Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Oct. 23, 2008

Ian McKerlich, T-Mobile’s director of mobile Internet and content services has witnessed massive changes in the last two years.

However, he has benefitted of a couple of simple lessons nevertheless, which he shared with attendees of the 4G Executive Summit last week.

Ian McKerlich said it’s not about the technology. Rather, it’s more about knowing how the various wireless operator’s offerings will enrich personal relationships.

He also pressed the audience to focus on consumer needs, not get caught up in slogans.

For example, he pointed to the concept of openness, which he said is getting a lot of discussion lately.

With so much talk of openness, which he said everything should be anyway, it loses its impact after a time.

“Openness is just the means of serving the customer,” McKerlich added.

He added "all the pieces are in place, it is just a matter of focusing on the customer and enriching the experience. Once that is done, the percentages should explode."

Since McKerlich joined T-Mobile in 2006, social networking sites such as Facebook have quadrupled and SMS has grown six-fold.

Even though mobile Internet adoption has grown from 8 percent to 16 percent in 2008, it hasn’t grown as much as it could have, he said.

He added “we have low penetration because we have taken the lowest common denominator approach. However, now that T-Mobile has built a better browser experience, where the operator accelerates behavior by making common things easier to access, this can only push the cause even more."

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

    This article was featured on Business 5.0 and on Tech Blog.

Source: T-Mobile USA.