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Here is another informative article from Pedro Sorrentino, written for Startupi.

Since the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I have seen some speculation that now seems to be coming true. The future of the mobile market is indeed in software. The mobile market now includes cell phones, tablets, netbooks and the telecom providers and operators.

This situation represents at once a great threat to the status quo and an enormous new opportunity. Nearly everyone already knows what needs to be done. But few are doing it competently. The mobile market has become a complex ecosystem, with a variety of players and ramifications. The decision making power has become decentralized - to the joy of developers and the terror of providers. The biggest proof of this is in the success of the iPhone: a cell phone without a physical keyboard, with no multi-carrier capacity, and a horrible camera that has nonetheless become an icon of a new era in technology.

Mobile Darwinism is a cake with two layers and a cherry on top. The first layer is structural - the OS. Symbian, Bada, WebOS, Windows, iPhone, Android, Java and so forth. The coverage is the second layer, which consists of the ecosystem of apps for each platform. The cherry on this cake consists of those who create and organize the ecosystem.

In the case of Symbian, it’s Nokia and it’s weak Ovi Store. But Apple, with Google close behind, showed us that having an organized ecosystem (the App Store) that is well made (by the developers for the users) is a huge opportunity. It’s important to remember that none of this goes anywhere without a capable OS.

Beyond this “cake” there is the hardware. This could be considered the sugar in the equation. Fundamentally any cake is a commodity. Every smartphone has at a minimum a 5 mp camera, micro-SD, Wi-Fi and 3G. This isn’t the great differentiator (except in specific models like Sony Ericsson and the N line from Nokia).

Formerly the market for developing mobile software had many intermediaries which made it production in volume more difficult and made it harder for apps to reach consumers with any agility. Before the iPhone, if you had software on your cell phone you were an über geek, my friend!

Brazil finds itself in a very complex situation for developing mobile apps, considering factors such as:

• 82.48% of the 179,109,801 devices in Brazil are pre-paid*

• only 6.6% have 3G connectivity*

• data plans continue to be very expensive and have low penetration

• devices like the iPhone or OS Android represent less than 5% of cell phones in Brazil.

*Data from Consultoria de Telecom Teleco

I’ve included some slides from a presentation done by Amure Pinho, a partner at Sync Mobile. It’s easy to see why things didn’t work well before. There were many intermediaries, usability was poor, and there were few decent distribution channels. The images show before and after.

So it’s like this: there’s huge potential but disappointing reality. There’s no lack of good numbers, as Gartner points out: in 2010 there will be more than 4.5 billion apps downloaded worldwide. We live in a phase of repressed demand, with many businesses lining up to not be left behind.

The one who will come out on top in this Mobile Darwinism is the one who can adapt best to the new rules. The business wins that can let go of hierarchy, guarantee service, provide great usability and not charge absurd rates. There are many players and the game is beginning. In the world of mobile services, things are getting more interesting every day.

Pedro Sorrentino (@pedrosorren) is a communications specialist, co-author of the documentary “Obama Digital.”  He coordinates PR and Marketing for Eyeblaster in Brazil and teaches at the São Paulo Digital School.