23 March 2007

Mobile context

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to get that when you move web services to Mobile, you have the opportunity to tune that service to mobile context. But how you do that does require some work. Motorola for instance has been doing mobile contextual research for years. As a proactive research initiative, few technologies are more effective than situational studies.

Matt Mayhew's group of cross discipline investigators in Chicago has been deep working this way for a while. How I would love to have access to that insight, but they are wisely, not likely to publish it. Unfortunately, great work on the front end doesn't always translate into great products. In a large corporate structure, traditional business thinking still allows too much opportunity to kill great ideas.

The big downside here is that Motorola seems to be held back by a waterfall process and miles of bureaucracy. The lack of innovation in the days since the RAZR's introduction make me wonder how committed to new process and innovation the company really is. All that we have seen recently are degradations of the RAZR's form factor - that frankly pale in comparison.