On-device portal

On-Device Portal technology emerged in 2000, as operating systems and Java were beginning to be deployed on mobile handsets. One.Tel launched smart on device applications using a combination of Java and SIMtoolkit technology in May 2000. In 2002, four vendors — ActiveSky, SurfKitchen, Action Engine and Trigenix - began developing ODP offerings. In March 2003 at CeBIT O2 demonstrated an ActiveSky powered O2 branded On-Device portal that was both user and operator (remotely) reconfigurable, that same year KDDI deployed an ActiveSky based solution. In 2003, operators including O2, Sonofon and ONE began to deploy ODP solutions. From 2001 to 2005, it was central to many MVNO solutions, as a more cost effective and customer-centric alternative to handset software variants or SIM toolkits, Virtuser developed many trials of these, including a pre-blackberry email service that used Bluetooth in buildings.

Since 2003, On-Device Portal technology has been embraced by mobile operators across the world[1] to complement WAP-based mobile data services and help operators deliver on the promise of mobile data services. Carriers expected the launch of High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), in which they had invested heavily, to drive robust average revenue per user (ARPU) growth. But despite this investment, the mobile data services market still only represented 19% of global mobile service revenue in 2007.[3] Several factors have been cited for the slow uptake in data services, but poor user experience, based on older browser-based WAP technology, is widely acknowledged as one of the leading reasons.

The browser-based mobile experience is considered difficult and complex, often requiring a user to click multiple times in order to navigate from browsing to downloading or purchasing content. Separately, WAP's structure, which differs from HTML, has made it difficult for content developers to build efficient content channels.

The On-device portal is also not without complications, supporting wide handset lists is a lot harder to manage than mobile web content, and updating major components is not just a case of re-publishing, but of redistributing applications. At the same time, while it is generally easy to test web content on a handful of browsers, portals need to be tested on nearly every handset which will be expected to use the on-device portal.

As the market for mobile services has emerged, it has focused on technology until early 2008. But handset vendors and operators are moving quickly from technology to focus on the user experience as the best way to improve market penetration. “When done properly, these experiences understand the task, the environment, and the audience.”[4]

Data is still being collected as companies analyze how effective greater emphasis on user experience proves to be for operators. Orange Group, for example, doubled its download data ARPU after deploying a portal on its Signature devices.[5]

On-Device Portals target four main user categories:

• Consumers, who demand an improved interface for their mobile experience
• Operators, who want to improve ARPU with richer media content
• Content and media providers who want to monetize their offerings in the mobile world
• Handset manufacturers, who want technology frameworks to help customize handsets for their customers
• Consumers who want to extend their web based social networking experience onto the mobile device (Facebook, BeBo, MySpace etc.) or share / back-up content from their mobile device to the web (Nokia Ovi, Flickr mobile etc.)

ARCchart expects that number of On-Device Portals licenses to grow to 1.1 billion by 2009.[5] As the ODP market matures it is expected to move beyond mass market services such as mobile TV, music and content catalogs to provide an experience where the subscriber can choose from a broad range of services and content, personalized to their needs.

This change is being driven by operators’ desires to emulate the success of Web 2.0 by being able to offer a broader and more personalized range of services to the user. This shift in operators online portal strategies increases the emphasis on operators being able to quickly launch, measure and refine services, while offering users an intuitive way of browsing and searching a large catalogue of services.

Some vendors have started to incorporate the kind of functionality needed to support mobile Web 2.0[6] and as the market matures, idle screen access, mobile widget platforms and the ability to support a broad range of operator business models (subscription, transaction and advertising driven) will become imperative for all ODP solutions.

• 3G
• Average Revenue Per User
• Advanced Mobile Phone System
• GSM
• Handheld Device Markup Language
• High-Speed Downlink Packet Access
• High-Speed Uplink Packet Access
• Java programming language
• Location-based service
• Mobile advertising
• Mobile device
• Mobile development
• Mobile network operator
• Mobile phone
• Mobile TV
• Personal digital assistant
• Qualcomm Brew (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless – BREW)
• Short message service
• Smartphone
• Widget
• WiMAX
• Wireless Application Protocol
• Wireless internet service provider