Mobile Mondays Beijing event

Right now I'm in the meeting at Mobile Mondays Beijing. This event was started by Benjamin Joffe of PlusStar. The meeting tonight is about foreign firms in China. The speakers for this meeting are Lin Song from Opera China, David Sullivan from Alliance Development Group, Karl J. Weaver from Gemalto China, Dan Wong from Nokia China and Allen Yang from LemonQuest China. There is such a great turnout here at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, around at least 100 people! The speakers are now talking about why they entered into the Chinese market.

Lin Song is talking how Opera started as a narrow facility and then how it expanded in the mobile browser market. Allen Wong says their main reason to come to China was to bring research and development together, produce in China, and then market abroad. LemonQuest does development of mobile games. Karl J. Weaver is now saying why Gemalto came to China because it makes sense to come to the largest market in the world. In fact, I did not know that Gemalto was the original developer of the SIM card that is used in GSM mobile phones. It makes sense to go to China to go to the largest subscriber base. David Sullivan is now explaining that it is important to choose your partners, working with Huawei and ZTE, it's having your engineers work with others. He says that you become "customers of your partners". You must maintain speed and the technology roadmap, you need to have offense to protect your defense, in football speak.

Benjamin is now talking to Dan Wong, VP of Software and Services of Nokia China about how Nokia is getting into the services area. IPR for services and software is more complex, one of the important things is how to protect IPR for your business, one way to do this is to look at China. In China, it is easy to copy products, as people are familiar with. China created free software but charge for time to connect with the server, that is the business model that works, according to Dan. The deeper question is can you develop a business model that is IPR proof, it is broader challenge for developing services globally. Nokia's vision is that OVI provides a very differentiated experiences via just the hardware. According to Karl Weaver, you cannot stop IP, you cannot stop the flow of technology, there are strategies that you can compete. According to David Sullivan, a lot of foreign companies use the same model to start up shop in China, but it doesn't work. Services are becoming very important and critical in China, if you get the service model right then you can protect yourself. You need to keep staying ahead.

How do the foreign companies keep staying ahead, is the next question addressed by Benjamin. According to David Sullivan, it is important to identify the ecosystem and then identify the suppliers, there is a need to be much more creative. From Lin Song of Opera, you need to have a great product and get constant feedback from users.

Third question: What kind of difficulties have you found in growing the business in China?

Karl J. Weaver: Chinese companies treat information as secret, which is frustrating in trying to grow the business in China.

Allen Yang: Foreign companies can never act local when they are global, they say act global stay local.

David Sullivan: A lot of companies go into China and see the level of investment needed, and decide not to come. The challenge is localization, you need to find the Chinese partners and the language. The challenge is also talking with headquarters.

Dan Wong: The biggest challenge is market challenge, the biggest market in the world. In China, there are 2000 models, the level of competition is at an entire new level from the regulatory environment, the unique standards, and the market structure. The biggest challenge is the combination of all those things.

According to David Sullivan, there are companies that are starting to develop with the China market first and then bring it globally, that have 95% of the development work in China. From a consumer demand, Nokia's Dan Wong says want to compete in the services arena in a different way, it is not to replicate this. For mobile music, people in China will pay for downloading music, Dan says we are seeing pockets of opportunity.

Question: What are some failures and success stories with your companies?

Lin Song: There is an importance of finding the right people, it is not that they are not competent, it is the element of trust.

David Sullivan: A lot of companies project their experiences but have no idea what is going on, which results in failure. when companies find the right technology fit and right partner, and commit to that localization, then there is a lot of opportunity for success.

In the end, a great talk and discussion, I've never been to an event where there was so many people listening to the speakers, and there is internet access, and power where my seat is! Now, it's time to network and eat a light buffet!