Last week EA Mobile Senior VP Mitch Lasky announced that EA Mobile is "going off-deck" and gave a presentation that appeared to show a consumer purchasing content on a desktop and transferring it to a phone, essentially cutting operators out of the loop. After his speech was covered in FierceMobileContent and other publications, Lasky clarified his remarks to say that EA Mobile was only planning to market games off-deck, but that the company would still direct users to the carrier portal to purchase them.
Did Lasky jump the gun when he talked about new EA Mobile applications for "selling directly to our customers"? Did operator goons leave a severed keypad in his bed that night? I don't know and, really, it doesn't matter. Whether it's just marketing or something more, the trend is clear: operators' walled gardens are crumbling down. Marketing, content discovery and delivery will all eventually move off-deck--it's a matter of "when," not "if." -Eli
P.S. I'm hosting a Webinar on "Staying Ahead of the Curve: New Threats and Opportunities to Securing Your Cellular Handsets." with Intel today at 2 p.m. EST. Join me live today or check out the archived version later.