The explosion of mobile network traffic, spurred mainly by the emergence of "killer" applications and consumer electronic devices such as tablets and e-readers, spawns a new set of challenges for mobile operators worldwide ?challenges which this year's Mobile World Congress hopes to address.
This year's theme, "Leading the transformation," represents industry players' proactive stance in the changing mobile landscape, as they focus more on how emerging applications can be better harnessed, not only to bolster their bottom line, but also to be of better service to their subscribers.
MWC 2011 also seeks to find ways for consumer electronic device makers, application developers, and network operators to cooperate with each other, to ensure that the full potential of whatever devices will emerge in the coming months and years can be supported by engaging and useful applications.
From February 14-17, leading experts from mobile operators, device manufacturers, and application service providers will come together in Barcelona to share their insights on how operators can deal with the explosion of mobile network traffic, how they can ensure their key role in the mobile value chain as non-traditional players increase their presence in the market, and what central role mobile applications will play in the future of mobile services.
Confirmed keynote speakers at the four-day conference include such industry bigwigs as; Randall Stephenson, chairman, CEO, and president of AT&T; Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile; John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco; Hans Vestberg, president and CEO of Ericsson; Peter Chou, CEO of HTC; Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft; Ryuji Yamada, president and CEO of NTT DoCoMo; Dr. Paul Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm; Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO of Research in Motion; Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of Softbank; Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter; Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone; and Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo.
Also to be discussed during the conference are mobile health and wellness applications, mobile advertising, social networking, cloud computing, augmented reality, mobile publishing, and mobile money.
Apart from the key conference topics, this year's MWC also features, for the first time, a day-long App Planet Forum, which is designed especially for mobile application developers. Here, developers will have a chance to get key insights on what applications will be of greatest interest to both operators and consumers and how these applications can be harnessed to develop a more holistic mobile lifestyle, that allows consumers to be productive while being entertained.