As chief operating officer of Canada's largest wireless carrier, Nadir Mohamed has a front seat on the parade of glitzy, function-packed devices rolling out of development labs. The 50-year-old boss of Rogers Communications Inc.'s core wireless and cable divisions was in Las Vegas last week for the massive Consumer Electronics Show, which got upstaged by Apple Inc.'s launch of its iPhone in San Francisco. We finally caught up to Mr. Mohamed starting a whirlwind vacation break in Florida, as he discussed the future of wireless and his personal voyage over a fragile cellphone connection.
What kind of wireless device do you carry?
I have both a BlackBerry and a Motorola Razr. People always ask what kind of phone I like, so I keep switching them to show them off.
Do you have a lot of features?
No, I do photographs, which I use for fun. But I am a big e-mail person, more than voice. It's the BlackBerry that gets the workhorse treatment.
Do you have an iPod?
I have one but I don't carry it. It's more of an alternative -- for example, at home listening to CDs. I'm a music buff so if my wife doesn't want to listen to something, I can use the iPod.
What do you have on it?
Jazz, pretty much, and a little bit of blues. Miles Davis's classic, Kind of Blue, is the first one on.
So do you think people will want a phone, camera, movies and Internet all on one device like the iPhone?
Devices generally are morphing to multipurpose. We've long talked about the convergence of voice, data and video and now you can really start seeing it, whether it's cellphones with MP3 or camera phones where the resolution keeps getting better. I think Apple will catapult the whole video downloading with a device like this.
For a long time, our industry has talked about voice, data and video converging into one pipe or device and I think we're being led by the device side, by people like Apple, Motorola and Sony Ericsson. That's where a lot of the glamour has been.
So I'm still wondering: What will people want? As a consumer, I want my entertainment, I want my information and I want to be connected all the time, and I want it on my own conditions. Wherever I am, whenever I want. So the two big customer attributes we are building for are personalization and mobility. Instead of watching TV at a certain time, you can time-shift, you can have it on an iPhone-type device or a mobile TV application.
It's not about a particular device, it's about personalization. For example, ring tones are a big business, but they have very little to do with music. They have everything to do with personalization. Hearing that ring tone on your device says everything about you, as opposed to, "I want to listen to this music."
But you're an accountant, not an engineer? Can you really get this technology?
I have lived in the technology sector since 1980 to '81, so you get to understand its nuances. It's not that I understand technically how things work, but I certainly understand what it does for you. Not being an engineer is almost a licence to ask any and every question, because I assume I don't know much from the start.
So Rogers Communications was founded by a lawyer, Ted Rogers, and you're an accountant?
Exactly. More and more, the business is about marketing and sales and customer service, as opposed to the technical stuff behind it. A lot of the technology is actually built by other people. Our job is to make it work, make it meaningful and easy to use.
What advantage does Rogers get from being the only Canadian carrier that uses the GSM format?
Eighty per cent of the world uses GSM. What it means is we have devices with incredible features, that are attractively priced, because we have the scale of 80 per cent of the world using these. And we get the products early. I'm not saying whether we have agreements or anything [with Apple], but given the iPhone was launched on GSM, we're in good position to reinforce that we're the first and have the best-feature devices. But with iPhone, there will be tremendous sticker shock, at $500 (U.S.). When you have something this iconic, it's really a niche at the start. The early adopters will take it based on the attractiveness of the product and as it becomes more of a mass product, that will be reflected in the price.
Is RIM's BlackBerry in trouble?
Their strength has been in push e-mail and their devices are very intuitive. So from that perspective I don't think the iPhone hits the core of their market. When you have these multiple applications, whether camera, music, video, voice, data or e-mail, I think generally most devices have strength in a few of them and may have the others available. What RIM's Pearl will be known for is probably different than what the iPhone will be known for. But we're talking about a product that hasn't been produced yet. There will be one billion cellphone handsets sold in the world this year.
Won't the market get saturated?
Growth is coming from hardware upgrades as people change their phones, and from market penetration. We're at 55-per-cent penetration in Canada and there is a lot of room to grow. For a device supplier like Motorola or Nokia, the developing world is a huge new market where penetration is just starting. In China, they are growing by four to five million a month. Just as in Tanzania, where I grew up, it is very hard to get land lines, so wireless effectively bypasses the need to build line in the ground.
What did your family do in Tanzania?
My father was a businessman. We had a modest hardware business that he started.
I keep reading it was much more than modest?
My family moved from India to East Africa, and I can assure you the start was very humble. Nobody would say it was a big business by any means.
What is your most vivid memory?
My mom and I sitting up late at night while my dad would be working. The treat was having a Coke with peanuts put in it. One of the big treats for any kid in East Africa was having a stubby Coke bottle with salted peanuts thrown in. It is one of the most wonderful things in life.
Do you ever go back to Tanzania?
The last time was about 10 years ago. For my wife Shabin and me, it was a chance to return together to East Africa where we both came from. It was a bit of show and tell, my showing off the school I went to and the neighbourhoods I grew up in and she did the same in Nairobi.
As part of the Asian exodus from East Africa in the 1970s, did this background help you?
I am incredibly blessed to be part of the family I grew up in. They moved under very difficult circumstances and you grow up around that and I think it teaches you a lot. There was always a sense we might have to leave East Africa and education was considered to be the only global passport. Nobody can take that away from you.
Did it also help that you were an Ismaili Muslim?
One of the key ethics of that Ismaili community is volunteering. As a kid you learn very quickly to be part of committees and leading
