So, you aren’t exclusively looking at applications? :“That depends on what do you you define as an application…What I mean by that is content mobilization. We wouldn’t look at a company that produces content for mobile, but all these players that have technology that enhance the rendering of digital content in mobile, is something we’ve looked at. It’s a fuzzy frontier between what is the mobile Internet and what is an application.” Can you be more specific on interesting sectors? “It’s very difficult to define, so we haven’t. We look at in terms of what is the revenue model, for instance, advertising, subscription-based or affiliate. Mobile social networking is one category that we’ve looked at….Mobile analytics is something else we’ve looked at, and advertising networks is something we’ve looked at as well.”

What do you think the emerging business model is for mobile?: “I don’t think many companies can claim they are making very much money. Clearly, some are having some early successes and are well positioned for when advertising starts flowing into the sector, which we are all betting on. But from an advertising perspective, there are very few of them that are able to claim the level of success to providing an exit with a VC-like return. With the iPhone, there’s been some nice success, and the numbers haven’t been disclosed, but what you hear in the hallways is that it’s a great indication validating the overall thesis—that this is a sector that’s bound for significant growth.”

The App store has a lot to do with that success, but the BlackBerry doesn’t have one. Is that something you are looking at? :“There’s a clear difference between what we do and what RIM does, and from that perspective RIM keeps these strategic decisions close to their chest as they should…Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has clearly demonstrated that it’s absolutely core to the business, and from that perspective, we are looking at ideas in this area, but it’s not a big leap that most of the handset vendors are probably doing something similar. From that perspective, you can ask yourself, what is their sustainable competitive advantage in a world where these types of platforms are offered by service providers? I tend to think that it shouldn’t be too long if you are an independent player in the space that you will get surrounded by people with a much bigger reach.”

I see carriers as the next ones to offer a better store, and then there’s Nokia (NYSE: NOK), but you believe it will come from the handset manufactures?: “I think the app store by Apple has been so successful, in some way or another there has to be a competitive response by other handset makers…I want to be careful in discussing this. It has to be clear that BlackBerry Partners is an independent entity from RIM…I have no visibility on how this is going to played out, but I think at the end of the day in some form or another there has to be a competitive response by all handset manufactures, whether it’s directly or through the service providers. There has to be a response.”

RIM’s keynote at CTIA was really consumer focused, with announcements being made about MySpace and Ticketmaster. They sounded a bit defensive, even though they are still bigger than the iPhone.: “The other thing is, I think there’s a lot of people who are pegging the iPhone against the BlackBerry, and I think to a larger extent, it’s the wrong debate. What’s important is growing the pie, if your percentage of the pie grows, great, but both of these companies are excellent. And both of them will continue to grow really quickly. The question after that is does your relative percentage of the pie change. I’m not dismissing the importance of market share, but at the end of the day, the smartphone market is growing extremely fast, and all of the companies are positioned well, and then in the end, it will be about who benefits the most. We have a couple years probably.”

RIM was smart to target the enterprise first, but are consumers driving the next wave?: “A lot of the growth is coming from the consumer, but when you talk to executives, there’s applications like Mobimate mobiTV, and it’s one of the top apps used by RIM executives. Is that an enterprise app or a consumer app targeting people in enterprise? When we speak of enterprise apps, we speak of more of apps that who are targeting companies as their customers. From a deal-flow perspective, we’ve seen an overwhelming proportion of our deal flow targeting consumers.”

What else is hot?: “We’ve probably seen 50 social networking companies, and then there’s location. The frontier between all of those are blurred: we first defined LBS as a category and then we figured out it is a feature in most apps. Definitely social networks, and then advertising networks, and then content mobilization, meaning companies that take content from TV and publishers and bring it to mobile.

How many investments will you make?: “It’s a $150 million, so out of the fund, we’ll have 20 investments maximum, and from what we’ve seen so far, we like companies that are really cash efficient. In considering the size of the fund, we can’t put more than $15 million into each company, so that dictates to a large extent the capital structure of each company and we want to own significant percentage. So most of the companies we’ve seen are in series A and B, although we’d like to do some in the later stage. But with some of the opportunities that have gained traction in the space, there’s a valuation paradigm that extends beyond our ability—They’re too expensive.”

What exits are you looking for?: “We hope that they will be IPOs. I think the objective is to exit or the thesis is to build for IPO and to make money if you exit by acquisition. Statistically speaking, most of the companies are sold through M&A. It’s easy to get caught up in euphoria of mobile being hot right now, it seems like you’ve done a good job of being realistic: “If you look at it statistically speaking, how many companies in mobile have exited for $250 million? I don’t have the answer off the top of my head, and we are hoping and betting that there will be more, but we doubt there will be quantum more, like a 10x factor. You are hoping that one of your companies will hit it out beyond that, but at the end of the day, you have to invest in companies that will make money for you at $100 million. And if you make an investment in a company that has a pre-money valuation of $50 million, how are you going to do that? Some of the companies are doing great, but they don’t justify their valuations today. It’s a big question for me.”

What do you think of Android?: “I think they are making a lot of noise. I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of deployment they’ll have and what kind of success they’ll have. Most of the companies we are speaking with are thinking about developing for the platform, and many of them are doing it just to establish a relationship with Google (NSDQ: GOOG). Not because of the consumer base? No, because it’s not there. Google is a mighty company but Android isn’t out yet, and success still has to be proven.”