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Tiny Steps |
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Already the first tiny steps towards wireless Internet services have been taken. It is possible to receive the top ten news stories from news providers such as Bloomberg, Reuters and European national dailies direct to your mobile phone. Mobile phones also include basic interactive games involving Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) and Simple Message Service (SMS). Applications such as gaming with other mobile players could generate worldwide revenues of $1.4 billion by 2003, according to market analyst Datamonitor. Games are expected to be very popular. One of the simplest genres of networked mobile games is the quiz. Most are based on card, board and TV games in which airtime is generated by each player competing against a community of other players. Competitors are sent a message, either by SMS or WAP, and the user responds to the question with an answer. Slowly, over several rounds, the community of contestants is whittled down to a winner, who wins a prize or is given credits for free airtime. Rudimentary banking services are available on the mobile phone. The benefit to the customer is convenience. The primary motivation for the banks is cost savings. In work it carried out last year, Logica, the computer consultancy and system integration company, found that a retail bank transaction cost $1.07 on average when done at a branch office, while telebanking calls cut the cost to $0.54. Logica estimated a mobile banking transaction could be effected for $0.16. The cost of handling cash just for the banks, let alone, for example, the rest of the UK economy, is over $1.6 billion a year. Businesses should be able to take advantage of the productivity enabled by wireless Internet applications. In the US, Research in Motion (RIM) is building out wireless access to corporate data from its BlackBerry e-mail paging devices. It has established a partnership with Brience, which makes software that enables application data to be displayed on Web-connected devices. Brience can also host and manage a companyís wireless services. RIM expects Brience to bring database, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), supply chain and other application data to corporate BlackBerry users. RIM expects to track and support the wireless implementations of enterprise software from vendors such as PeopleSoft and Siebel as they become available. E-mail has already revolutionized the way we communicate at work via desktop PCs. Today we are witnessing the first handset devices being made available that provide e-mail from a mobile handset, enabling employees to tap into corporate networks, and familiar applications such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes. Unified messaging will be one of the first really useful mobile corporate applications. It is meant to provide business users with a single, common unified mailbox where they can pick up voicemail, e-mail and fax messages. It enables staff to handle their messages more efficiently, as well as more quantifiable savings in administrative overheads through implementing a single messaging system, which requires less training and support than having to run separate message systems. Interestingly, until now most mobile applications have been based on standard PC Internet ones. E-mail, which can be a good start in getting people using mobile terminals has already experienced some success for Japanese-based NTT DoCoMoís i-Mode service and RIMís Blackberry device. However, the use of e-mail also highlights how applications adapted to the mobile platform can be extended to make even better use of the environment. The timeliness of mobile e-mail also makes the application much more event-driven. Successful mobile applications may be adapted from the fixed world, but many will be created particularly for the strengths and weaknesses of the mobile environment. Personal information management (PIM) applications such as business contacts lists and calendars, that reside on corporate networks can also be accessed from a mobile device and are another example of fixed Internet applications transitioning to a mobile environment. Productivity software vendors are extending their applications to mobile workers such as sales forces, delivery teams and field technicians, in the shape of enterprise resource planning (ERP), CRM and inventory tracking, and should make business more efficient and more productive. For example, Siebel, Oracle and E.piphany have all taken the inevitable wireless plunge, announcing mobile support for their suite, of CRM applications. This will provide the ability for a mobile salesperson to check product inventory and place an order for a customer at the point of sale with a wireless device. Businesses will be able to improve customer service by providing customers with time-sensitive information and could also benefit from lower overhead charges. By next year, customers should be able to book a cinema ticket using a mobile device, while utility companies including UK-based Powergen are investigating the possibility of enabling customers to pay their utility bills using a mobile phone. Even more sophisticated services promise the ability to download an airline ticket to your phone, convert dollars to euros on your phone wallet and receive information from the garage on the repairs needed to your car. Mobile services are truly moving from merely informational to transactional services.
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