PREFACE
With the study ÓMeM Ð Winning in Mobile eMarketsÓ at the beginning of
2000, the TIME labs Research Center @ Diebold already identified the
topic ÓMobile MarketsÓ and described the resulting trends and
consequences for the most diverse sectors of industry. The real hype
began globally with the awarding of the UMTS licenses, for which six
licensees in Germany paid almost DM 100 billion at auction. However,
after many visions of the future had been swapped and the first frenzy of
enthusiasm had subsided, the same old question suddenly recurred:
how can you make money out of mobile phones (especially with the
heavy burden of the license and network architecture costs)?
Basically you can make money on the mobile Internet if the provided
content is attractive and generates individual added value. Business
models based on this requirement must focus the situation- and location-based
specifics of mobile markets. This is where the media and
entertainment companies are the center of interest, because nobody
understands better than they do, how to generate and aggregate content
and bundle it in attractive saleable packages for all types of output media
and target groups.
In the first place this study should support media firms in becoming aware
of mobile media markets, and recognizing and seizing the chances they
offer for their own firms. At the same time, however, it is also directed at
all the other players in the mobile value chain (mobile telecommunications
firms, mobile phone manufacturers, mobile enablers etc.), in that it
indicates interfaces and possible forms of co-operation. Chapter 2 begins
this by describing the general basic conditions in the media industry in
the digital age. Chapter 3 then deals with the definition and the
characteristics of mobile media markets, and core Chapter 4 follows with
an analysis of possible mobile content and exposition of attractive and
successful business models. The strategic basic conditions encountered
by media firms and the migration routes they can take to the ÓMobile
PublisherÓ are described in Chapter 5. Finally, Chapter 6 explains the
implications of a mobile involvement for media firms. Chapter 7 gives the
prospects for future media usage with the vision of a ÓPersonal Net-workÓ.
We hope that the reader will achieve two aims with this study:
1. He will understand what mobile media markets are, how they function
and what impact these changes will have on their own firm and its
product portfolio.
2. He will obtain an important basis for making the earliest possible
start on developing own mobile business strategies.
Sincere thanks here to all the colleagues who have made a major
contribution to the success of this study with their support and ideas.
Marc Ziegler and Bernd Adam, April 2001