With CTIA Wireless 2010 conference behind us, it's time to reflect on what we saw and heard at the annual confab. Judging from the crowds on the show floor and in the keynote sessions, attendance was strong (CTIA has not yet released attendance figures). I also felt a very positive vibe from most of the people I spoke with at the show. There seems to be a renewed energy in the industry--a definite turnaround from the doom-and-gloom comments predominant in 2009.
But clearly the industry is changing. Gone is the emphasis on mobile entertainment and "surprise" appearances by celebrities. Instead, the new royalty at the show were mobile application developers--which CTIA catered to via its dedicated "App World" exhibit.
Also gone are the jaw-dropping news announcements. Arguably the biggest news at the show was the release of the HTC Evo 4G device by Sprint Nextel--the first U.S. WiMAX smartphone (that announcement scored 76 percent of the vote on our poll). But that announcement was not much of a surprise; most of the details had been leaked the week before the show.
Of course, there were the usual debates on mobile advertising, mobile payments and mHealth--but the biggest buzz seemed to be around easing network congestion, whether that's through off-loading traffic onto femtocells, WiFi or other options. And of course, we heard the usual cry for more spectrum from the network operators. To check out our complete coverage, visit our CTIALive minisite.
The Fierce editorial team did take a few days to reflect on CTIA and we have compiled our observations into a scorecard. We've highlighted the companies and technologies we think emerged as winners and losers at last week's gathering in Las Vegas. Clearly, some companies emerged stronger than ever, while others seemed to lack momentum. Check out our scorecard here:
And, as always, let us know what you think. --Sue