Steve Jobs Is the “Personality of the Year” at MWC 2010

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Although Apple’s famous CEO did not attend the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain this week, it looks like he managed to win an important award which only goes to show how important his work in the mobile business really is. After all Apple started to make phones only in 2007 but in less than three years it changed the way we look at cell phones, and most importantly, at smartphones these days.

Steve Jobs won the GSMA “Mobile Industry Personality of the Year as Voted for by the Media” Award. I’m not surprised to see that the media voted mostly for the man in charge at Cupertino. He is a charismatic leader that rebuilt the company and inspired Apple employees to create devices like the iPhone or the iPad. There are plenty of things not to like about them but that doesn’t mean they aren’t some extraordinary devices.

I guess the main competitors that tried to impress us this week with their new handsets and operating systems weren’t exactly satisfied to see the buzz around the iPhone and Steve Jobs. Apple’s main competitors are still trying to beat the iPhone and although most of them have tried to launch a competitive device nobody succeeded in beating the iPhone in the USA or elsewhere yet.

Looking back you’ll see a long line of “defeated” handsets by the iPhone but that doesn’t mean that the iPhone got voted “Best Mobile Handset or Device.” The HTC Hero, a phone launched last year, snagged the award and we’re not that surprised to see it win either. It’s basically one of the best Android handsets to have roamed Earth at least until the Motorola Droid, the Google Nexus One or the HTC Desire were announced.

But here’s the complete list of winners as announced by the GSMA at MWC 2010:

Best Mobile Game
Winner: Iricom – The Last City – Fight For Your Life!

Best Mobile Music Service
Winner: Odyssey Music Group – Deezer

Best Mobile Advertising or Marketing
Winner: CLANMO GmbH and OgilvyOne – The IKEA PS Mobile Interior Planning Tool

Best Mobile TV Service
Winner: CBS Mobile – TV.com

Best Mobile Location Based Advertising Campaign
Winner: R/GA – Nokia viNe

Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Service
Winner: Research In Motion – BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5.0

Best Mobile Internet Service
Winner: adaffix Gmbh – YELLIX

Best Mobile Money Service
Winner: Safaricom – M-PESA (bulk payment & utility bill) extension to service

Best Use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development
Winner: Grameen Foundation, MTN Uganda, and Google – The Grameen Foundation Application Laboratory (AppLab)

Best Mobile Money for the Unbanked Service
Winner: Zain Bahrain B.S.C – ZAP

The Green Mobile Award for Best Green Programme, Product or Initiative
Winner: VNL – VNL’s solar-powered GSM base station

Green Network Award
Winner: Mocambique Celular S.A.R.L (mcel) – Eco Naturalmente (Naturally Thinking Green)

Best Network Technology Advance
Winner: SkyCross Inc – SkyCross iMAT (isolated mode antenna technology) Antennas

Best Service Delivery Platform
Winner: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd – Huawei SDP solution

Best Billing & Customer Care Solution
Winner: Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) – You Individual Optimal Tariff Plan

Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough
Winner: Orange – Mobile High Definition (HD) Voice

Best Mobile Handset or Device
Winner: HTC – HTC Hero

Best Mobile Connected Device (non-handsets)
Winner: Novatel Wireless Inc. – MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot

Government Leadership Award
Winner: Kenya

GSMA Chairman’s Award
Winner: Carl-Henric Svanberg, Former CEO of Ericsson and currently Chairman of BP

Mobile Industry Personality of the Year as Voted for by the Media
Winner: Steve Jobs, Co-Founder and CEO Apple

Congratulations to the 2010 Global Mobile Award winners and good luck to everyone for next year!