McCormack
told a good story about the chairman of Rolex not knowing much about the watch business as he said his company was in luxury business. What many people missed or simply didn't pay much attention to at MWC in Barcelona was Apple's absence.
What business is Apple in? IMO, UX.
Someone said Apple is about quantum leaps, not incremental steps. (Well, I agreed with that until iPhone 5 came out... When I held
HTC One in my hand at MWC - ten times, in fact, as I simply couldn't walk away from it - I thought to myself: "That is exactly what I was expecting from iPhone 5. And am now expecting from iPhone 6.")
Apple had nothing new to say to the world and didn't turn up. Someone, please explain to Huawei the difference between "kudos" and "copycats".
If I wanted to announce something new in a mobile space, would I drown my message in the "me too" cacophony of MWC, or would I whisper about it after the dust settles (i.e. when Barcelona hotels stop charging £1,000 per night)?
How does that relate to the financial industry fixated on mobile, NFC, wallets, etc?
"Simples!" - payments are not about any of that. Payments are about: authentication, ubiquity and UX. Starting with the latter: who has been the trendsetter when it comes to UX in the mobile world? Who has the most number of registered "mobile" users"?
As for authentication, if I were Visa, Gemalto and VeriFone, I'd be worried. A lot...
And if I were a mobile operator, I'd start comprehending the consequences of "operator-agnostic"...