(Written during Wireless Ventures Day 1, Wednesday May 3 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose)

Today is mostly focused on cellular wireless networks and where the next big wins will be. In that vein, the remainder of this blog will be focused primarily on the cellular wireless market.

An interesting comment from the opening session was the room for expansion and possibly very profitable ventures that take advantage of people that are "filling time", for example when you're waiting at the airport, on the train, in line, etc. This especially appeals to me, as I spend a ton of time each day idle on the Muni train to and from work. I'd like to be more productive during that time, and current cell phones and even smartphones don't address the problem (one issue brought up was that current phones are fairly bad at displaying CRM systems in a useful way). Other uses of free time are obviously games, IM, and other things that Nokia's Ngage and Nintendo's DS try to leverage.

RIM is focusing on making the mental leap from lots of information to what is important. The importance in this is (surprise!) CRM applications, BUT it has a nice parallel to wireless sensors. RIM is worried that people can't view what they need on a small display in a meaningful way because of all the clutter that is part of the conventional web applications. Instead, they just want the customer detail in the CRM. The analogy to sensor networks is that both environments have to deal with more data than the eyeball can possibly handle. A big win will come from the companies that can extract the useful data effectively and present it to end users.

Biggest issue for Walt Disney's mobile division is porting and quality assurance. They need to get their content, games, etc on at least 200 different handsets to reach a large enough market. For Pirates of the Caribbean online content launching later this year, their mobile applications required 12 months of hard effort porting to each of the different cellular handset platforms. Ivan Lopez, director of business development for the North American Mobile Studios at Disney, directly asked the audience to develop and market a solution that enables cross platform content development in a way that reduces or eliminates porting and doesn't require excruciating q/a on every single platform.

Stay tuned for Day 2 results, which will include updates on players in the Wireless Sensor industry including Sensicast, Tendril, Wireless Seismic, and how VCs are perceiving the wireless market.

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