Nokia today announced that Series 60 will support widgets, called Web Run-Time, using standard web programming technologies. This follows on the heals of Openwave’s CTIA announcement for a similar Mobile Widget solution. Assuming that the Web Run-Time is downloadable to the Series 60 installed base, Nokia’s solution has a far greater addressable market than Openwave’s MIDAS.
This is certainly a great trend, more so if there is some level of interoperability. It is not unusual in mobile that there is enough “devil in the detail” differences that make each handset, much less each manufacturer, a different port for all but the simplest of applications.
The great news here is that these widgets will run outside of the browser. This is important because an “icon on the desktop errr… phonetop” is far more likely to be discovered by the subscriber than a favorite buried in the browser or a link buried in a portal. All good news.
So kudos to the handset guys for continuing to try and reduce the barriers for developers.
Unfortunately, the biggest barrier remains. It is still very costly for subscribers to use mobile data services outside messaging. And for those subscribers not willing to fork-out for an unlimited data plan, pricing is complicated if not opaque. Net-net, the serviceable market remains small.
While its getting easier to engineer a mobile service, it is still hard to create a mobile business.
