Someone in restaurant world has decided that practically every restaurant site must have either be built in Flash or, at the very least, have a Flash splash page. Here’s the problem. Flash is generally not available on most mobile phones. It is not available on the iPhone, which generates well over half of all mobile phone Internet traffic, or on the Blackberry. The fancy animations that load on restaurant sites cannot be seen by users on the most popular mobile phones and, in fact, cause the site to be totally unusable on those devices. You are losing customers — customers interested enough in visiting your restaurant that they’re looking it up at that very moment on their phone rather than waiting to get back to a computer with a bigger screen. It’s time to have a conversation with your web development company.

Questions to ask:

• Is our site built in Flash? Is the first page only viewable on devices that support Flash? If so, can it be fixed?
• Can we provide mobile visitors with an experience optimized for mobile devices?
• Since we know mobile site visitors are likely to want to visit in the near term, what can we do to entice them?

Getting the most value from your web site demands catering to the needs of your customers. Attending to the mobile site visitor will increase customer satisfaction and get more people into your dining room.

And though this is directed at restaurants, it goes for any site with that uses Flash for core site functionality. If customers can’t use your web site on their phone, they will spend their money elsewhere.

Finally, one caveat. This situation will not last forever. Most phone manufacturers are working with Adobe on the Open Screen Project to ensure that their phones can view Flash on web sites. Unfortunately, Apple and RIM (Blackberry) are not among them.

Dell became great during a time when differentiation didn’t matter. In fact, their business model is built on a lack of differentiation between devices. Their strength is their ability to offer cheaper prices because of scale. Cheaper prices haven’t been all that important in the mobile phone business. If people like a phone, they pay for it. Dell likely went to the carriers trying to get an exclusivity deal and “differentiation” absolutely matters there. Danger could have offered Dell some opportunity for differentiation by extending the range of their platform, but Microsoft snapped them up.

Given the economy, there may be some hope for them if they can get something out fast. A low-priced smartphone targeting parents and their tweens/teens could have some legs if it offered great parent-centric features without seeming too restrictive to the kids. Similarly, though RIM and Apple own the hearts of the most savvy cell phone users, most cell phones are a few years old and are dumb. In keeping with their business model, there’s a great opportunity for Dell to reach those users who need to upgrade because they want new features but don’t need the whiz-bang technologies of a Blackberry or the iPhone. That also happens to be a place where differentiation isn’t all that important as long as the target audience knows what the primary benefit is.

Dell has the heft to make a strong entry into the cell phone business. I’m they’re keeping their eye on the right bulls eye.

Everyone, it seems, is creating the next iPhone. Google’s G1 is the most recent device to throw its hat into the ring, but they’re not at all alone. Blackberry is on its way with the (initially) Verizon Wireless marketed “Storm”, also called the Thunder. Nokia will soon be launching the Nokia 5800 Tube, the first phone that implements its S60 Touch UI. And, let’s not forget the Samsung Instinct, which actually sold well, and their beautiful but not yet available in the States, Samsung Innov8. Each of these phones are being released to provide competition to the iPhone – in some ways, to be the next, but better, iPhone. I’m sick of it.

The iPhone is a great phone. I do not have one, but often wish I did. My Nokia N95 is very nice, but there’s something excellent about a touch screen. I like the idea of being able to browse the web almost as I would on my desktop or notebook. I think the UI is amazing – especially for a company taking a first shot (technically, 2nd if you include the Newton) at a mobile OS. It’s size is almost perfect and now that it has 3G, it really is a killer phone. The thing is, for what they did, they nailed it. They got it right. They left little room for error and the marketplace acknowledges that with its demand. Given that, why is everyone stuck on creating the next iPhone? Apple created the next iPhone with the 3G iPhone.

The phone manufacturers should be looking at creating some above and beyond the iPhone. RIM should be looking at creating the next Blackberry, Nokia, the next Nokia and Samsung, the next Samsung. What does that mean? These companies need to focus on their strengths. RIM should be looking to revolutionize what business users can do on their touch-screen Crackberries. People should feel almost as if they don’t even need their laptop because they can do 75% of what they need to do on the Blackberry. Nokia, on the other hand, should focus on reliability, functionality and its ability to stay slightly ahead of the curve. Nokia doesn’t create the greatest looking phones. They create the most reliable phones and, with its S60 platform, highly functional phones with lots of capabilities. Honestly, I don’t know what the hell Samsung does well, but people are beginning to like their phones judging by the reaction to the Sprint Instinct and the Innov8.

To my mind, each of these companies will only succeed if they stick to their core strengths and stop worrying about the iPhone so much. If Blackberry users wanted an iPhone, they’d buy one (and may have already), but they’d likely still keep their Blackberry. If, as an N95 owner, I wanted an iPhone, I’d go out and get one, but I trust Nokia’s reliability and like the options I have with the N95. When competing with the iPhone, other manufacturers will only be also-rans and the more time they spend competing solely against the iPhone, the more time they will spend as also-rans. It’s a sad truth. However, if they focus on their core strategies, do what they do well and bring devices to market that exceed expectations, they easily stand more than a fighting chance of giving the iPhone true competition.