Held on 29 November at ITC Grand Maratha Sheraton, Mumbai, the second annual Qualcomm Brew 2006 Developers Conference India was a grand success. The conference discussed trends and issues pertaining to the mobile applications ecosystem and also included an awards ceremony where some of the best BREW developers and applications shone in the lime light.
Boasting of an attendance of more than 200 professionals from the applications development sphere, the conference was studded by sterling sessions by the likes of Reliance Infocomm�s Mahesh Prasad, Tata Teleservices� Pankaj Sethi, Qualcomm�s Kanwalinder Singh, Vishal Gupta, Mike Yuen, Gaurav Jain and Dr. Nikhil Jain; Also outlook4mobility.com�s Andrew Seybold and Mobile Masti Media�s Dr. Nimish Srivastava amongst others.
Developers BREW US$700 Million last year: Kanvalinder Singh
Taking first strike, Kanwalinder Singh – President, QUALCOMM India & SAARC spoke about the usage and availability of Brew in India, He shared, “There are 400 million subscribers of 3G CDMA globally and India has around 40 million subscribers OF CDMA. And soon we are migrating to GSM services also, In India, handsets are ready to have the data usage, now Brew is available on FWP and mobile handsets as well”
Singh remarked, “Brew is available on Kyocera and few other handsets like LG, and soon it will be available on NOKIA CDMA also” mentioning that it has already arrived in US and other countries
He also remarked that revenues close to 700 Million US$ were generated by the BREW developer community globally and that it was adopted by 45 Device manufacturers and 69 operators from across 31 countries worldwide.
3G adoption will be driven by Apps: Andrew Seybold
Speaking next, live from US and relayed to the audience via Video Conferencing was outlook4mobility.com�s Andrew Seybold. Seybold spoke on the state of the wireless (data) industry.
Sharing country wise statistics on voice and data consumption figures for the wireless, Seybold pointed out that while India was second in terms of Average Monthly Minutes of use, it was no 47 in terms of revenue per minute and no 12 in terms of total revenue.
“While 2G Network adoption was driven by voice and SMS, 3G Network adoption will be driven by applications” shared Seybold adding, “Operators have huge investment in 3G capex and want to populate the networks as quickly as possible. They are pushing games, music, video, photos and other applications to entice customers to 3G, this is a great opportunity for content creators”
“By 2009, the mobile application market will be upwards of US1.5 Billion and mobile advertising is projected to be around $1 Billion market by then” he added.
Talking about consumer awareness and importance of the discovery process Seybold shared that “Content must be king, but user experience is queen! 76% of people donâ€?t use data services on their cell phone because itâ€?s too much work”
Concluding his presentation by talking about active content, Seybold shared that “The biggest wireless data mistake is porting the desktop to the wireless. The mobile environment is different and browsing should be the last resort. Wireless data will explode when an evolved user interface solution is developed specifically around the mobile, keeping in mind the environment”
India and the big opportunity in wireless gaming: Mike Yuen
From the Game Developers perspective, one of the most thorough and in depth presentations was made by Qualcomm Gaming group Senior Director, Mike Yuen.
Talking about the huge opportunity that Wireless and Mobile Gaming had in India, Yuen pointed out that, “Most Indians will experience gaming for the first time through their mobile phones. And as such there is no content consumption frame of reference that exists. There are no pre conceived beliefs on how gaming should be purchased, sold, distributed, played and enjoyed. India has an opportunity for creating new ways in which the Gaming ecosystem can exist”
Elaborating on the theory of GEC (Good Enough Console), Mike shared that the mobile phone device thanks to its near ubiquitous accessibility and also to rapid advances in technology had a strong chance of becoming the gaming and digital media and entertainment hub of homes in the emerging markets.
“The Global Revenues for Mobile Gaming were around 2.5 Billion US$ in 2005 and are estimated to reach US$ 6.5 Billion. By 2010, there will be 1.3 Billion game capable phones” shared Mike.
He next spoke about how 3G&3D and the advancing technology in wireless were going to take the mobile gaming experience to the next level. Mike showcased some screenshots from the MSM 7500 Neocore Technology Demo where he displayed high end CG elements such as ray traced lighting, dynamic per pixel lighting, lens flares, glow, motion blur, physically modeled explosions and missile trails. “This is going to be the future of mobile gaming and it sure will be a great experience” shared Yuen.
Talking about the Various kinds of hardware and devices that were competing against each other to be the digital media hub in the home, Yuen shared that the mobile phone stood a good chance but it had to overcome some challenges. “The form factor of Mobile devices which needed to ride an evolutionary curve” he said.
Better Revenue Shares, Focus on Quality, Marketing of Games by Operators
Indiagmes� Gandhigiri@Gaming
One quote that Indiagames Head Vishal Gondal regularly makes is that “We are from the entertainment industry” and boy, was the Indiagames session entertaining! And it probably got home the message in a really light yet efficient way.
An enactment of an original play which extended the theme of Gandhigiri into Gaming had the developer audience cheering loudly. The play depicted an operator who demanded 700 games in a month regardless of quality and offered a ratio of 10:90 revenue share with just 10% going the developer way and with no support for marketing the games. Result: Losses for the operator.
Enter Gandhiji, who advises the operator on treating developers with dignity and asks the exasperated operator to stress on quality rather than quantity. The Mahatma then asks the operator to continue with the 10:90 revenue share ratio, the only change being this time 90% be in the developerâ€?s side coupled with marketing efforts for the key titles. Operator follows Mahatmaâ€?s rule: Result – Profits!
Later on requesting to not be named, a couple of developers shared, “What no one could have spoken openly in a forum, these guys have brilliantly communicated their message through a light hearted play”
While Games and Entertainment have their own space, the presenters stressed that a lot more Utilitarian tools and applications needed to be developed.
The Majors: CDMA Operators talk about the BREW advantage
Pankaj Sethi, President VAS – Tata Teleservices, spoke about the growth of Tata Teleservices by the BREW platform and proliferation in data usage by the customers. Focusing on the apps and games market in India, Sethi discussed the challenges ahead to be faced in India, i.e. Language catalogue for next generation users, managing the huge portfolio of Apps. etc.
Speaking exclusively to AnimationXpress.com, Pankaj Sethi elaborated “We are opening retail stores and doing campaigning as well as we are providing many other beneficial services to customers which can enhance our share in Indian market. The services we are providing like Free downloads, Free Zone and other trial offers will attract customers” He further added that “We also have applications like â€?Tracking peopleâ€? and â€?Assets trackerâ€? which is very much in demand.
“And our usage and adoption of BREW has been extremely beneficial in terms of driving data services” he added.
Reliance Communications Ltd President ASCG Mahesh Prasad delivered a fascinating presentation. Prasad shared, “Indian market and Indian consumer are different as compared to the consumer and market of other countries”
Talking about the two kinds of Indian consumers that existed, Prasad shared, “There are two kinds of Indian customers for Mobile Services, the global Indian and the aspirational Indian, while both have some similar needs, they still need to be catered to in different manners so as to provide them with maximum value”
BREW Developer Awards
Part of the conference were the eagerly anticipated BREW Developers Awards 2006 (India). The winners of the coveted awards this year were
– Best Information Application – Webdunia for Dainik Samachar
– Best Entertainment and Gaming Application – Indiagames for Bruce Lee
– Best Business Application – Remoba for
– Special Award – Phoney Tunes for Hindi Calendar.
Mobile Advertising, the Mast Mobile Media way
Dr. Nimish Shrivastava – Founder, Mast Mobile Media, Inc focused how to Deploy BREW-based Apps Quickly, Sustain Brands Long-Term and Advertise. He articulated the need of India consumer in Indian market. He said “More phone features with lower cost should be available for Indian customer” He also spoke briefly about going beyond popular content and growth of Indian market from Mobile Advertising as well as demand of Information and location based products in the Indian market”
Dr Srivastava also demoed his Brand Builder software which enables developers without the knowledge of BREW to create original Intellectual Property and Applications on the BREW platform.
Level playing field with BREW: Dr Nikhil Jain
Talking about the strengths and ease that BREW brings with its standardization and quality benchmarks, Dr. Nikhil Jain – Chief Technology Advisor, QUALCOMM India shared how this was helping create a level playing field across the country where developers regardless of whether they hailed from small towns or the metros could now focus on their content and had an equal opportunity of exposure for their applications Internationally.
Concluding the BREW conference, Qualcommâ€?s Vishal Gupta shared, “The theme for this yearâ€?s conference, “BREW Your Way” was all about discovering the limitless possibilities that BREW has to offer. The tremendous growth of BREW has this year has been extremely encouraging. Increased number of users, incredible technological advancements and the launch of several new applications have resulted in more than $700 million globally in BREW publisher and developer earnings since the launch of the first BREW operator in November 2001. Today we have 69 BREW Solution customers, 46 Commercial BREW device manufacturers and 31 Countries with BREW solutions. These figures bear testimony to the endless opportunities that the BREW solution is creating for content providers all across the world. QUALCOMM is committed to the development of the wireless data industry through our sustained effort to transform the future of mobile experience.
I would like to applaud all the developers for the creativity and innovation that their applications continue to demonstrate. I would especially like to congratulate Webdunia, Remoba, Indiagames and Phoneytunes for their outstanding applications that are enabling users to achieve higher productivity as well as have the ability to access information and entertainment in the palm of their hands.
The conference ended but the celebration was far from over. Qualcomm as well as Animation Xpress.com held special lucky draws for the Mobile Application and Games developer community. This was followed by a Gala Entertainment evening where one could see the emergence of yet another breed of succesfull India. The Mobile Applications developer community!