The mobile Internet will be bigger than most think - giant document (but only a taster) from Morgan Stanley Research

Via Stephen Downes via Gary Woodill here is a 424 page document from Morgan Stanley Research, [48 MB PDF] designed as a giant taster for a $59 publication.

For a taster there is plenty to mull over, including:

• about 10 pages of introductory narrative;
•  a particularly useful 8 page glossary;
• a shorter (92 slide) introduction;
• a long (659 slide) presentation covering 8 themes, each backed by a page or two of narrative.

The themes covered are:

• Wealth Creation / Destruction 
• Mobile Ramping Faster than Desktop Internet
• Apple Leading in Mobile Innovation + Impact
• Game-Changing Communications / Commerce Platforms (Social Networking + Mobile) Emerging
• Growth / Monetization Roadmaps (Japan + Desktop Internet) 
• Massive Data Growth Driving Carrier / Equipment Transitions 
• Compelling Opportunities in Emerging Markets
• Regulatory Impact

The snazzy slides are packed with startling data, for example, that Google has yet to achieve the market value that AOL (who?) had in 1998. Alongside this there is plenty of annoying business-cliché:

"We don't know exactly what Google's up to, and it is facing very tough competition, but we do know that in epic battles like the one that's developing around the mobile Internet...with the best and brightest in the hunt...this is a war game and the smartest players are trying to find the holes and stay / get ahead on the field."

Stephen writes:

The report argues, "we believe more users will likely connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within 5 years." This is probably true, and as the report states, because of the prevalence of existing billing methods, commercialization will occur a lot more quickly (of course, this is why there's such a push for the mobile internet, and away from that horrible mostly free desktop internet).

Morgan Stanley Research has issued reports like this in the past, and before getting carried away with the "truth" of this one's predictions, you'd need to review some from the past for their accuracy. But the overwhelming sense you get is that the mobile internet is unstoppable; and that those who concentrate on providing services for PC and laptop users at the expense of users of mobiles will miss out.

Comments

[Dick Moore]

Thanks for the reference. The basic assertions seem self-evident in that there are already many times more mobiles than PCs and they have a greater reach.

On the charging side of things, it's interesting that with the iPhone more bandwidth is consumed via the WiFi link than with 3G, with the former often free or available at a small fixed cost, as well as being of higher quality. I am not sure if this is likely to change.

To see how this works it's interesting that SKYPE on the iPhone is only allowed to work via WiFi. Likewise the Sky subscription service on the iPhone.