Keeping the Internet open

While Google is celebrating its 14th birth anniversary, it is peeved at the sudden dismissal of its Maps application in the recently launched Apple iPhone 5. Google has been completely taken by surprise, notes International Herald Tribune, as its contract to keep Google Maps app on the iPhone is still in force.

There are discussions worldwide on the ineffectiveness of the new Apple mapping software that in countries such as Japan, the users seems to be seeing metro stations under water bodies!

Data sharing unwillingness

One of the possible reasons why Apple ousted Google maps is due to the location and associated information collected by Google while users navigate through Google Maps. Since mobile services are location based, Apple does not want to lose this golden mine of data to its competitor!

However, this smacks of snatching away what the users truly deserve and is similar to the numerous episodes of mobile operators using their power of the “last mile” to deny users of the application/content of their choice – the infamous ones being AT&T Wireless blocking “SlingPlayer” app that streamed Internet broadcast video on its bundled iPhone 2. Hence, is it not apt that “Net Neutrality” principles that prohibit discriminatory treatment to content/ application is applicable not only to mobile operators but also to platform providers such as Apple?

In the era of smartphones and tablets, the broadband pipe offered by the operators is of little value unless there are associated applications/content that can use the power of devices and the network. There are strong externalities between applications and bandwidth. By sticking to its “proprietary” architecture and the “wall gardened” approach, Apple is denying one of the most useful and widely used applications to end users. It is expected that in an oligopoly market such as those found in mobile platforms (i.e. Windows 8, Android, iOS), the firms use their “proprietariness” and “non-inter-operability” to protect their turf and that is precisely what Apple seems to have done.

However, sticking to this philosophy for pre-empting competition may not last long as new technologies and standards evolve.

Data sharing on RTC

One such case is “Web Real Time Communication” (Web RTC). Web RTC is a free, open project that enables web browsers with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple “non- proprietary” Javascript Application Programme Interfaces (API) or the open HTML 5.

Incidentally this project is being driven by Google Chrome team. When fully developed, Web RTC allows peer-to-peer multimedia communication from one user to another user on the Internet via simple Web browsers. Web RTC offers web application developers the ability to write rich, real-time multimedia applications on the web, without requiring plug-ins, downloads or installs. Now that smartphones and tablets are equipped with 3G/4G network services, the Web RTC applications can be invoked on the mobile web browser.

Since this form of communication does not require any centralised servers to patch up the end users, experts say that this will be death knell for internet telephony applications such as Skype. To promote its own video service, Apple might block Web RTC applications on its iPhones or allow only its own Safari browser without Web API support!

Apple convincingly held on to its vertical integration of hardware all the way to applications so far. It has also created a strong network of loyal application developers for its proprietary platform, enabled by lucrative eye balls and revenue generation. Its loyal marquee customers have been surprised each time by the additional features and enhanced user experience, each time the new version of iPhone/ iPad is released. However, this time they were stumped by Apple’s position on mapping software. On the other hand, Google stuck to its “horizontalization” by promoting open standards and interfaces to be tapped by millions of developers and users around the world, with a glue to its Google servers that collect and mine user information!

Will developments such as Web RTC shake these two types of platform strategies? In the second part of the article next week, we will discuss how and why technologies and applications such as Web RTC could be a threat to operators and platform providers alike.

(The authors are with Sasken Communication Technologies. The views expressed in the article are personal.)