Carriers Look to Android App Publishers to Survive Mobile Transition

Kristen Nicole
Appolicious

There’s a lot of parts that make up today’s mobile market, and carriers are one group that are anxious to not be left behind. A few years ago, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile were at the center of the mobile universe, acting as middlemen to channel phone calls, mobile games and text messages. The rise of the Android Market and iTunes App Store has changed all that, leaving carriers to fight their way back to relevancy when it comes to owning as much consumer activity as possible.

There’s a lot of parts that make up today’s mobile market, and carriers are one group that are anxious to not be left behind. A few years ago, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile were at the center of the mobile universe, acting as middlemen to channel phone calls, mobile games and text messages. The rise of the Android Market and iTunes App Store has changed all that, leaving carriers to fight their way back to relevancy when it comes to owning as much consumer activity as possible.

The major carriers have developed portals that come pre-installed on today’s Android devices, many in the form of apps, cloud services, social network interfaces and app marketplaces.

mSpot’s story of survival
Demand for personal cloud storage and access has also spurred opportunities for carriers to engage customers through smartphones, and Verizon’s VCAST and Media Cloud services are more examples to this end. mSpot recognizes carriers’ position in the current mobile market, and has centered its strategy around proprietary technology for mobile access to your media. With mSpot’s service, you can access streaming radio, store music, view movies, and centralize your media into a single service. mSpot’s family of Android apps provides mobile access to your movies and music. And it’s mSpot’s focus on the mobile space that has allowed the company to survive nearly a decade in a rapidly shifting industry.

“Our roots are in mobile,” says Daren Tsui, mSpot CEO and co-founder, discussing the years of experience that’s led to mSpot’s current position. And with high expectations for Apple’s upcoming iCloud service, carriers are even more revved up to push their own cloud initiatives. While mSpot has consumer-facing Android apps, it also provides technology for carriers to create their own cloud portals. These partnerships strengthen the carriers and companies like mSpot, creating a flexible strategy to manage the mobile revolution.

“What’s clever about Android is that it’s a group of very large companies going up against Apple,” Tsui continues. “With the cloud play, a similar thing will happen. For many, you have an iPad as well as an Android smartphone, and our system is perfect for you. In that regard, the carrier partnership becomes very important...we become an arms merchant for all these folks. At the end of the day, the competition is great for consumers. You’re gonna see products getting better and cheaper.”

September, 13th, 2011