| Ecommerce's Monthly Talking Point - May 2000 Three Mobile Commerce Misconceptions Mobile commerce continues to make the transition from vision to reality, with increasing uptake of WAP phones in northern Europe and investment in smart cars by automotive manufacturers just two noteworthy symptoms of a maturing technology. As mobile commerce starts to make inroads in the consciousness of business decision makers, the first rash of misconceptions has begun to appear. In this month's Talking Point, we stomp on the leading three misunderstandings before they get a chance to grow too big. As ever, if you've got more to add or you want to disagree, be sure to let us know. 1: "Europe's two year advantage" It's commonly said that Europe is two years ahead of the US in mobile commerce, because it has a common digital network infrastructure and a level of mobile phone penetration to put America in the shade. This is true as far as it goes - but it doesn't go that far. When people make this statement, they're usually trying to counter the irritation they feel at constantly being told that the US is 'at least two years ahead' when it comes to the internet, ecommerce (and coffee shops). And most European commentators outside of Helsinki making this statement are, I suspect, less than committed to the vision of a society powered by mobile information services. They just like the idea of turning the tables. The problem with people batting this claim around is the unspoken expectation that lurks behind it. The logic seems to be that because Europe has maintained a steady two year gap with the US in the internet-enabled world, the same constant gap will exist - with its direction of superiority reversed - in the case of mobile. Well, if you're a European developer or marketer or entrepreneur, turn your handset back on: you have a new message. American business isn't going to sit at home and watch the rest of the world develop the next commercial age. Traditional US isolationism isn't based on arrogance, but on self-sufficiency. The abundant resources of the nation, combined with common business practices, language and currency allow US businesses to flourish within the national boundaries. In the case of mobile commerce, the US is missing (for now) a common digital infrastructure for mobile. Such infrastructures exist abroad. It's therefore imperative that US businesses enter those territories. At the very least, they'll want to develop services that they can ship back home when the time is right.
2: "Mobile, wireless - it's the same thing" 'Wireless' and 'mobile' are commonly used in the US and Europe respectively to describe the emerging technologies and applications of ubiquitous, untethered data-transacting systems. Language is currency: words are the best artefacts we have for transferring ideas to each other. And words are rarely exchangeable one-for-one. A pound is sort-of-like a dollar, but I won't give you a pound for a dollar. 'Wireless' isn't always interchangeable with 'mobile'. (And 'mobile' isn't always equivalent to 'portable'.) The fact that a network technology doesn't use wires doesn't make it mobile, though a mobile network technology isn't going to raise anything but laughs unless it's wireless. Does this matter? It does, because it matters whether your application is directed at a usage context that is merely wireless, or that is truly mobile. Take the bandwidth of UMTS, the third generation digital network technology scheduled to emerge around 2003. The top rate quoted for UMTS is 2 Mbps - more than enough for good quality streaming audio and video. That's great - but 2 Mbps will only be achievable if the user is within a building. Walk outside, and the rate will fall back to 384 kbps. UMTS at 2 Mbps is wireless, but not mobile.
3: "WAP is a stop-gap - wait for the web to go mobile" The success of the full-colour, click-to-go web makes the tiny screen size and fiddly interfaces of today's WAP-enabled devices look hopeless as a medium for commerce. Apologists for WAP rightly concentrate on the opportunities to present relevant, high-value and relatively small chunks of information to mobile users. Forget about the surfing model, they seem to say: wake up to the power of timely alerts. I think that mobile commerce will indeed be driven by such applications, and I'd go further to suggest that the business of collecting relevant, timely data values from a mobile population will be as significant as that of disseminating such items. But I don't think that this means that all other applications should stay on the web, or that they should await the day when networks and devices are advanced enough to run native web content. Can your business afford to wait until the web goes truly mobile? Many organisations are asking themselves this question, and concluding that they had better at least experiment with WAP. If they were late in getting a corporate website going, then they may want to ensure they don't miss the WAP boat, wherever it might be heading. At the same time, systems developers and content managers may see WAP's WML markup language as the chink they need in order to start leveraging the power of XML in managing the organisation's data more effectively. The combination of 'true' WAP applications in domains such as banking and broking and what I call 'placeholder' WAP sites from established enterprises will create considerable momentum for WAP. By the end of 2000, many organisations will have invested considerably in learning their way around WAP and its implementation issues. The success of any of these initiatives will rest largely on consumer appetite for WAP enabled devices. Once a critical mass of services and devices exists, how easy will it be to jettison the technology in order to 'return' to the web? If mobile commerce applications succeed within the constraints of current WAP technology, network and device characteristics, then how far off will they be from optimum effectiveness? In other words, will mobile commerce need the web in its full-blown glory? Mobile commerce isn't just the web without wires, the web on wheels. It's a new class of opportunities to assist with, intervene in and add value to the minute-by-minute lives of people, offering services for their multiple, intersecting roles as consumers, workers, parents, fans, investors… It's everything that sitting-at-a-desk isn't.
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