Demystifying Mobility

Mobility is defined as the state of being mobile and connected to the functions provided by the internet.

"In the 1990s, When the home computers arrived the hard disk drives costs reduced, processing speeds increased, other hardware costs also reduced with each passing year (Moore's law). Additionally the interconnectivity increased their utility, the network effort of more people joining the internet made them more powerful. The usability and the features increased exponentially and they truly became multi-media systems. Thus PCs changed the way we did businesses; improved customer satisfaction, employee happiness and spawned new businesses around them and have become indispensable.

The next wave of change expected to happen now, is with the smart mobile devices and their influence on work productivity. With the incoming of 3G technology the wireless data transfer speeds increased, also the processing speeds and the functionalities of mobile devices have bettered; this is expected to create a similar or even a widespread revolution in way things/businesses operate.

With a wireless device like an Iphone, u can be location aware (maps), direction aware (compass), can sense touches, always be connected, can use the device to see (camera), can transmit videos/images and also be social media ready. This is a significant leap frogging from the black and white mobile devices that were ubiquitous in the 1990s. Like a multi media computer that was able to do image, video and rich data transmission which a third generation PC was not able to do, this Iphone/other smartphone is a significant improvement over the basic feature phones".

The analogy elucidates the trend that we are moving towards. The smart phones are expected to bring a different revolution from the one that internet had brought about with multimedia systems and high speed connectivity.

The mobility began with the arrival of pagers one should say, where the devices were used to communicate to employees at work. A sales person or an employee on field always was reachable for timely information. The cellular phones enabled a two way communication and provided additional functionalities. The Blackberry heralded the smart phone revolution, most of the business people were able to check emails and communicate even when not at work. These brought about great productivity improvement as bosses were able to be always in touch with work and take timely decisions, employees also got faster turn around time.

With the arrival of powerful smart phones and tablet devices, the enterprises are looking at the mobile devices as the next computing paradigm.

Enterprises are trying to target three different user bases : Customers, Partners and Employees.

A customer could access a service provided by the enterprise anywhere from his mobile device. Partner could place an order, track the order life cycle right on the palm of his hands. CXOs can keep tab of the KPIs on his IPad. These are few illustrations but the possibilities are unlimited.

This is an introduction article on mobility and the possibilities, would try to present the following and more in the subsequent articles:

a. Different parts of the value chain in mobility

b. New businesses that would spurn out of this opportunity

c. How to design a Mobile Application (and integrate with existing infrastructure)

d. How advertising and marketing is going to target this new channel

e. Social Media business and Mobility

f. New Technologies and Cloud

g. Applications

h. Monetizing mobility