M-Business - The Race to Mobility

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The Mobile Environment

Some questions have to be answered like what are the reasons for companies to go for mobile commerce when already there is e-commerce? In other words, what is the need of m-business when transactions are already being conducted online and companies have already adjusted themselves in an online environment? Following are the three major factors that explains why there is a need to go for m-business: Changing customer priorities: In today's changing business environment, companies know that they have to fulfill their consumers' needs and preferences and if they are not able to do that then they will be soon out of business. In a highly competitive market, the market leader will be that company, which would provide differentiated value-added services to its consumers. Hence, few companies adopted wireless technologies. Anywhere and anytime services, speed of service, simplicity and convenience are the major advantages enjoyed by the consumers of mobile applications.

Other factors that increased customers' expectations are:
* Mobile devices are becoming the best alternatives for networking and hence building strong foundations of networked society.
* Rising young generation market all over the world.
* Services like Short Message Service (SMS) are becoming a social necessity.
* Faster delivery of products and services i.e. Time is Money concept is getting real.

Innovation in Infrastructure: This factor relates to the development of existing infrastructure to support latest technologies. The existing infrastructure is being developed to support various new features in networking areas, which includes home-office networks. Increased bandwidth is one of the major developments and most of the companies are using it to offer customized solutions for wireless devices like PDAs, mobile phones. Other factors that have contributed to infrastructure innovation are:

* Upgradation of wireless technologies from 2G to 3G.
* Combination of wideband radio communications and Internet protocol based services.
* Concepts like bandwidth of demand coming in application.
* Bluetooth - a new technology in the area of personalized bandwidth.
* Wireless home networking - another area where IBM and Carrier are developing wireless remote monitoring and control services.

Hardware and Device Innovation: The hardware products gets cheaper as and when new products are introduced. However, this segment has an important role to play, as this is where end users will use mobile technology. Some of the emerging trends in this segment are:
* Many new channels are being introduced. For example, companies are now equipping cars, toys, refrigerators and so on with wireless devices that are making them to interact with the users or other devices.
* Convergence of information, communication and entertainment industry is another distinct trend emerging that will further increase the role of mobile devices.
* The introduction of voice user interface is enabling speech recognition into various wireless devices and providing more convenience for the users.

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