Verizon’s Open Development Initiative (ODI)
I was on a panel discussion yesterday, titled “Wireless, the Internet & Open Access Initiatives”, hosted by the New Jersey Technology Council (NJTC). It featured a presentation from Maurice Thompson who is a Director with Verizon’s Open Development Initiative (ODI), something I have touched on in a previous post.
Maurice did a good job of laying out the key components of the initiative, as also some of the potential market segments that Verizon expects to see some innovative devices and solutions emerge as part of ODI. In particular, he highlighted how ODI is also expecting activity from markets that are not considered part of the traditional cellular market e.g. AMR/AMI in Utilities, health/telemetry/wellness, M2M, etc.
In the subsequent part of the event, some of the points that were highlighted by myself and my illustrious co-panelists (Chip Cleary and Susan Brazer) as also the audience were as follows :
- The current focus on ODI on devices, although laudable, is but one dimension of driving innovation - the others being the ability to develop and market compelling applications and services, as also a clear business model on how the various participants will make money. Till the latter two are included within ODI, it will end up being a “non-stock certification program on steroids.”
- On the same thread, how is VZW going to start “opening” up to allow developers to start leveraging things like location to build applications ?
- Has VZW thought about expanding ODI to include advertising (which might be integrated with VZW’s own advertising platform) as a possible monetization model for new applications ?
- In response to a question, Maurice indicated that ODI did not care about the device platform as long as it met the RF requirements and other certification criteria
Maurice was gracious in his responses to the questions and admitted that ODI is just getting started and so all the details have not been worked out.
Kudos to NJTC for setting up the event. If you are interested in learning more about ODI, you can find information here.
