Mobile market battles amongst market disruption

WIth non-traditional companies like Google and Apple becoming big as mobile providers – the traditional companies like Samsung, Nokia, and LG are becoming nervous.  Google and Apple have changed the game!  So, unless the hardware manufacturers have a game plan that includes elements of software AND services, their goose is really cooked.

So, Samsung is coming out with Yahoo services by expanding on their partnership contract that they have had since 2007.

The new contract includes phones running Samsung’s own Bada platform and Google’s Android platform, which will have better access to a wide range of Yahoo services including mail, messenger, search, news and calendar.

On the face of it, this looks great but Yahoo is a losing company as it has totally got its Yahoo Mail strategy upside down!  It still has a paid service for even forwarding and POP/IMAP services, which GMAIL has for free.  This does a lot for the customer – as it gives her / him the option to use desktop mail clients.  Also, there is a lot of benefit in the way the Google Docs are integrated with their email services.  For the small companies, the Google Apps is a great winner.  Such services make a lot of sense.. but the framework should be better.  I am not sure there will be a lot of Yahoo services takers.

Though people may have an email account on Yahoo, Hotmail and Google; it is important to know which one they use the most.  I have it too on Yahoo – but I hardly ever use it.  Gmail is the one that remains my main account.

Now, no company in the mobile market can remain as a hardware only or software only provider.  Its the complete offering advantage that they have to look at – Hardware, Software, and Services.  And until now, Apple’s iPhone, Google, and Blackberry seem to be on top.