While the usually excessive marketing budgets lavished on this Barcelona event were noticeably curtailed and there was no longer a need to fight ones way through the crowd to get to the doughnut stand, the industry came through with an exciting wave of defining announcements, and of course cool new devices.

The emphasis of the internet as the driving force for devices and services in mobile was hard to miss.  Microsoft and Nokia both announced application stores that will be available on handsets later this year, allowing people to buy content, games and applications.  The moves replicate Apple’s hugely successful App Store on the iPhone.  In the space of a little over a year-and-a-half Apple has shown the importance and opportunity of the internet on handheld devices, and now the industry is scrambling to tap into this new economy where application developers around the world can sell their content and wares to people through their phones.

Nokia’s app store, called Ovi Store, will offer some funky social networking features for sharing applications and content, and promises to present services relevant to location and what people are actually doing with their device at the time.  Waiting for a train?  Something contextually relevant might pop-up to amuse you.  So now Google, Microsoft, Apple, Nokia and SonyEricsson all have clear services platforms rolling out.  RIM, the makers of BlackBerry, are anticipated to follow the trend soon. 2009 is the year handsets turned into application stores, and the battle front of the industry turned from who has the best hardware to who has the best software.  The impact Apple and Google are having on the industry could be felt, with the iPhone still the market leading device and Google’s plans for its Android operating system and mobile services showing strong signs of adoption by the industry

While software was the headline story, there were some new devices to ogle over. Google and Vodafone surprised with a Vodafone exclusive HTC device based on Android called the Magic, complete with WiFi, GPS, the works.  Nokia announced the E55 and E75 as solid smartphone devices.  While the crowd didn’t appear wowed with their sex appeal, Nokia seems to believe solidity is an important attribute customers will appreciate.  SonyEricsson previewed their much rumoured Idou device due for release later this year and which aims to catch-up with Apple.  All of these devices are notable for their WiFi and 3G capabilities, touch displays and multi-media capabilities – the new standards for whether a device is going to make it or not.

There was a marked absence of big talk about next generation networks rolling out.  A long running battle between LTE and WiMax over which technology will become the “4G” after 3G continues, but with a roadmap that appears to be moving further out in Europe as economic woes put the mobile industry under pressure to make more out of the networks they have and put plans for big new shiny ones on hold.

WiFi was all around, with all the new smartphone devices incorporating it.  The vendors of data dongle USB modems were talking about how they could make “always best connected” experiences work.  This co-existence of WiFi and 3G can ensure customers are able to get onto the fastest connection available wherever they might be, and is turning out to be a critical success factor for the application stores if they hope to sell multimedia experiences through handsets and mobile devices.

Barcelona 2009 threw a spotlight on the fact that the future of mobile is indeed the internet on your mobile device.