Investing in an open mobile development platform

The mobile world is changing. It's changing faster than the database world did back when MySQL was started and grew to be one of the most widely used database in the world.

Change brings turbulence and it's difficult trying to see the big picture to find the major trends. It also means different philosophies of doing things clash and fight for survival.

There are two large debates at the moment around mobile. One is about open versus closed platforms and the other is around native applications versus web based. One of them is an important philosophical issue, the other one a more technical question of the best way to bring a good user experience to mobile.

The success of the iPhone and the App Store has meant a huge leap for both mobile applications and mobile web. But the iPhone platform is closed. The entire ecosystem is controlled by one company.

On the Internet it's (somewhat) safe to say that the philosophy of open is winning. In fact, open is at the very heart of what the Internet is. As we are moving over to a world where Internet access predominantly is from a mobile device, do we want this to be an open world or a closed one controlled by one company?

This is a very important question for the future of mobile - and the Internet at large!

There's certainly room for both native applications and web based ones in the mobile world. But is it of outmost importance that the platform that grows to be the dominant one for native applications is an open one.

This is why I am now using an Android phone (Hero from HTC).

That is also why I chose to invest in the Swedish cross platform and open source tool for mobile development: MoSync. In this company I see the same potential as the early days of MySQL.

If you are developing a mobile application that you want to work on practically all mobile phones, you should definitely check MoSync out!