How the iPhone will revolutionise the mobile sector

Interesting follow up to the mobile blog earlier this week - see below, all focused on Australia which is great. Outlines the impact the iphone is having on the overall mobile sector. For the full story -  http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Premium-Articles/Top-Story/20080730-How-the-iPhone-will-revolutionise-the-mobile-sector.html

How the iPhone will revolutionise the mobile sector

Thursday, 8 January 2009
By James Thomson

Courtesy of smartcompany.com.au

The iPhone will help triple the size of Australia's mobile content sector in the next five years. The challenge for business is to find the growth hotspots and ride the revolution.

When Apple launched its 3G iPhone on 11 July, it wasn’t just tech heads and Apple diehards that were celebrating.

For most players in Australia’s mobile content sector, the iPhone is seen as the device to transform the fledgling industry by encouraging Australia’s 21 million mobile subscribers to use their phones for much more than making calls and sending text messages.

Alex Young, chief executive of mobile website publisher Mostyle, is a member of an emerging group of mobile content companies that have waited five to 10 years for the mobile data services sector to hit critical mass. “It’s a little bit of a waiting game for the market to catch up – that’s now.”

He believes the iPhone hype will help transform the sector by “waking up” consumers to the potential of mobility. “It’s a great mechanism to allow people to easily access mobile sites. It’s about educating consumers.”

Marisa Maio Mackay, director of research at mobile solutions company m.Net, says the sector is on the cusp of an extremely exciting 12 to 18 months. While she doesn’t see the iPhone as the “killer application” for mobile technology, she does believe its sheer popularity it will help increase the use of mobile for web browsing and other mobile data services. “I think we have reached a point where you are going to go beyond a group of high level users to the masses.

The launch of the iPhone has already sparked a rush of companies launching specific mobile sites and applications. These include:

News Limited, which has launched iPhone-optimised versions of its news and information website, News.com.au, its local business directory Truelocal.com.au, and its ticketing website Moshtix.com.au.
ANZ, which launched an iPhone version of its internet banking site.
Fairfax, which has an iPhone version of its domain.com.au real estate classifieds site.
Lonely Planet, which launched 10 phrasebooks for iPhone users.
Ninemsn, which launched versions of its news, sport and entertainment portals for the iPhone.
Commsec, which launched an iPhone version of its trading platform.