The mobile carrier role is changing. This session explores the different options for operators to leverage their assets and identifies new revenue generating service opportunities.

Including:

• Why should carriers embrace open? What’s the business model?
• Where can carriers uniquely add value – and how to leverage that
• Smart Pipe, White label or Open API provider?
• Which new revenue opportunities are emerging in the open mobile ecosystem?
• How can carriers monetize customer data, APIs and third party content / apps?

• What’s the business model for carriers an open access?
• How can carriers monetize the flat rate mobile broadband explosion?
• Subsidies and subscriber acquisition costs
• Sharing connections across devices: Impacts of tethering apps and MiFi
• Net neutrality, traffic management and WiFi

• What has the industry done well in OS development to date and how can we build on that?
• Smartphones and Netbooks – will OS platforms converge or diverge?
• What are the opportunities to enable interoperability across different device categories?

This panel takes the application / service developer perspective and asks:

• What are the merits of the different ‘open’ platforms?
• How do you deal with fragmentation and how do you choose between platforms?
• How to make apps into a real business: Addressing pricing and discovery
• Defining open, what would we like to see opened up that is not already available?

• Rise of the machines: How can open networks foster embedded wireless ecosystems?
• Rise of the Netbook / Smartbook: What is the market opportunity for these devices?
• Key verticals: Heathcare, smart grid and application-specific consumer electronics devices such as eReaders
• Which other devices present the most lucrative opportunities to ‘get connected’, from cameras and gaming consoles to dog collars and in-car navigation systems (and which networks will they run on)?
• What are the partnering opportunities between carriers and consumer electronics manufacturers?

• How is the FCC approaching open access today, and what is on the horizon?
• Should open access be mandated? What are the costs, and the benefits.
• Handset exclusivity, net neutrality and exclusionary behaviour
• How might the various approaches to open access affect the competitive dynamics of the industry?

• Can mobile advertising finance the mobile Internet? How big is the market today and what is the (realistic) projected growth?
• The future of formats: From ‘classified’ advertising through to search, location based, in application ads, and the application as the advertisement - through to QF codes and augmented reality
• Is there a sweet spot at the intersection of location, search and advertising, and how can we deal with privacy issues in this arena?
• Augumented reality. Science fiction or future possibility?
• What does the mobile advertising value chain look like?
• Who stands to gain the most from mobile advertising growth?

• From mobile marketing to mcommerce: How major brands are using mobile channels to deepen customer relationships
• Tools of the trade: Smartphone Apps, coupons, comparative shopping optimised for mobile, QR codes and more
• In house or outsource? Who’s driving mCommerce strategies and development and how?

• How do content provider business models change in an open mobile internet environment?
• Monetization: Subscription vs. pay per download, operator bundles and embedded payment mechanisms, free vs paid vs fremium apps
• What’s the relative value of brand, content ownership, access and customer ownership in an open mobile economy?
• Is a totally open mobile environment desirable? Comparing the operator deck, App Stores, on device, and off deck

• What’s over the garden wall? The role of app stores, widgets platforms and open APIs
• Can the operator deck co-exist with open platforms and App Stores?
• Revenue sharing: How can carriers, service developers and handset OEMs share revenues
• How to maximize the use of the ‘phone-top’: App stores, idle screens and widgets

• How will the convergence of PC and wireless industries impact the competitive landscape – from silicon through to software and hardware?
• Feature phones, smart phones and open phones: How big are the relative markets for each, how might this change over time, and where’s the value?
• PC vs Handset OEMs: Who will survive industry convergence?

• Is a write once, run anywhere environment possible for mobile?
• Roadmap for browser technology: How – and when - HTML 5 will change the game
• What’s the place for native apps in a cloud-centric world?
• Opening the floodgates to innovation: Web developers go mobile
• Who in the ecosystem benefits with “apps in the cloud”
• Does the business model change? And what new technical and business opportunities are created?

• Which new possibilities open when you connect the screens of life?
• Delivering a seamless user experience across multiple platforms
• Rights and Revenues across platforms – addressing channel conflict with windowing strategies
• Which products: From iPhone apps to music and video streaming, and mobile as a channel for community engagement
• Advertising: How big is the cross-platform advertising opportunity?
• Who owns the door to the home and how is the partnering landscape changing as environments open.