On Nov 10, launch unveiled their own (walled) open mobile platform for their smart phones called Bada.

This serves as yet another sign-post to an emerging trend in the mobile space. Mobile phones are becoming vessels to cloud services. The concept of ‘smart’ phones are being diluted because the intelligence behind ‘smart’ now lies outside the device. From manufacturer’s point-of-view, the game will be about making their device compatible with as many service as possible, yet provide additional features that makes accessible service easier than their competitors’ phones. The service provider’s point of view is a little cloudier, especially for start-ups (which represent majority of the ground-breaking solutions) that do not have the resource to deploy and maintain clients on multiple platforms. My guess now is that established platforms like iPhone OS and Android will still be the destinations of choice, business orientated services will consider RIM. This feels very much like the early Internet days. Very exciting indeed.

Final thought: Will Java make a come back on mobile?