Mobile Expert Says 'Only Apple And Samsung' Can Profit Off Devices

/**/ /**/

Chairman of Endeavor Partners Michael Davies spoke at the Microsoft New England Research and Design Center in Cambridge, Mass., about the future of mobile, and he had a blunt message for his audience.

"In devices, for the foreseeable future, it looks like there are only two people who are going to make any money. And, collectively, Apple and Samsung, between them, make more than 100 percent of all the money being made in mobile devices," Davies said.

Endeavor Partners is a strategy and consulting firm specifically targeted at helping companies navigate and innovate for the future of mobile connectedness.

Davies also narrowed down the operating system field for the audience. "What about OSes? Don't bother with anything that isn't Apple or Android," he said.

According to Davies, through mobile connectedness, consumers hold more power over businesses than ever.

"If you are good in your sector, and consumers have better information, you will do better," Davies said. "If you are bad, you are going to do worse, and you are going to go out of business. If you are a crappy café, or a crappy business owner, you can be Yelped out of existence."

Davies drilled home the message that "mobile, cloud, Internet of Things, big data, machine learning -- instead of being separate commodities -- they actually have to be the integral basis on which you make your business strategy as a whole."

And finally, for the Cisco attendees, Davies suggested, "What about networks? Either go simple and expensive, or provide a whole variety of added services. Automate the hell out of it."

PUBLISHED JULY 23, 2014