Keith Ahern
CEO, Mogeneration
Written by Hannah Suarez on 2008-10-16
What do you see happening in the next five years in the mobile web development industry? Particularly in devices such as the iPhone?
The industry will mature to the point where mobile Internet services will be commonplace, mobile advertising will be a viable revenue stream, data plan “bill shock” will disappear and the mobile phone will genuinely help make your life easier by providing information, communication and entertainment. Even now I think any company that embarks on a major web project without considering mobile users is making a foolish decision. Don’t they want a presence on a device that every Australian over the age of 16 carries with them?
What are the biggest challenges MoGeneration face as a start-up in the Brisbane community?
Brisbane’s community is fantastic but unfortunately a lot of the big industry and networking events such as Mobile Monday take place in Sydney. So while most of the work is done is Brisbane it really helps to have a physical presence at those events.
What are the most important/valuable skills that graduates can bring to your industry?
The great thing about the iPhone is that it rewrote the rules of what is possible with a mobile phone. So a lot of the previous knowledge for older devices is now, frankly, irrelevant. Right now the iPhone market is small but viable in Australia, in 18 months iPhone like devices will be everywhere. Think big, move beyond SMS messages and mini websites – the possibilities are virtually limitless.
How would you rate the performance of Brisbane-based mobile 2.0 organisations in comparison to other national and international developers?
Chris Kettle’s company, My247.mobi, have a great product that’s used internationally. Brisbane also has a great history of computer games development, I’m sure some of them are looking at the iPhone platform. The most popular applications from the iPhone App Store are games.
How has new media such as the Internet and mobile communications revolutionised your workplace?
We use Google applications for all our email and calendaring. Skype for calls, chat and file transfer, Vtiger for CRM and Atlassians product suite for source code management, bug tracking and wiki. With the exception of Atlassian all are free but more importantly all are in the ‘cloud’. I can use anybody’s PC or iPhone and get access to all that information easily.
Google Android and Blackberry Storm – what are your personal thoughts about those devices?
This devices, which we call mobile 2.0 because they have the following capabilities of a screen resolution of at least 320 by 480. Touch screen. Desktop quality web browser and GPS.
Users of Mobile 2.0 devices use the internet on their phones 70 to 80 percent more than Mobile 1.0 devices because they are easy to use, the can surf the ‘real web’ and can provide local context for search. For example, ‘find a chemist near me’. I think the iPhone will own the market for at least 12 months then Android will make some inroads, ultimately I think Android will fare very well but it will take a few years, I think the first few phones will be buggy whereas the iPhone has been out internationally for almost 18 months now.
What would you like to see in Brisbane, and beyond, in 2009 in terms of MoGeneration’s presence?
I would like MoGeneration to help Brisbane companies understand that mobile 2.0 means for them, how they can stay in touch with their customers and make the mobile phone useful again!