Ok so maybe you are one of the people who see mobile making amazing strides in 2008 and simply think well duh, of course 2008 is the year of the cell phone. Look at all the big things that have happened and are about to happen to really push the envelope. Hopefully you have seen some of these “big” things that I’m referring too?  If your one of those people well I guess you can stop reading. Otherwise let me present why we are just ahead of the Perfect Storm of opportunities:

1. The iPhone was a huge hit! Yes lots of people complain about no GPS and security issues, but let’s face it these things are selling quickly and it’s the most talked about gizmo out there. Yes businesses aren’t really excited about them as I’ve read numerous articles in both E-Week and InformationWeek about this, but the users seem to love them. What does the iPhone do that is so awesome? To me the biggest advantage is that it can render a website in its full glory as if your viewing it on a normal computer. That’s right no mobile CSS needed for this mobile device! I really can’t believe more people haven’t been talking about this point? This in itself really makes website programmers and developers have to think if all the time spent on designing sites that are mobile phone friendly will really even matter in another year or two?
2. You have probably heard about the February 2009 mandate of all television broadcast will be pure digital and no longer analog? So how is this related? Well this old UHF spectrum is going to be auctioned off later in this month and the expected bidders are mostly cell phone companies and technology companies like Google. It’s pretty safe to assume at this point that this spectrum will be consumed by cell phone and wireless transitions. I’m sure I’ll blog about the winners when the time comes. You can read more about this at BusinessWeek.
3. Verizon has announced plans to open up it’s network to third party devices. Although some are very skeptical this, to me is an admission by a large player that the field is about to drastically change. In Europe this is standard and with services like Skype using VOIP and free wireless access you really don’t even need a carrier. It has to be a concern that with wireless networks being added to more cities that this is a major concern. Another angle would speculate that Verizon is obviously showing support for Google’s Android, the Open Handset Alliance to create an Open Source Linux OS that would be Standard for cell phones.
4. Well as I just mentioned we have Android. I have very obvious speculations about why Google is interested in an open source OS platform, but I’ll save my assessment of Google and their predicted path for another post. Android, if universally adopted (and there is little reason to believe with Google’s recent track record that it won’t display some clout), has the possibility to really change the mobile environment. It is being supported by 33 other companies besides Google. We are talking about one OS with the dominance of Windows on personal computers, and it’s Open Source FREEWARE! Ok ok, so maybe it’s a little bold to say that Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Mobile are done for, but there are 20+versions of mobile linux currently out there!

Ok so there you go! Four solid points that say we are in for some big changes in our cell phones as we know them today. Maybe some of my predictions are off, but if one of these comes out big then doesn’t that make my prediction correct? So I’m hedging my prediction with four possible positive outcomes, what’s wrong with that? I’ll definitely be sure to follow this as the year progresses.