Apple sends in telco Trojan Horse

Beverley Head
Thursday, 09 June 2011 15:33

IT Industry - Strategy

The newly launched iMessage service is Apple's Trojan Horse, and could strip revenue torrents away from telecommunications carriers, especially if it opens the API to allcomers.

Mark Zawacki, founder and managing partner of Palo Alto based the Milestone Group, a new economy strategy firm located in Silicon Valley said that the smartphone field was still a two horse race between Androids and iPhones. However he said that 'I think iMessage is a bit of a Trojan Horse.'

Mr Zawacki was speaking at Amplify, a biennial festival of ideas sponsored by the AMP's IT group. 'If we saw iMessage becoming interoperable then it could get pretty tricky for the operators.

'If I were Apple I'd publish that API very quickly. It would be a pretty difficult opposition for Telstra and Optus to fight,' he warned.

He said that following Apple's major product release this week, fronted by a clearly frail Steve Jobs, the company had achieved the number two US market capitalisation, lagging only Exxon Mobil and outstripping the combined market capitalisation of Microsoft and Intel.

He warned that; 'People in the telco space need to work out how to complete' with Apple. They were he said at risk of being 'highly marginalised' in the new mobile landscape where WiFi was already a commodity in some geographies.

Another telco challenge has recently emerged with Microsoft's planned takeover of Skype which was according to Mr Zawacki 'a brilliant move that they will leverage into the enterprise suite.' He said Microsoft would be well advised to also take over Nokia in the next 12-18 months, and install Stephen Elop as Steve Ballmer's replacement.