Straight from the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment conference in San Diego, CA

First things first–is there anyone who comes to San Diego at any time of year and doesn’t think, “man, I could totally live here”? Of course not. I’m even originally from Southern California, and I’m still always amazed at just how perfect it is here… then add a few fish tacos and life is muy bien!

The fall CTIA show(http://daily.ctia.org/wirelessit09/) is more focused of the 2 North American wireless conferences, and always the smaller. 2009 is no exception–even smaller than usual I’d say, both because of the general economy and the recent consolidation in the mobile industry. However, the concentration of people doing serious business here is palpable, and none of the time wasters look to have bothered to make the trip. This is serious business, and the industry is moving fast.

Android is everywhere. While Apple seems to shun the wireless events (we’ll see if they keep that up come the fall showin Vegas) Google is everywhere, though mostly via other companies. Motorola has gone “all in” on the Android platform, and their developer conference held at the Hard Rock Hotel across the street from the conference center showcased how their new device line will be taking advantage of Android’s capabilities. Others were in play on Android too throughout the week. The other theme that was front and center was the app-store concept. Everyone wants one to be sure, but it’s not all rosy.  Many are finding that there are TOO MANY apps on the iPhone app store now, and subscribers can’t find what they want anymore. Methods for better app stores are necessary and on the way.

From the divShare perspective, one of the very exciting aspects of the show was the growth in mobile cloud computing players.  The cloud mobility story favored enterprise solutions (as I think cloud computing in general does at this time), but there is still chatter about how Apple and others plan to push hard in this direction during the coming years.  Of course anyone who wants to claim a leadership position there still has a window to do so.

Here is a great article from Fierce Wireless about mobile+cloud.

Start to formulate a mobile strategy for your company if you aren’t already.  The mobile device is going to be as important (if not more) than the PC soon, and almost as powerful.