By Colin Prior

Your brand just launched a mobile application. You feel like you are on the cutting edge of the marketing universe. You are ready to conquer another marketing platform one download at a time. Oh wait, it is only on the iPhone?  Congratulations, you have just missed out on 90 percent of the marketplace.

It is hard not to get swept into the allure of the iPhone. It is a great handset, it is sleek and it is trendy. Who would not want to be a part of that phenomenon? 

Apple deserves a lot of credit, and no one, not even the boys behind Android can argue that.

Apple and its marketing wizards have turned the mobile world on its head.

If it were not for Apple?s catchy ads, addicting iPhone and rich App Store that everyone is trying to hurry up and copy, the entire industry would look very different today.  Or, more specifically, there is a good chance you would not be reading this. 

That said, do not confuse the mobile industry catalyst with the right platform for your mobile application ? they are two completely different things.

So if you are going to be smart about your mobile initiative, and thus, your marketing budget, you need to look beyond the iPhone.

The big players in mobile should not surprise you, but their corresponding market share and the little slice of the pie Apple actually owns might.

Knocking on Nokia
A global snapshot of the smartphone market reveals the dominance of Nokia and Research In Motion. That is right, Nokia ? that is not a typo.

Nokia owns the largest share of the market at 44 percent, followed by Research In Motion?s 17 percent and from there, it is a long list of manufacturers amongst which you will find Apple buried somewhere.

Part of Nokia?s success is due to its ability to straddle the boundary of enterprise users and consumers. It is arguably the only manufacturer that has been able to successfully cross into both segments of the marketplace and do it well.

Research In Motion?s BlackBerry is enterprise-focused, while Apple?s iPhone is consumer-focused.

The enterprise/consumer line is fading quickly as many people blend their professional and personal lives on their mobile handset. 

Nokia is definitely on the right track by appealing to both segments, while Research In Motion, Apple, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony and the others have some catching up to do.

So now you have the idea behind the handset landscape, but what about handset platforms? 

Platforms can be broken into two buckets: smartphones ? BlackBerry, Symbian, Android and iPhone ? and feature phones with BREW and J2ME.

Each of these buckets and subsequent platforms within them target very different demographic groups. Recognizing the differences between how these people use their handsets is vitally important to your application?s success.

Flutter on the clutter
As you have undoubtedly realized, the mobile landscape is a cluster. 

The challenge is finding the places where it makes the most sense to launch your application. Start with basic questions to better define your mobile campaign and get your team on the same page.

?       Who are we targeting?
?       What is our application?s value proposition?
?       When in the customer lifecycle is the application likely to elicit the desired response?
?       Why will the application lead to enhanced brand engagement/loyalty?
?       Where is the audience in terms of handsets, operating system or geography?
?       How will success be measured?

Once these questions have been answered, you are ready to choose the platform that will best serve your purpose. 

If your target customer is a 40-year-old insurance salesman in Seattle, then the BlackBerry is probably your best bet.

What about an 18-year-old female college student in Chicago? Use BREW and J2ME.

Once you have seen some success with your mobile application or the slices of that marketplace pie shift, consider porting your application to different platforms to make sure you are one download away from your target audience at all times.

Now comes the fun part ? choosing what your application will be.

From major corporations, consumers expect utility that stems from the core offering. An example is Virgin Air?s Flying Without Fear application that has an FAQ section that includes ?What does that noise mean?? and relaxation exercises for nervous flyers. 

If you are a smaller company, however, you have more freedom and can choose to brand a game with your logo or create an out-of-the-box application.  Be careful, though, as your creativity might not always translate to your target audience.

The future of mobile will be determined by handset and platform utility, and the networks they run on. The beauty of it is that there is a long road ahead and mobile is not going anywhere. 

While the iPhone may be considered the hare in this race, that old story would have us hedge our bets on the tortoise, or rather, tortoises.

Colin Prior is CEO of Reaxion, Seattle. Reach him at .