spoke about the state of competition between mobile tech companies—particularly young companies versus the established giants.
6. “Zynga.” That was Chris Lynch, the former CEO of Vertica (acquired by HP), in response to the question “Zynga or HP?” from Antonio Rodriguez of Matrix Partners. Well, now we know at least part of the reason—Lynch just left HP last Friday. For good measure, he added that “Zynga is an analytics company masquerading as a game company.” What Zynga did was figure out how to make money on big data from gaming on mobile and other devices.
7. “Spread your bets, because there’s going to be a war.” That was Craig Palli from Fiksu, giving his advice to mobile marketers. Apple and Facebook are on a collision course, he said. The battle is between being device- and operating system-centric and being social-centric. (Everyone is watching for hints of what Facebook’s broader mobile strategy will be, of course.)
8. “There are not a lot of people interested in designing tablets for people who have no money and no electricity.” That came from Ed McNierney, the chief technology officer of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation. OLPC, of course, is interested in that, and much more. The electricity bit is crucial, he added, because power really isn’t cheap, despite many people’s wasteful, entitled, first-world lifestyles.
9. “Mobile is no longer a check-off item. Now it’s, how do we use mobile technology for business value?” That was Bill Seibel, CEO of Mobiquity, on what’s changed in the enterprise mobile sector in the past year.
10. “We want to give you an experience that makes your phone feel like it has super powers.” That was Sravish Sridhar, CEO of Kinvey. And that pretty much sums up the enthusiasm of a whole new generation of mobile entrepreneurs—one that will increasingly shape the broader future of technology.
