Have you ever seen an image with two things that just don’t seem to go together? I had that experience last week on a train from London to Brussels. The woman next to me was reading a magazine and the image on the page just didn’t look right. I took me a while to convince myself that what I saw was real. Queen Elizabeth II was wearing a lab coat with a Research in Motion logo.
This was not one of those internet hoaxes that someone created using Photoshop. The Queen was really wearing a white lab coat with a nice big RIM emblazoned on it. On a recent state visit to Canada, Her Majesty paid a visit to Research in Motion. Of all the places in Canada, why did the Queen drop in on RIM, and allow herself to be photographed in a lab coat?
The Queen knows that we are in the midst of a technology revolution that is changing society, and RIM is only one of the smartphone leaders headquartered within the commonwealth. Now I don’t think RIM needs the Queen to help sell Blackberries, but it can’t hurt. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting several people from RIM and these people are smart.
Smartphones' advances in screens, processors, memory, and data rates are beating Moore’s law and consumers are reaping the benefits. According to recent analysis by the Yankee Group, phones with an advanced Operating System were 12 percent of the market in 2007, but will be nearly 40 percent by 2014. Markets that grow this fast always have some challenges and for smartphone market, the challenge is network congestion. Wireless networks were built for voice calls and most cell sites are still connected to the core network by old style T1 or E1 lines. AT&T recently addressed the congestion issue with tiered price plans for data. But those price plans also are attracting new customers. But if your network is congested, is attracting new customers a good idea? In an interview for Fortune magazine, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson defends his company’s new tiered price plans as a sustainable model. Not everyone agrees.
Yankee group estimates that “AT&T stands to lose billions of dollars of revenue if users shift to the lower priced plans.” For his part, Stephenson is putting his money where his mouth is. AT&T is investing $19 billion in new infrastructure this year, most of it intended to address wireless congestion.
When the Queen makes a purchasing decision, price is probably not a major factor. But for the millions of others will join the smartphone revolution every year, price will matter. Price too high and you don’t have enough customers. Price too low and you don’t generate enough profit margin from each customer. Over the next few years we will see lots of experimentation on price plans by network operators as they try to get this right. Having the best analytics will be just as important for network operators as having the best devices and the best network.
I think the Queen looks pretty good in that RIM lab coat. She has seen a lot of technology advancement in her time. Who else can you name that's been in the same job since Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. One of the most fascinating places in London is the War Cabinet Rooms where Churchill and his staff maintained offices while the city was being bombed. There are some old style telephone switchboards, which were the state of the art during the war. Maybe one day a Blackberry will seem as quaint as those switchboards. I wouldn’t bet against the Queen still being around to see it.
