Julie Ask Quotes (15 Quotes)

There is certainly a big market for teenagers and parents adding them to their mobile phone plan.

The way people make decisions about cell phones is still about cheap minutes, good coverage at home and a free handset.

Will the animated avatars come out on the market Yes. Will people buy them Yes. They're fun and entertaining. But there's a limit to what consumers will spend -- they're already buying games, ring tones, videos, and music. The average cell-phone bill is already around 50. And consumers have shown a willingness to spend an extra 5 to 10 a month for data services. But they're not going to spend an unlimited amount for more and more services.

Certainly the notion of putting music video on phones will increase over time.

It's a great time for content providers to experiment with a mobile play.

At the end of the day, most people still just want to talk on their cell phone. There are very few people who want to download music or do these types of broadband-type activities.

If you're in a Manhattan building with 30 apartments that's one thing. But if you're the guy who parks your car in front of a suburban house in the middle of the night and you've got the screen from your laptop glowing, well...

I think it's definitely the direction the industry is going. It's a great time to be testing the market.

The potential for local search and local advertising comes into play.

The big challenge is inventory. Not a lot of people watch this, so how do you get a big enough market that makes it worth your while

Apple sells hardware and software. They don't have an existing subscriber base like cable companies, and they don't have content like ESPN that people have an affinity to.

Parents get mobile phones for their teens because they want to communicate in case of an emergency, and wireless carriers have made it easy to add users to their existing plans. Wireless carriers have been very successful in getting parents to expand their plans to include their teens, but between free phones and shared minutes, it's not the most lucrative proposition for carriers.

This is going to be an exciting space for the next couple years.

This consumer interest bodes well for the mobile industry as vendors use different business models to try and tap into this consumer demand. The challenge is not interest but rather finding the correct mix of premium content and price points that is lacking in today's offerings.

I have been fielding quite a few calls about Apple's filing of the 'Mobile Me' patent. Folks have been speculating about a phone from Apple for more than a year. Being that I am a wireless analyst, I don't follow Apple as closely as others do. What I do know though, is that we are not likely to know until Apple wants us to know. They are pretty good at big surprises. Do I think they are developing a phone Probably. Probably somewhere in their labs, there are prototypes of phones. Whether or not they bring one to market commercially is another story. Whether or not they will do so on their own is another open question. Hard to imagine carrier subsidies on a device unless there are revenues to be earned through downloaded services and content.