NEW YORK—Mobile World Congress hits this weekend, just as one of the pioneers of mobile computing — Apple — enters a dog fight with the U.S. government over iPhone privacy.
That topic, plus Facebook's thwarted attempts at offering free Internet in India, and yes, new products from Samsung and Chinese manufacturers Huawei and others, are likely to keep hallway chatter humming as 95,000 visitors descent upon the Fira Gran Via conference facility in Barcelona, Spain for what has become the mobile industry’s signature global confab.
From the 2,000 companies exhibiting, the most high-profile reveal is expected to come from Samsung, rumored to unveil the Galaxy S7 smartphone and possibly S7 edge. If such new phones come to be, how these latest flagships are received will say a lot about how Samsung plans to solidify its standing as Apple’s chief smartphone rival, while also combatting fierce global Android competitors, almost all of whom will have their own presence in Barcelona.
LG, Sony, Huawei, Xiaomi, Motorola (Lenovo), and Alcatel One Touch are all expected to showcase new phones.
The Chinese companies in particular bear watching, to see if any will make major inroads into the U.S. market.
The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas "tends to be a show where you see the cool gadgets and all of that kind of stuff. We see Mobile World Congress very much as a place where people come to do business,” says Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer for GSMA, the organization that puts on the event.
Meantime Apple, the very company in the mobile space that looms above all others with the iPhone, will not be attending MWC, at least not in any public sense. It's embroiled in a dispute with the U.S. government, which wants it to create a new operating system that would allow the FBI to unlock and access an iPhone 5C used by one of the assailants in the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. in December.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said Apple plans to refuse, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai supported his comments.
I also expect to hear more about virtual reality and augmented reality, themes that got a lot of love at CES and will continue on in Barcelona. HTC and Facebook-owned Oculus will be among the companies attending MWC. There's speculation that Samsung will also introduce a new 360-degree camera at the show, possibly called Gear 360.
MWC certainly boasts a lengthy list of recognizable speakers, from a diverse lineup of companies: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, Ford CEO Mark Fields, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, Royal Caribbean Cruises CEO Richard Fain, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell, and UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake, among others. And of course a number of telecom leaders will also take the stage.
Zuckerberg’s remarks in particular will be watched closely, and likely to center around his goal to bring Internet service to poor people around the world. Facebook’s plan to do that through a free but limited service called Free Basics, has been blocked in India by regulators claiming that it violates net neutrality.
What else? “There are two key hot topics (that will be discussed) at MWC, Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G," says Ericsson senior vice president Arun Bansal. "They sound different but are very related,” he says.
The former, of course, refers to all things connected: TVs, wearables, appliances, cars.
And 5G is shorthand for speedy new “fifth generation” of wireless networks, which promise to help propel IoT. Another driving force for 5G comes from major upcoming global sporting events: the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan, though the technology isn't likely to become commercially viable in the U.S. until around 2020.
Still, the U.S. appears poised to take the leadership position in 5G, with AT&T and Verizon having already announced 5G field tests this year.
And I'll be on the lookout for innovation in the handsets themselves.
There's at least one more topic getting some deserved recognition in Barcelona--MWC programs built around “Connected Women” are designed to address gender gaps in mobile, and to “promote great inclusion of women as employees and leaders in the industry.”
No comments:
Post a Comment