Why is everyone so interested in my pocket?

It seems like we can’t let a week go by without someone being interested in my pocket. What is even more surprising is that they all want it to be open. First the Android from Google promises the world to developers with operating system that takes Java software to the mobile world, then the iPhone from Apple makes a big splash with the ability to write applications once on the web and run them on the device without modification, now Nokia buying Symbian and claiming it will be open so it can set the future of the mobile free.

Why is everyone so concerned with the future of mobile, and why must it be so free and open?

Very few people are sincere in their hate for Microsoft, like Marc Benioff from Salesforce.com who explains that the major motivation behind these moves is to dethrone Microsoft from the leadership role they enjoy in business software.

There is a race to out-open, out-free, and out-bling the future of mobile telephony with the usual development restrictions just a few feet away from the shiny banner of false promises. The world of pay-for-play development tools, the world of application redistribution restrictions, the world of carrier objections and inevitable crippling of functionality we are so used to.

Follow the money…

Remember a few weeks back I wrote about how less than 7% of development is dedicated to Vista? Large software deployments are very difficult to manage (read: expensive) and when you make a decision on a platform you stick with it. This is why you still see Windows NT4 and Windows 2000 running some core services and LOBs in larger companies, they approved the purchase, got the LOB that was supported on the platform and the solution will likely not move until the building is imploded and building rebuilt.

Corporate IT managers feel much the same way about mobile computing. It used to be that only remote workers were road sales people, executives and an occasionally misfortunate new hire in the IT department who got stuck doing on-call as a condition of employment. Today, things are quite different – everyone from the restaurant seater to the hotel chain maids is linked, synced and managed through the mobile applications that everyone rightfully expects to only grow in utility and deployment base.

Everyone is concerned with writing applications on a system that will not be changed on a whim, support discontinued in X years, features changed or locked down when they no longer make money.

Thus, everyone is trying to win the developers who have had to put up with broken and often incomplete API, needed large support contracts to be able to interact with the device or software or just could not use their skills or manage their own application deployment.

What we are seeing is an open PR fight over who will be the openest of them all so they can assure the years of device and operating system distribution and licensing fees.

Which, ironically enough, has been the Microsoft business model all along.