M-Business - The Race to Mobility

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Opportunities offered by M-Business

M-Business offers numerous business opportunities for companies starting from infrastructure development to service providers like e-mail and Internet surfing on mobile devices. Opportunities provided by m-business are: Platforms: Mobile technology requires the basic platform on which it would be developed thus providing opportunities for software and hardware companies. The areas, which require new platforms, are handheld device operating systems like PalmOS, mobile phones and hardware platforms. The major competition between companies is in the operating systems segment for mobile devices. Companies in this field are: * In the case of Hardware Platforms, major companies are Texas Instruments and Intel. * Mobile Device platform companies include Sony, Motorola, Nokia and Handspring.

* There is a tough competition in the network operation systems and programming languages segment. Examples in this segment include Microsoft for .NET, Sun for J2ME and more. There are independent open source groups like Linux, which are in the process of building a common platform that can be used for all mobile devices.

Mobile Portals: Companies have to develop innovative mobile services at reasonable costs to attract more consumers. For example, NTT DoCoMo is using mobile Internet to become a dominant player in this market segment. The company has developed mobile portals that are performing the job of wireless operators.

Supply Chain Focus: One of the major benefits to companies due to the mobile revolution will be on the supply chain management front. Companies have already started using handheld devices to track customer order, inventory and logistics movement. Through mobile devices, companies can opt for delivery management, assets tracking and field force automation. Hence, supply chain management is an area where companies can be benefited substantially due to mobile technologies.

Operational Issues: In the present context, work of executives gets hampered due to the immobility of desktop PCs in which important information is stored. The mobile Internet technology will enable executives to access their PCs through their mobile devices thus enhancing their productivity.

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