Much of the activity at the show centred on mobile phones, for which Sun has dozens of partners selling phones and phone services that use Java. Many mobile phone systems use Java-based smart cards to establish the identity of the phone user. Sun argues that the cards make companies that own music, games or video comfortable selling that content and will help grow the market -- for both the content and related Java phones and services. And at least some in the industry agree, including Michael Nash, senior vice president of Internet strategy and business development for Warner Music Group, who spoke at a panel discussion on Friday after McNealy's speech. "We believe that in the next three to four years, the US wireless music market could be between $500m and $1bn," Nash said, adding that about half of that would come from downloading customised ring tones for phones. "Globally, by 2008, it could very possibly be a $5bn to $10bn wireless music market. In five-and-a-half years, the wireless space could constitute somewhere between 15 (percent) to 20 percent of the global music market." Guy Laurence, chief executive for global content at Vodafone, said games are even bigger: $75bn will be spent on downloading games for cell phones in the next 10 years in Europe, he said. The average price for software such as a game downloaded to a Java phone is $2.50, Laurence said, with about $1.20 of that going to the developer. Mobile phones have been more advanced and more popular in Europe and Asia, but the United States is catching up, Laurence said. "You could have said the US is three years behind a couple years ago, but the delta now is about 18 months. I would imagine it would narrow more as we go into next year," Laurence said. Digital rights management enabled by Java smart cards in phones enables "superdistribution", in which a person can download content such as music from a friend and not just from a central download site. The content owner still will be paid for the friend-to-friend transfer, Laurence said, but the distribution will be much broader. Digital rights management is key to making the music distribution work by preventing Napster-like services that enable free content exchange, Laurence said. "We cannot afford to go the way the PC guys went and see value destruction, because then the content guys will walk away from our industry as well," he said. Warner's Nash sees mobile technology as a way to repair the music industry's bad record in electronic music distribution. "Having your butt kicked up around your ears in the online world gets your attention. We've been humbled," Nash said. "We will participate in the ecosystem, learn from the experts, try to figure out how to make our content available."
What standards will drive the next wave of Web-based services, and how will they interact? Check out the latest developments on .Net, Java, Liberty Alliance, Passport and other technologies at ZDNet UK's Web Services News Section, including analysis, case studies and management issues.
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