Julie Ask Quotations

The potential for local search and local advertising comes into play.

I have been fielding quite a few calls about Apple's filing of the 'Mobile Me' patent. Folks have been speculating about a phone from Apple for more than a year. Being that I am a wireless analyst, I don't follow Apple as closely as others do. What I do know though, is that we are not likely to know until Apple wants us to know. They are pretty good at big surprises. Do I think they are developing a phone? Probably. Probably somewhere in their labs, there are prototypes of phones. Whether or not they bring one to market commercially is another story. Whether or not they will do so on their own is another open question. Hard to imagine carrier subsidies on a device unless there are revenues to be earned through downloaded services and content.

I think it's definitely the direction the industry is going. It's a great time to be testing the market.

Parents get mobile phones for their teens because they want to communicate in case of an emergency, and wireless carriers have made it easy to add users to their existing plans. Wireless carriers have been very successful in getting parents to expand their plans to include their teens, but between free phones and shared minutes, it's not the most lucrative proposition for carriers.

We haven't seen anything that looks and feel like an Apple product yet.

The problem is wired broadband will always be cheaper and faster than wireless.

At the end of the day, most people still just want to talk on their cell phone. There are very few people who want to download music or do these types of broadband-type activities.

Five percent of mobile subscribers will use video.

Apple sells hardware and software. They don't have an existing subscriber base like cable companies, and they don't have content like ESPN that people have an affinity to.

This is going to be an exciting space for the next couple years.

The way people make decisions about cell phones is still about cheap minutes, good coverage at home and a free handset.

This consumer interest bodes well for the mobile industry as vendors use different business models to try and tap into this consumer demand. The challenge is not interest but rather finding the correct mix of premium content and price points that is lacking in today's offerings.

It's a great time for content providers to experiment with a mobile play.

The big challenge is inventory. Not a lot of people watch this, so how do you get a big enough market that makes it worth your while?

I imagine there a lot of complications with having 36 different entities involved. It's admirable that they're going to tackle that. The list of challenges -- budget, technical, commercial -- it's not trivial.

If you're looking for wide-open new territory, teens and kids are attractive.

If you're in a Manhattan building with 30 apartments that's one thing. But if you're the guy who parks your car in front of a suburban house in the middle of the night and you've got the screen from your laptop glowing, well...

Certainly the notion of putting music video on phones will increase over time.

The challenge is not interest but rather finding the correct mix of premium content and price points that is lacking in today's offerings.