antonybrydon

Best-of-breed vs mobile application suites

Many companies developing mobile applications are currently deliberating whether it is better to deliver one or more best-of-breed point applications vs. a suite of integrated applications.

The iPhone AppStore is dominated by best-of-breed applications, where each icon on the iPhone desktop is a gateway to a focused, single-purpose application. Pandora is a great example, where a simple icon opens a killer web-radio application that is receiving rave reviews.

Examples of integrated suites include Lightpole and Where for the Blackberry Curve. Focus on location-based services, each of these applications acts as a portal into a suite of related, location based applications. Lightpole features 'channels' that offer me location aware versions of Wikipedia, Yelp and Yahoo! Local, while Where offers me a suite of location aware applications like StubHub, Zipcar, Flickr and Yelp and a set of location aware widgets like BuddyBeacon, GasFinder, etc. Unfotunately, it seems like much more time was invested in the portal and the suite, rather then the individual applications, and most of the applications and widgets in both these service are disappointing;

I'm firmly in favor of the best of breed approach, for a couple of reasons:

Android, open networks and location

A few interesting snippets are emerging in the 'friendly' back and forth battle between Sprint and Google about Android phones Sprint hopes to ship shortly. Jake Orion, an Android product manager at Sprint Nextel, heavily critiqued Android in general and complained that the OS: "needs a more proactive and direct linkage to the carrier’s network and service requirements."

My translation? "We need the control we are used to."

Two issues are at stake: one strategic, one tactical:

A funny thing happened at last week's social networking conference...

A mobile conference broke out (punchline). OK, seriously, I participated in a wrap-up panel (after my panel) that included folks from across the social networking spectrum. The agenda was to simply follow the conversation where the audience took it, and after one mobile social networking question served as the bridge, the conversation moved squarely to mobile and stayed there for the next hour, only peripherally touching on social networks.

Granted, last Friday coincided with the launch of the 3G iPhone and the debut of the iPhone app store, and the technology cycles in the audience's mind was fully utilized by Apple, but there was a broader trend. Location, open networks, 3G bandwidth, mobile devices were the things people wanted to talk about, the topics that captured the imagination. Two things hit home for me:

Public vs private networks (the battle for the enterprise)

I presented at a session of the Enterprise Social Networking Conference today in San Francisco with Jim Fowler, CEO of Jigsaw. I had a couple of key points to make:

• It's not clear whether public networks (like LinkedIn) or enterprise networks (Lotus) will win the corporate market, and I expect it to be a fierce battle. Enterprise products like Lotus Connections, Microsoft Sharepoint, Visible Path, and Jive have some clear advantages such as privacy, security, the ability to integrate with enterprise applications, and the ability to direct the network to support company goals. But the public network vendors also have some indisputable advantages, such as mass, momentum (rapid growth rates), and engagement. 5 years ago it would seem impossible for an enterprise to rely on a public social network; today it seems plausible. 

• 'No decision' is actually a decision in favor of public networks. As each company delays or defers its decision about its own enterprise network, more employees join public networks and build their business of public networks. These networks are delivering indisputable business value, and people connecting to colleagues in their own company represents a large share of the connections.