Tim Brown of VIA talks about sales models for IMP’s (Internet Media Players) and MIDs in the latest UML Weekly news broadcast. Its something I was keen to see for UMPCs too but I’m starting to realise why carriers are not picking up UMPCs. Support costs! There’s no way a carrier could support a Windows Vista or XP device like it does a mobile phone. There’s way to much to go wrong and carriers support costs rely on customer calls in the sub-minute band. Not the 60-minute band! The HTC Shift might be a device that goes against the grain but I would only expect the major carriers to take it on as they already have business-focused support and sales arms.
Mobile Internet Devices could be different though. One of the advantages for OEMS and resellers is that a MID based on Linux can be locked down so that its not easy to install software and screw up the device. Sure there will be people who will fire up the xterm and expose a huge amount of possibility but the average customer is not going to do that if the device is developed and marketed with that aim in mind. If Vodafone, for example, asked Google to knock out a branded Google maps client that utilised the MID’s on-board GPS (as they are already doing on some Smartphones) there would be some revenue sharing opportunities. Then there’s the revenue sharing on the data plans themselves. Apple seemed to have pulled it off with their iPhone so why not! I’m also quite a fan of DVB/DMB/DAB technology for the delivery of video and audio. I think there are some opportunities there. IPTV is coming through but it’s reliant on processing power that UMPCs just can’t deliver. Take Joost for example. Its a nice service but it doesn’t work on many UMPCs. DVB on the other hand, does. I was using it last night on a Q1 and I’d be happy to pay for some high quality TV, Film and music streams. The IP back-channel can be used for interactivity too.
I’m sure all this is just around the corner and Google have probably got their plans already well defined. I think its just a case of waiting for the technology to catch up.
