GigaOm Mobilize 2011 event predicts industry trends

The GigaOm Mobilize 2011 event I attended in San Francisco this week captured some interesting moments in video:

Pandora CTO: We jailbroke the iPhone, love HTML5
Monetization on mobile can’t be like the web 
T-Mobile EVP speaks

Just as insightful were some tid-bits from their “Future of Mobile” report. While lean on mobile media perspective, it makes up for it with a spectrum of studies in health, social location, ad-targeting, and lots of predictions such as:

Growth     According to a UN & ITU study in 2010, developing countries accounted for 76 percent of the world's total mobile phones, up from 53 percent at the end of 2005. This is where new cellular adopters come from. Meanwhile, in the U.S., smartphone penetration continues to surge as people upgrade from feature phones, with Nielsen reporting this month that the 40 percent threshold has just been crossed.

Android OS     Mobile devices running the Android OS currently hold 20 percent of the market, according to ABI Research, but the firm also pointed out that “no single vendor using Android (or any other OS) has been able to mount a significant challenge” to the iPad.

Tablet Prediction      Through at least 2013, Apple’s combination of price and functionality will be unbeatable. But Android tablets will catch up by 2014, eventually overtaking Apple’s market share, thanks primarily to lower prices (just as it has in smartphones).

Windows 8 Prediction      Microsoft will arrive far too late to attract many consumers, but by the end of 2014 it will gain a substantial foothold in the enterprise with tablets running Windows 8. Meanwhile, the iPad will continue to gain traction in high schools and higher education.