Wednesday, October 08, 2008

An approaching "Storm" of smartphone competition



Things are heating up even more on the smartphone front as RIM introduced the new BlackBerry Storm which will be available later this month. RIM's BlackBerry owns the enterprise smartphone mobile space. Recent surveys we've completed as part of the PhoCusWright special report "The Future of Mobile Travel" shows the iPhone gaining ground on the BlackBerry with a significant number of frequent business travelers (at least 4 business trips a year) stating that they are considering an iPhone.
The growing smartphone war has positives and negatives for the travel industry. On the positive side, smartphones patterned after the iPhone will have a more practical mobile Web browser experience. The downside comes in application development. Our research is indicating that downloading applications is a more practical strategy than simply repositioning current Website information. In addition to Apple's iPhone App store, Google and Blackberry have announced plans to open app stores as well. The cold reality of this trend is that travel companies who are serious about mobile applications will need to port their app to multiple environments. The iPhone SDK is a good development platform but very closed in nature. In contrast the Google Android platform promises to provide a more open environment for mobile platform development. Even Symbian OS now owned by Nokia is talking about a more open computing approach. Those travel suppliers and intermediaries who believe that simply translating their current Website to work with Web browsers on multiple handsets is a sufficient mobile strategy, will need to rethink that approach as smartphones become the standard device for business and leisure travelers. Yes Web browsing is definitely on the iPhone, but even with the ability to use the two finger pinch to zoom in on Web content, there is a major difference between an iPhone app verses viewing a Web page on the Safari browser.

Here is the screenshot for the Travelocity Web page on the iPhone. Yes you can zoom in but this is still not a practical way to book itineraries.

















Compare that to the screenshot of the Travelocity iPhone App. Sure the Travelocity app does not have booking capabilities but the UI is much easier and more practical to use for a future booking platform, which BTW our research shows frequent business and leisure travelers want (especially for irregular operations!).

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

very clever.

Anonymous said...

i think you add more info about it.

Anonymous said...

very clever.

Garrett said...

I'd love to see some more information on mobile travel applications preferred by business travelers and which ones are supported the the enterprise.

Anonymous said...

I hope people will get tempted to buy this newly introduced RIM's Blackberry.

Anonymous said...

very good and informative.

http://latestairlinesnews.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Very impotent news...

Airlines News

Susan White said...

I hear there is new web camera technology that will be in some upgraded applications. We just purchased the new FLIP HD camera to upgrade our website community profiles. The picture quality is clearly sharper.

Anonymous said...

酒店經紀酒店打工 酒店工作酒店上班酒店兼差酒店兼職打工兼差打工兼職台北酒店 酒店應徵 禮服酒店 酒店經紀 打工 兼差

Anonymous said...

houseing
[url=http://vimeo.com/user4498961]cheap hotels in edinburgh city centre
[/url]oceanfront hotels
accomodation booking
japan motor hotel booking
[url=http://www.earthday.org/users/48490]cheap hotels near disneyland
[/url]inn booking program
mybooking
worthless quarter span
[url=http://www.fairview.org/cty/members/klemot/default.aspx]hotel la quinta inn
[/url]trains booking
scandinavian airlines
summer cover
[url=http://www.youthcabinet.org/profile/Josh]sls hotel
[/url]ignore
accommodate deduct
hotel behave
[url=http://www.beautyresearch.com/blogs/alexa/archive/2010/08/15/hotels-and-accomodations.aspx]albergo hotel
[/url]jephson
husbandry prestige q
cheap homestead uk
[url=http://www.mazdacommunity.com/profiles/blogs/special-hotel-offers-or]cheap nyc hotels
[/url]hotel booking sites
suites deals
bump into uncover hostelry

Anonymous said...

cheap hotel websites
cheap air and hotel
hotel prices uk
the jet hotel
hotel country house
cheap los angeles hotels

Medical Blog said...

The cold reality of this trend is that travel companies who are serious about mobile applications will need to port their app to multiple environments.

chaussures air max said...

I love your blog and Jane's. It's the best there! Since then I found yours, I did not bother to go check on others. I'm addicted to your blog because I come back every day hoping that you have updated

梁爵 said...

2019.09.17.八大行業酒店快報酒店經紀30歲「竹聯十五份幫」成員酒店工作下班陳男昨晨與酒店經紀友人搭計程車回台北市萬寧街住處,下車時卻遇槍手伏擊,陳男右大腿中1槍,送醫院急救,暫無生命危險,涉嫌開槍的酒店兼職20歲四海幫份子梁男案發1小時後,主動到派出所投案並交槍,警方還在釐清其開槍動機。警方初步調查,涉嫌開槍的梁男是四海幫份子,擔任酒店經紀的陳男是林森北路大型酒店的「酒店打工圍事項目」成員,雙方人馬今年4月間曾在東區1間酒店酒後衝突,事後多次尋仇鬥毆,警方目前積極偵辦中。