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Happy Holidays from Antenna Software!

It’s that time of year again, when the leaves have fallen, the air gets crisp and television ads are dominated with toys that every kid will want in their home.  It’s the holidays!  And it’s also the end of the year and a time to reflect on all of the great things that have happened in 2011 and to predict the wonderful things that will come in 2012. This year we’re doing the predictions thing a little bit differently.  We’re going to get thoughts from several different Mobile Masters bloggers and let you vote on whose predictions you think ring the most true, or who just made you laugh out loud.

And I’m the lucky man who gets to go first!

I’ll start by saying, we’re fortunate to be a part of a very exciting wireless industry.  Mobile experienced tremendous growth this past year and we expect even more next year.  Strangely, one of our predictions from last year’s blog-o-tainment was nearly correct.  As predicted, Motorola spun off two units, the mobility arm was purchased, and the RAZR returned to life.  Moto, are you serious?  We were joking when we said we wanted to see the RAZR brought back from the dead.

With no intention of actually repeating last year’s prediction success, here’s a glimpse of some of the possibilities for 2012.  From our family to yours, Happy Holidays!

Top Five 2012 Predictions for the Wireless Industry

#5) iCook – Apple does a major overhaul of iTunes and its focus on content.  The top applications in the store are no longer titles such as “Angry Birds”, “Tetris” and “Bejeweled”.  Under the old Apple, the Jobs mentality was to create an ecosystem of content, employing others to build content for the popular iPhone.  Now, with a Cook at the helm, the application focus does a tremendous shift.  The new popular titles in the store are: “iBaking”, “Grilling Shish-Ka-Pods” and “Cook-ing with Apples”.  Sorry Apple… you did that one to yourself when you hired a CEO with the last name of Cook to manage a company named after a fruit.

#4) DeviceOS – After Steve Ballmer finally recognizes that the majority of his employees at Microsoft are using iPhones, he concedes defeat.  At one of his infamous pep rallies at an employee meeting, he screams the new motto, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” Microsoft approaches Apple and seals a deal to license iOS, under the condition that they rebrand it.  Of course, the typical Microsoft touch is put on the operating system to ensure backwards compatibility with old phone and PC hardware, spending billions of dollars to effectively support the one guy in Halifax, Nova Scotia who wants to run iOS on a 1987 IBM PS/2.  Microsoft’s marketing team changes the “i” in iOS to “D”, for Device.  No one realizes the new acronym until after it ships – DOS.  Oh no!  DOS is back and it runs on a 1987 IBM PC!

#3) China T-Mobile – AT&T’s failed merger with T-Mobile leaves Deutsche Telekom with $4 billion in cash and spectrum, but it lacks a strategy for the future.  After a board meeting in Germany, Deutsche Telekom has the answer.  $4B per year in failed mergers!  The world’s largest carrier, China Mobile, is eager to expand beyond China into the United States.  So, Deutsche Telekom sells off T-Mobile to China Mobile, with another $4B in fees if the merger fails.  Then, secret lobbyists for Deutsche Telekom work their contacts in Congress to veto the transaction, spreading fears of Chinese spying via U.S. telecom networks.  The plan nearly succeeds before China threatens to dump their massive U.S. bond holdings onto the market, sparking widespread inflation fears.  Congress surrenders and allows the transaction to proceed.  China T-Mobile is formed.

#2 – The Gates of RIM – Blackberry’s smartphone market share continues to decline.  RIM acknowledges that its co-CEO arrangement of Balsillie and Lazaridis is not working.  The problem?  They need more CEOs to handle the load.  Two is not enough.  So they add a third CEO, bringing Bill Gates out of retirement.  Gates has spent most of his time on his charitable foundation, but after looking at RIM, he concludes that it fits his charitable requirements – thousands of Canadians are at risk of starvation if RIM collapses.  Gates, now at the helm with two other CEOs, concludes that licensing iOS from Apple is the best direction for RIM.  The problem is that Ballmer has beaten him to Apple and has already licensed iOS.  Gates has to settle for acquiring the Windows Phone assets from Microsoft, who is no longer using it.  Bill Gates is once again in charge of Windows.

#1 – Newt 5 – Newt Gingrich is losing his momentum in the race for the U.S. presidency in 2012.  November is quickly approaching, but his ratings in the polls have taken a hit.  He decides to switch his political platform to HTML 5, believing that it will solve all the world’s problems.  “Newt, how will you fix the economy?” “HTML 5,” is his answer.  “Newt, how will you combat global warming?”  “HMTL5” is his answer, once again.  The Newt 5 strategy fails.  While the strategy might have worked in 2011, HTML5 is so yesteryear of an answer by 2012.  To the dismay of the W3C, all vendors in the mobile industry have already begun work on the new answer to solve the world’s issues – HTML6.  All vendors except one.  The lone exception is Kony Solutions, who is still trying to figure out HTML5.