We were truly honored to be joined by over 50 participants representing a broad slice of the connected devices ecosystem (Accel Partners, Asus, Best Buy Mobile, Brightpoint, Cricket, CTIA, DELL, NTT DoCoMo, HP, Lenovo, Level 3, Motorola, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, and US Cellular) in Calistoga, CA to address the key challenges and opportunities that we as an industry face.
While it’s exciting to see analysts such ABI Research or Mary Meeker (@Morgan Stanley) provide aggressive estimates of the potential size of this connected devices space, as an industry we fully realize that only if we address the clear challenges ahead and collaborate while sharing best practices, will we be able to achieve our full potential.
Five key themes for further collaboration, discussion were identified and a program is being put forward to address them with increased cadency:
- Achieving win-win-win-win relationships across the ecosystem: OEMs – Service Providers – Software Vendors – Retailers
- Simplifying the customer experience to make it as seamless and intuitive as possible to drive activation rates
- Driving growth for alternative channels (eTail, kiosks, etc.)
- Improving mechanisms to fight fraud
- Streamlining testing and network certification to address new devices
It is not very often that we can get together as an industry (leading OEMs/ODMs, service providers, content providers, eTailers/retailers and industry advocates at all levels of government) to have some heartfelt discussions as to how to better align so the “connected devices” space can succeed. Having spent three days doing this with the ecosystem, and getting first hand evidence that there is a true desire from them to collaboratively grow this space, made us feel much more optimistic about achieving the aggressive forecasts that ABI Research and Morgan Stanley have laid out for this industry.
