Then (Internet): The first killer application of the Internet - email.
Now (Mobile): The first truly robust and addictive mobile application - Blackberry.

Then (Internet): Chat Rooms/Bulletin Boards.
Now (Mobile): Texting.

Then (Internet): Yahoo! for News and Sports.
Now (Mobile): Yahoo! for News and Sports.

The early Internet was confounded by weak browsers (no cookies), slow connections (14.4 Kbps modems), slow computers (pre-Pentium microprocessors), inconvient connectivity (dial-up), and a lack of strong development tools (no Java).

Mobile applications are hindered by weak browsers (no cookies), slow connections, expensive data plans ($20/month), lack of keyboard/mouse, lack of screen real estate, lack of processing power, and lack of memory.

So why am I bullish on mobile commerce? Moore's Law.

The average American consumer has a phone that:
- has minimal memory (10MB)for data storage,
- a tiny 2.2" 176 * 220 pixel screen, and
- has no QUERTY keyboard.
(ex: Motorola RAZR V3 - considered state of the art 2 years ago)

Compare that to the latest and greatest now available:
- 8GB storage,
- 3.5" 480 * 320 pixel screen,
- touch screen for navigation, and
- a touch screen QUERY keyboard system.
(ex: Apple iPhone)

More importantly, smartphone sales in the US grew 165% in the US year-over-year during for the third quarter of 2007. That comprised 11% of all mobile phone sales in the US. Source: http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/11/smartphone-sale.html.

In the next 1-2 years, Moore's Law will deliver us:
- low-cost smartphones,
- robust mobile processing power,
- advanced web-browsers,
- massive data storage, and
- broadband like data connectivity.

Due to the widespead adoption of smartphones, data plans will plummet in price and the mobile web will transition from cutting edge to everyday usage.

It took a while before the web evolved to deliver e-commerce on a significant scale. Today, e-commerce has redefined how Americans shop. Mobile commerce will be equally impactful and will provide consumers with friction-free transactions. A killer mobile-commerce application will have to contend with the inherent limitations of a mobile phone (screen size, keyboard size), and therefore will have to provide a faster simplier shopping experience than a full-fledged e-commerce transaction. Although there has been some success with text messaging based mobile commerce, there is reason to believe that consumers will far prefer a graphical user interface (GUI)-based mobile commerce tranasction.

When was the last time you heard someone long to go back to the days of DOS?

Expect smartphones and GUI-based mobile applications to put text-messaging based mobile commerce solutions out to pasture. Moore's Law is coming to mobile and not a moment too soon.

So is Apple's entry into the space good or bad for GetQuik?

It is too early to tell, but it presents challenges and opportunties. With Apple's presence, the growth in on-line and mobile restaurant transactions will greatly accelerate. Apple will create awareness from consumers and restaurant operators. Additionally, Apple will be landing major deals with large operators such as Starbucks. Restaurants in the US generate over $500 billion in revenues. Of this $500 billion, approximatley $350 billion is spent on casual and quick service dining. The other $150 billion is spent on fine dining. With such a large addressable market comprised of single unit, francisors, regional, and national chains, GetQuik sees an opportunity to take advantage of the PR and awareness Apple creates. There is room for more than one winner in this market. There is a very good chance that Apple with their brains, resources, and passionate user base will make the final cut. The competition to join or beat them will be fierce, and that is why Apple's entry will be interesting. The race is afoot and only the strong will survive.

Happy New Year indeed.

For the record, GetQuik has offered mobile food ordering solutions since May 2007 (J2ME and WAP).

The danger of low margin pricing:

- Lost Profits,

- Cash Flow Challenges, and

- Limited Working Capital for R&D, Customer Service and Marketing.

The risk of high margin pricing:

- Losing customers to competitors,

- Lack of supplier control, and

- Inability to gain significant market share.

Steve Jobs has great instincts for setting prices. His firm stance to price songs at $.99 on iTunes is a great example of this. iPod prices were also near perfect. Apple was able to dominate the MP3 player market, while still making healthy profits to fuel the continued dominance of the iPod franchise.

That is why the iPhone price correction is surprising. For months leading up the much hyped iPhone release, analysts were concerned that the $499 and $599 prices were far too high. Now that Apple has dropped the price of the 8GB iPhone to $399 ($200), it appears that Apple is looking to sacrifice profits in order to garner significantly higher market share. Conspiracy theorist are wondering if this entire price and reprice of the iPhone may be a well orchestrasted strategy by Jobs. Time will tell whether $399 is the sweet spot for the iPhone. Although Apple could have milked huge profits at the $499 and $599 price levels, those prices were clearly hurting sales volumes. Whether or not the iPhone price correction was a correction or a premeditated strategy, one thing is certain, prices matter.

When classifying customers, the conventional wisdom would use the following rating system.

Good customers are:

- patient,

- willing to pay for quality,

- flexible, and

- loyal.

Bad customer are:

- fickle,

- unreasonably demanding, and

- expect free services.

When launching a new product or service, your most valuable customers possess qualities of both of these "good" and "bad" customers. You want to listen to the customers who are demanding, though reasonable; and loyal, but only to a point. These customers are willing to pay extra for superior service, but expects a significant value in return for the extra cost. These customers are a product manager's best friend. If you listen to your "good" customers, you make assumptions that you can charge a premium and offer a good but not great product and thrive. Once the product hits the market, the flaws in features, quality and pricing levels will quickly be exposed. On the flip side, if you try and please a "bad" customer, a product manager ends up delaying product releases while trying to incorporate an enormous set of product features, many which are only useful to this ultra-demanding customer. Even then, this customer will want everything free and will leave your product for a cheaper alternative without hesitation.

The fair but demanding customer is the ideal market research target. Especially if she is comfortable in being brutally honest. She will explain the must have features and service levels. Additionally, she will provide an excellent idea of which add-on features or services she is willing to pay for. If you are lucky, you can get a good sense of the $ amount she will be willing to spend for the product and the various add-ons and extra service levels. Many times this $ amount will be zero. It is the responsibility of the product manager to figure out which features and services to enhance, remove/eliminate, and add based on the market research collected from this valuable customer feedback. A common mistake that product managers make is to waste time and resources building "cool" features that are not considered valuable to the customer base. The other big mistake is to leave out must-have requirements due to a lack of market research. Listening to the wrong customers as explained above can also lead to a product that is too weak, or one that does not have broad appeal.

The Sony Playstation 3 is an example of a product that has disappointed due to a wide gap between what the customer cares about, and what Sony believed the consumer would require and be willing to pay a premium for. The $600 price tag was too high for the price of admission for these Blu-Ray Disc playing, graphics-mastering machines.

The jury is still out on the iPhone. Apple and Jobs have been on a hot streak in mastering the customer requirements and commanding premium pricing in turn. There may not be a better judge of the consumer value-proposition and feature sets than Steve Jobs. So unless you are Steve Jobs, make sure to seek out the honest, tough, but not impossible customer and listen, listen, listen and then create your specifications.

For as little as $500 spent through the GetQuik service (http://www.getquik.com/), you can earn an iPod Shuffle. This is a limited time promotion running from July 1, 2007 - December 31, 2007.

GetQuik offers e-commerce and mobile-commerce for restaurant & cafe take-out and delivery orders. There are no service fees for using the GetQuik service. Program details.

For question on this program, email support@GetQuik.com.