I spent a few days in San Diego for the Informa World Handset Forum conference, a great opportunity to learn about what's happening in the world of mobile technology.

The first day's chair was Mark Steele, Chairman of the CommNexus trade group in San Diego, as well as VP of OEM for Symbol Technoogies (acquired by Motorola). He spoke about cooperation between carriers, manufacturers, and service providers. He used a brick and mortar analogy, referencing the Egyptian pyramids. They used no mortar, and are standing thousands of years later, while other building technologies that use a lot of mortar relative to “bricks” are less durable. OK, what about the newest building concepts, such as concrete reinforced by rebar? In this building method, the mortar is the brick. IMS and MMD services are closer to this model, enabling direct access to the consumer through IP technologies, without the complex relationships required between services. Maybe IMS and MMD are the rebar?

David Owens, Sprint’s Director of Product Marketing, Devices and Applications spoke about “Understanding Carrier Strategy for Today’s US Handset Market.” Sprint considers the “total customer brand.” He stated that Sprint’s proprietary research indicates coverage and call quality/reliability as the most important consideration. Pricing comes in second, and third is the price of the phone. Low on the list is the selection of phones, prior experience, and last was wireless data. He spoke about Sprint’s having more than 2,000 legacy rate plans still being serviced—he said the “total brand” matters, but what about the “total user experience”?

Sprint will launch 19 devices in the fourth quarter of 2006. He reported Telephia’s Q2 research, the top 3 prioritization of why people bought their current handset: price was 60%, size/weight was 35%, and 34% was Design/style, but Ease of use was 31%, and brand/previous experience hit at 24%. Since storage capacity hit at 3% and MP3 hit 3% also, it’s no wonder that phones are coming out that have these capabilities, but they SUCK and memory chips aren’t even included on many phones.

David spoke a lot about brand. He indicated that Sprint’s phones going forward are all going to have iconic names, chasing the promise of the RAZR brand. He took pot shots at Mobile ESPN, blaming their weakness at branding, as they’re not a service provider (Hello! What about Virgin Mobile?), but also due to their lack of handset diversity.

Christy Wyatt, VP of Ecosystem and Market Development at Motorola, spoke about 2007: The year of Mobile Linux. Christy was articulate, intelligent, and yet her talk didn’t inspire me. Was Motorola sending a message to Symbian, Microsoft, and other OS vendors, saying “We don’t need you”? She talked about creating an “ecosystem” for developers. What kind of line is that—how can developers get their content onto Motorola phones, when the carriers control the point of entry? It was a curious presentation.

Erick Eidus of MobilEidus hypothesized that operators will trade location for presence. The idea is that the operators make money on communication, so by offering presence, they’re creating an incentive to customers to communicate more, in more ways. If someone’s online, the sender can use Push To Talk, IM, etc. If they’re off-line, the sender can send voicemail, email, or an SMS. An interesting debate ensued, with all the speakers disagreeing with him. It appears that the predominant model is simply revenue share: presence and location spark communication services, and the IM vendors (Microsoft, Yahoo, OZ) simply provide the means to make that communication happen—so they get some of the communication revenue back. Good deal.