Wireless Iron Curtain: Giants Mastering the rules of the game the time has come

More and more people believe in the advent of the "Knight era"-whether it's a mobile app or a game developer, or "free Man Free association" of the Mini development team, are all gearing up to become the next plant vs Zombies, Angry birds or "chaos of the World" founder. The dream of creating a single application that earns tens of millions of dollars in online apps such as Apple's App Store and Google's Android harsh, and even dominates people's mobile screens, is brutal but true.

Another dimension of the dream is the popularity of smartphones-the Android operating system, which was born in September 2008, is seen as a lifeline by more mobile phone makers on the verge of the fall, and by "Shanzhai", the "copycat", as Nirvana's experimental field, And it all seems to be contributing to a 1000-dollar blowout of Android smartphones until they replace the same price of not-smart even "mobile phones".

The Ultimate prophecy--the Knight of the free developer and the chariot of the smartphone online app store--will fortified the operator's manor in the mobile internet era and become the dominant voice of the future Mobile world.

Would you like to believe that this is the prelude to the New Romantic "Wireless Revolution"?

The "Iron Curtain" that redefined China Mobile's internet landscape is slowly falling, just as the revolution, created by individual developers and application platform innovators, is under development. The Iron Curtain, the operator, is in the traditional internet, telecom operators value-added business model, not smart phones and cottage Corps, such as "old forces" under the shadow of the "new giants". Behind them are more than 200 million of real China Mobile internet users-the market that originated in the 2005 years before the new wave of iphone and Android exploded.

It is therefore that the current full of drama but not without the fate of the pattern: in China Mobile Internet is still in the embryonic stage of the 2005, people's perception of it almost stay in the "mobile Dream Network" level. At that time, Tencent, with more than 300 million registered users, had just come on the market, and most of its revenue depended on the value-added services of telecom operators, and Technology (UC) was an unknown technical research and development company; The newly established sky is still trying to find a killer app that convinces the operators to develop together. While the "mobile phone" was increasingly popular at that time, but has not been widely concerned. Today, 5 years later, Tencent, UCWeb and Skye, from the traditional Internet, independent mobile browser technology and Shanzhai phone content platform, have emerged as the most popular mobile internet in China, quietly rising to dominate the discourse.

Of course, you can see them as a stumbling block to the "old forces" on the road to the future of mobile Internet, which have so far relied on the vast market of traditional WAP sites and non-smartphones, through traffic trafficking and telecom operators value-added services (SP) to obtain most of the revenue, and even thus with some historical "original sin." But they are also pioneers in the Internet experience of hundreds of millions of "silent majority" mobile phone users.

In a way, in their own adherence and transformation, they can even be seen as Google, Microsoft and Apple in China Mobile's internet sector--behind the Iron Curtain, their competition, gaming and boundaries have also influenced the fortunes of many mobile internet developers and entrepreneurial teams, and constrained the most romantic of the China Mobile Internet's short history The process of "revolution".

Proving that the "old age" oligarch war is not a symptom of the resistance of the Times, that three of companies that are completely different in weight are being pulled to a competitive position near the same level in the mobile internet age – each with hundreds of millions of mobile internet users, And to obtain at least billion (or even billions of) yuan-level annual income. At least in the short term, it's hard for any player to easily put two other players in a desperate position in a short period of time--even if it's a tough one like Tencent.

But they have a surprisingly consistent direction in which users are taking the game with each other: the only access and standard configuration for many mobile users to connect to the Internet, and to integrate as much information, content, social, gaming and services as possible.

This means that three aggressive companies are trying to play a richer role-not just your browser, but your operating system, client management software, video Audio center, mobile social tools, gaming software platforms, and even the App store.

One of the first players to profit from mobile internet: Tencent's first bucket of gold, the "mobile QQ" member of China Mobile, is still the most powerful public opinion base for wedge into the handset market. However, it is not enough to accommodate Tencent's full ambition QQ Mobile browser will become its "second battlefield" to host its vast number of users of the mailbox, online social games and value-added services and other complex business, it and the upcoming Q-service integration, It can even mask the need to use other client-side software on people's phones-including UCWeb. UCWeb, who started out as a low-cost Internet experience for non-smartphone users, flipped into the core of Tencent, trying to convert more than 100 million users attached to the browser channel into the UC community and content services, making it the edge of the showdown with Tencent.

And another "stealth company" Skye, through a sustained collaboration with the MediaTek platform, has won control over the vast majority of "shanzhai" handsets, which are "invisible App Store" for Shanzhai smartphones, and when it is ready to force both communities and browsers, Tencent and UCWeb, who worked closely with Skye, have finally realised that their control has fallen far behind "old friends" in the unfathomable "shanzhai" market.

It is not difficult to foresee that the continuation of the "Iron Curtain War" will further polarize many app developers and entrepreneurs on the mobile internet ecosystem, and even let them be overwhelmed and suffocated. But, on the other hand, the "giants" of the game, so that hundreds of millions of smart or even mobile phone users and millions of smartphone users between the "Internet gap" is increasingly eliminated-Tencent, UCWeb and Skye around the mobile internet portal competition and expansion, The speed and richness of the Internet experience of non-smartphone users has undoubtedly been accelerated. Their military expansion, which is "platform", also provides a relatively open unified access environment for third party developers who can participate – the rules of the game for non-smartphones in a closed environment, as well as the open rules of smart phones.

The climax and outcome of this oligopoly game is still unknown. But almost any player or adventurer who tries to capture the needs of China's 270 million mobile internet users and participate in the game will find it difficult to evade the compromises, coexistence, running-in and even confrontation with the oligarchs in the future. Of course, the next "metamorphosis" of oligarchs remains the real problem they have to face after an excessive game-no one denies that smartphones are the next big trend for mobile internet. Perhaps the next generation of mobile internet users, who have been "educated" by Tencent, UCWeb and Skye, will truly break through the chains and walls of the closed platform when they evolve into Angry Birds players one day and dream of similar creations.