The billion-dollar sand trap?

I thought this article was interesting in overall tone and a specific quote:

Modifying the software for each phone’s display is a matter of brute-force labor. There’s no intellectual way around it. Yahoo! is one of the few companies that’s been able to pull this off, but only because they have an army of Ph.D. hackers working for them.

Thanks! The primary design for the content adaptor was done by one non-Ph.D.–me–with plenty of help from the resident “phone whisperer” and a talented team of fellow non-Ph.Ds. It’s not a matter of “brute force” at all. The only way to solve the problem with finite resources is to understand developers, understand the problem space, and be smart about drawing a line between the two (and being flexible enough to handle the inevitable unknown).

One thing is certain: the industry is changing fast. A mobile app working great today will look dodgy in a year, and be obsolete in two years. It’s not clear if this will stabilize at some point, or keep shifting..

But I’m curious about what the rest of you think. Is mobile the next big thing, or a huge sand trap? Comment below. -m