| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 智慧財產研究所 === 99 === In the past, mobile operators were predominant in the value chain of mobile communication industry. They created a so-called “Walled Garden” ecosystem in the industry through the development of proprietary platforms and controlled the overall allocation of profits in the value chain. Other players in the industry, including handset manufacturers, content providers and software developers had to comply with the rules set by the mobile operators.
However, with the advent of open in applications and contents, user devices, platforms to mobile networks, in the wake of 3G mobile internet value chains, the vendors which are capable of converging end-users and developers, are able to lead the value chain. In the meanwhile, operators who controlled the industry value chain through closed platforms would begin to face challenges from vendors everywhere.
In November of 2007, Google and Open Handset Alliance (OHA) introduced Android open platform, which exerted enormous influences in the ecosystem of mobile communication industry. When Google put Android, which stood for freedom and openness of the Internet, and other accompanying strategies into the industry, it attracted many vendors to participate in the development of Android platform. In the same time, collaborations among vendors in the industry became more complicated, and mobile operators were hit the hardest by losing the leader’s role or even relegated to the role of “Dump Pipe”, which only providing their mobile network for data traffic. However, the open industrial circumstances established by Android also created new opportunities, and in the future how mobile operators seize these opportunities and utilize Android platform would be the major challenge for themselves.
In this study, the author argued that mobile operators must set their own advantages (including mobile networks, informations of end-users, money flow…etc.) as a foundation to develop their own niche and market positioning. The response strategies stemming from the foundation can be categorized into establishing Android-based devices, Android-based service platforms and Android-based operating systems. And through conducting case studies on two mobile operators, this study found out that to establish Android-based service platoforms and Android-based operating systems would be more suitable for mobile operators to utilize their advantages. In addition, they are able to control the end-user experiences and developer’s communities by these two approaches to enlarge their user base and build open ecosystems that are centered on mobile operators.
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