towards Nokia over the inclusion of Skype on their N97. Rumours bounced around of them throwing the rattle out of the pram and not wanting to stock the possible iphone killer.
Well I suppose it's not as bad as 96 when US telecoms companies asked congress to ban IP phones.
Since then O2 have confirmed it will not rule out stocking the handset "if the experience is right" whatever that means. Let’s see what Orange has to say in the coming weeks.
But why all the fuss?
For years mobile operators have been trying to identify themselves as something different to that of a bitpipe. But what are they actually doing about it apart from producing unintelligible adverts and creating complex price plans.
All the great new mobility services I see are developed by the likes of Google, Flickr, Twitter and Skype... the list goes on.
Application nirvana began with the synergy of handset manufactures and these very software developers, this has now exploded as the user can access these application shop fronts directly. Android market and itunes apps are already paving the way.
With Nokia's Ovi store (May 09) and similar offerings from Microsoft to follow it looks as if traditional mobile operator offerings such as voicemail and callback (any more I ask ?) will be floundering in their wake.
With Google voice hitting Beta yesterday these apps just keep coming.
Mobile operators should embrace these edge applications and see how they can work together with developers to improve their subscriber’s quality of experience.
If they expand the IP horizon as far as it will go (3GPP Rel8 anyone ?) and invest in their existing cores it should help them flourish as a proud bitpipe.
Hey they might even look to implement IPv6 but that won't become an issue until 2012 will it?
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