Today’s mobile tech quiz question: How much does it cost to license a closed mobile OS? According to sources at Microsoft, it costs OEMs $15/device to use their new Windows Mobile 7 OS. This person does his/her best to explain that $15/device is much cheaper than Android open source model, but it sounds a little desperate. The bigger question is why publish this info. There are only a limited number of phone manufactures in the world. Why not talk directly to them about it? What is the point of sharing this info with the tech world? Strange marketing indeed! 

Read about a brilliant way to combine location-based apps and customer rewards and brand marketing. Yesterday, Loopt and Virgin America rewarded users who checked in at the SF or Cancun International Airports between the hours of 11AM to 3PM PST with 2 for 1 tickets to Cancun. The only problem was that I did not hear about it until it was far to late. Bummer!

Geogad hosts two local Silicon Valley meetup called the Informal Android Developer Meetup and the Informal iPhone Developer Meetup. New mobile developers at these meetings often ask which mobile platforms are worth their time to learn. Sometimes it’s a matter of money and the perception of which app stores have the best sales. Other times, it depends on a developer’s previous programming background.

TheFierceDeveloper newsletter actually addressed this question with more substantial info provided by a marketing report from VisionMobile. The most interesting part of the report to me was the estimates of the length of time required to learn a new mobile platform. To quite FierceDeveloper quoting VisionMobile,

…according to the report, coders require 15 months or more to figure out Symbian, compared to an average of 7.5 months across rival platforms. Android is considered the easiest platform to learn, with 22 percent of respondents claiming they absorbed its intricacies in under a month.

It is nice to see that some of the platform are relatively easy for new programmers to pick up. It should make for an exciting experience for mobile apps.

This Thursday, May 13, should be a fun night. I will be taking part in a panel discussion for APWT (Asian Professional Women in Tech) at Hacker Dojo in Mountain View to discuss the mobile industry. There is always something interesting to talk about in this incredibly dynamic industry. Not only is the topic interesting, they have also gotten some sponsors to chip in for pizzas and the admission costs. As a result, tickets for the event are only $5. It is quite a deal when you think about all that you get.

I received an offer to publish ads through a tourist agency. Nothing unusual there, but they did have a new service that I had never seen offered before. Below is a quote from the agencies marketing literature. (I am not going to mention the agency’s name to protect the non-technical in their marketing department.)

Mobile Tag

Half and Full Page advertisers: link your ad to a mobile tag and instantly interact with our readers! Use this platform to transform and promote your unique offer, incentive or feature.

What is a Mobile Tag?

Microsoft Mobile Tags are small, colorful codes that connect your print ad to the digital world. Users with Internet-enabled camera phones can simply snap the Tag on your ad and instantly receive additional information about your product. Reporting is available 24/7 to track the number of scans your tag is receiving!

Microsoft has done it again. Despite dozens of different organizations coming together to create an open source and/or free option with QR codes, Microsoft ignores the standards and creates their own version that is free-for-now but exclusively owned by them. Travelers to Asia and Europe are already familiar with “mobile tags”, better known to geeks as QR codes. These codes are being heavily pushed by Google with the Android OS.

As Allen Stern points out, the biggest problems with Microsoft’s Mobile Tags, besides ignoring what the rest of the industry is already doing, is that it transforms the 2D QR-code-like grid into a colorful mess of triangles. While the QR code can be easily printed in black and white, the red, yellow and green triangles of Microsoft’s mess will require 4-color printing. This is no small deal for companies since it represents an increase in cost.