MWC 2009 Recap - Here we go again...

As in most previous years, I went to the Mobile World Congress (Previously known as 3GSM) which is held in Barcelona. A totally overwhelming event by all standards, including a huge exhibition floor (though a bit less huge this year), a full conference program, networking events, parties and much more...

As in the last conference I've been to, I decided to sum up my experiences by giving the virtual "Nextys" Awards (which don't really mean anything...) to the following companies and trends:

Missing and yet present: Apple

The only apple I could find this year was in the Barcelona market, and even that was not exactly an apple... The people who brought us the iPhone didn't bother to come and display their stuff in MWC. Perhaps they don't have anything new to announce or simply feel others will do the work for them. And guess what? They're right... Even though Apple itself didn't present, the news from practically all handset vendors focused on sleek UI, touch screens and app stores - all old news in the iPhone world. You could hear everywhere "So, how does it compare to the iPhone?"... So though they didn't have a physical presence, Apple was present spiritually bigtime...

Hottest trend #1: Touch UI

As said all vendors have been quite busy with designing new and sleek touch UIs, which were not all the time as sleek as expected. For example, Samsung showcased their TouchWiz UI, which features several neat concepts but when I tried it on the device pictured here, it was a bit sluggish. On the left side of the device you have a strip of widgets which appears after a tap on the screen. You can scroll the widgets using your finger, and to open one, you just drag it and drop on the main section of the screen. Widgets is also a hot trend now for some time, and this word was used (and misused) quite a lot both by handset vendors and application providers.

Hottest trend #2: App Stores

App stores are big. Everyone, and especially the handset vendors, hope this is what will help them balance things a bit when it comes to operators and their walled gardens. All vendors have relaunched their appstores initiatives due to the success of Apple. They all offer the same thing, but one thing did catch my eye, and that's SonyEricsson's PlayNow Download Station. This is basically a physical appstore - you plug your handset and stick in a moneycard, and then choose the content you want using the screen. The prime target is developing markets in which prepaid is king, and this was launched in seeral southeast Asian countries. However, come to think about it, it does have some upside which is no operator in the way and no internet plan needed... I recall that some experts foresaw great future to "sideloading" (i.e. downloading a game/app on your computer and then sending it via bluetooth to a handset), this might be one enabler for that.

Best Blast from the Past: Palm Pre

Like an 80s rock star that refuses to fade away, Palm is also disturbing our peace with its new and shiny Palm Pre device, which was the uncrowned star of the show. The Pre features a sleek UI (Should I even mention it's iPhone-like?...) that looks a bit more sleek than others with some neat tricks like the "fluid" menu (in the picture) that pops up when you slide your finger from the device's right-bottom corner. Everything is done with hand gestures and provides a great experience. In addition it features an advanced address book that combines your phone contacts with social networks, email and other sources and provides you with presence info and direct connectivity in any supported means. It also has a cool magnet charger, no need for cables, just place the pre on the magnet and it will charge... The only drawback is that it doesn't support any of the known platforms for mobile applications. Instead everything will be done in web technologies (HTML, JavaScript etc.), which makes it unclear how rich applications will be supported, if at all.

Most uninvited guest: Mr. World Recession

A free space in the middle of MWC? This was an odd site in previous years, when booths were so dense you can barely squeeze in your way... But this year, some exhibition halls were quite spacious and some spaces as the one shown here were left empty - however the exhibition was still huge, I actually expected much worse decline of presenting companies, but it was around 15%-20%. Also, the number of visitors decreased by around the same magnitude, on Monday I thought the industry is really going down, but then Tuesday was quite packed and looked like the good old days, and Thursday as always, but a bit more so, I felt like walking in a ghost town. Some areas were more affected than others, mobile content for example was barely seen in the exhibition, while in previous years it had a great presence.

Another clear sign of the recession was the almost complete lack of advertising around Barcelona. In previous years all the buildings across the exhibition as well as metro stations and central locations were covered with ads from the big players. This year, for the first time you could actually see some of the buildings around the congress.... Another thing was the hotels and flights which were not fully booked as in previous years, which made things easier for participants, so at least we get some upside... However, even with less attendees, MWC remains the only place on earth where the line in the men's WC is (much) longer than the women's...

(Second) Best Booth Babes: i-mate

Everybody knows that in MWC booth babes equals CBOSS... This Russian integration company always "invests" in top babes that may or may not be above 18... (Check out the girls dance in 3GSM 2007).So the only competition is on the second place, which goes this year to i-mate, with the Lara Kroft-like babes that had water guns to demonstrate their new water proof and shock proof device. Overall I must say that this year the number of booth babes grew, catching up with other shows finally... So at least the recession didn't affect that...

Creepiest Booth Babes: Access

And every year there's also the guys who don't think things through... And this time the Access babes were dressed as a... tree?! I don't know why but this creeps me up a bit... And no, this is not body paint, they were wearing suits, so you can return now your eyes to their place... Of course I have nothing against Access, but c'mon guys, next time a simple bikini would do...

Best Awards Event: Mobile Peer Awards

As the founder of Mobile Monday Tel Aviv, I might be biased a bit (correction: I am very biased..), but I do think that the Mobile Peer Awards which was held this year in a magnificent venue, is *the* event to be in. The event which is organized by MoMo Barcelona in collaboration with the MoMo community is a contest in which each MobileMonday chapter sends a startup to compete against the others. The startups get only 3 minutes to pitch and convince the jury, the MobileMonday chpaters and the audience that they deserve to win. What made the event even better for me is that MoMoTLV's nominee for the contest, fring, took the MobileMonday community award.

Best in-exhibition party: Yahoo!

Another "space" that seem unaffected by the recession were the famous MWC parties and cocktails (And there were plenty of those). I liked Yahoo!'s, mainly because they let me in... (Luckily I RSVPed for this one...) - just kidding, they showed a good hospitality in their booth and I also enjoyed hearing about their products, mainly Yahoo! Mobile App (previously known as Yahoo! Go) and Yahoo! Blueprint, their mobile platform for app development.

Best off-exhibition party: Swedish Beers

There wasn't a single night in which I returned to the hotel before midnight... Right after the conference everyone is going to the famous MWC parties. There are a lot of events in parallel so naturally I couldn't attend them all, but from the ones I attended, the most "happening" one was Swedish Beers organized by Helen Keegan which did a great job in creating a fun atmosphere which hundreds of people enjoyed (Then again I'll say good things on anyone who give me free alcohol....)

Best Developer Event: WIP JAM

Another good event worth mentioning is WIP's JAM Sessions. The heart of this event is discussion groups in which mobile developers talk about a variety of subjects. It is very enriching, and among the participants you can find high profile mobile experts, C-level officers and top consultants. This is my first time in this event, though it has been held last year in several conferences including MWC and CTIA.

Best (And only?) Mobile Content: Mobile Solid

As said above, mobile content was gone missing this year, but I did saw some neat thing: This technology from Mobile Solid enables video ringtones on your phone - a character of your choice dances to the beat of the ringtone. You can also create characters by cutting and pasting people's faces (Sounds familiar...) which is always fun with politicians, celebrities or your friends. In addition the character animates SMS messages by recognizing words and reacting to it with gestures. It looks really nice, question is of course what is the market potential and is it a gimmick or here to stay.

Coolest Appliance: Parrot by Starck

I am not really sure what this thingy does, as I didn't have the time to stay for a demonstration, but from what I saw it is simply a bluetooth speaker, you can connect your device and play songs through it. Nothing new here, but both the interface on top of the speaker and the product design itself are extremely sleek in a way that makes them stand out, and this is because it was designed by the top designer Philippe Starck. Parrot is the vendor of other bluetooth products such as speakerphones, digital frames etc. and they seem to do quite a nice job.

Best Booth Design: SpinVox

And last but not least, an award for creativity in booth design. MWC is still a very big exhibition and it is difficult to stand out. The guys from SpinVox certainly made an effort to do just that, and it certainly works... Very colorful and doesn't look like a booth at all, maybe more like a theme park... I was told they had the same booth last year, but it is the first time I saw it, so great job guys...

That's all for now, hope you enjoyed it. I should emphasize that these are really just a small glimpse of the exhibition and even I did not get to see everything, if you want to have the whole experience, make sure to book your hotel and flights early on towards MWC 2010...