The future is four-play?

Convergence has been the buzz word of the communcations industry for some time, with industry pundits talking a barely intelligible jargon of 'triple play' and 'Quadruple play' (or 4-play). Now Vodafone, described by the FT as "the world's largest mobile phone company", has publically announced its new strategy, Mobile Plus, taking it towards direct competition with the giant internet and IT brands, AOL et al.

The move is perhaps inevitable, driven by Vodafone's failure to make substantial money from its old strategy of buying up other mobile phone businesses to plant the red Vodafone flag across the world (though the biggest overseas Vodafone investment, in Verizon Wireless, isn't branded Vodafone anyway!). Having had to write off billions of pounds of shareholders money from its acquisitions, a new direction was needed. Vodafone also faces a forecast decline in mobile phone spend with the expected growth of "free" internet based calls from Skype and similar brands (VoIP for those in the trade).

Vodafone's Mobile Plus strategy is interesting - perhaps the next step in a major strategic shift from being a "mobile phone company" to becoming a "personal communications company", once Vodafone adds video, games and other high value services onto whatever broadband access offering they develop, and provided Vodafone can cost effectively get access to content that consumers want to pay for.

From a consumer perspective of course, no-one wants "quadruple play". What people want is easier and cheaper ways to realise their communcation desires - which can be more easily described as talking, writing, reading, listening, watching, learning, sharing and playing.

Currently the Vodafone brand is a credible provider for talking (over the mobile phone) and writing (SMS texts). Success for the new strategy could require Vodafone to become the prefered, most trusted provider brand for reading and learning over Google and Microsoft/MSN; listening and watching over BBC and Disney; sharing and playing over MySpace, Playstation, Nintendo and PartyGaming. Otherwise it becomes relegated to becoming another anonymous infrastructure provider in a regulated and competitive market.

The opportunity for Vodafone to access a larger consumer market, and thus potentially a higher share of wallet is substantial. The big questions are surely (a) whether Vodafone can execute and offer these services better, faster/earlier or cheaper than the other regional and global players targeting these markets, and (b)inasumuch as consumers perceive choice between these convergent offerings, why they would choose the Vodafone brand for a set of services that Vodafone is not currently famous for?