The other day, I had lunch with Won Cho, my longtime friend who happens to be the CEO of Gameloft Korea. Won told me interesting stories about what's happening in the mobile content industry. He told me that iPhone is actually changing the whole industry more fundamentally than people generally think. Gameloft, for one, is putting so much focus on developing games for iPhone users.
Yesterday, Steve Jobs announced that Apple is now the world's #3 mobile phone maker in terms of device sales revenues (not the number of units, yet), behind Nokia and Samsung. This is really phenomenal given Apple makes only, er, one device. Gameloft is seeing huge chunk of their revenues coming from iPhone App store, and developers really like the experience of developing apps for the iPhone, compared to the "feature phones" dev experience, which can be really painful with the customizing efforts across so many different platforms and devices. Also, iPhone has powerful graphical features that allows almost Sony PSP-like game playing performance, Won said. Naturally, Gameloft wants to make more games for iPhone - and they are also very anxious for the upcoming Android as well.
Stories like these are no secret by all means, but as I keep hearing them, I'm really marveled by the inabilities of wireless carriers. (In Korea, they are more specifically SKT, KTF, LGT.) Why do they still keep their heads buried in the sand? Can't they create a web-like environment where people don't have to care about the amount of usage, so that countless apps and innovative business models can flourish? Or allow downloading of big-file applications over low-cost channels such as Wifi or USB connections, and charge for data-driven activities in a progressive manner. These are what the whole industry has been telling the carriers all the time, but are still not being practiced by them. And now they are finally giving ways to the innovators (the Apples and Androids) who "get it" and create a value chain that makes far more sense.
Korea and Japan are the perceived leaders in the mobile web industry. It would have been nice if Korea led the world in terms of a more open business model for the mobile web industry. But it happens to be that Korea is one of only few developed countries where iPhone still hasn't landed. I think Korean wireless carriers should make bolder moves, and the companies that are in the best position to do so are usually the "underdogs" that don't have much to lose anyway. (LGT, are you listening? :-) )
