Mobile is here....now what? (Part 1)

I think the projections of smartphone surpassing feature phones and 50 billion gazillion being sold is now clear to us. Putting the OS wars aside, and bearing with the throttling and unthrottling of user data usage I want to explore how the mobility craze will impact businesses and consumers as the "smartness" becomes ubiquitous. I will reiterate here that it is less about smartphone or tablets then it is about data access becoming a necessity and then commodity. There are number of folks who still have their feature phones and are happy with them, but how many people can one find with a black and white TV. Then their are those who say that data is expensive and it is, but just having a phone service may not remain an available choice for long. Yes, one didn't need a satellite or a cable subscription catching the "white" waves off air. But even uncle Sam decided that the nephew needs to move on to digital world.

In this blog I just want to look ahead, far from now, when the mobile back haul is ready to carry 100MB per user load, when the ISP servers can support the same for each user and all but few will have the devices that can make those data speeds sing and dance.

I want to explore what will happen to us when all the hooplah has settled into reality. What kind of seismic shifts can we expect to see with the advent of data so readily available along with devices that can manipulate that data to users ecstasy, and users that can swipe their way through mobile experiences without blinking. Beginning with the gross changes that come to my mind.

Paper to Mobile (books, magzines, brochures, handouts, tickets, forms etc)

Plastic to Mobile (credit cards, loyalty cards, metro cards, ID cards, library cards etc)

Digital online to Mobile (Video, music)

Mobile voice to Mobile video (video telephony, video conferencing)

Bricks and Mortar (to Online) to Mobile (Banking, shopping)

Desktop (to notebook) to Mobile

The shift from paper to digital is happening with the speed of light. From books, magazines and news papers to business forms, such as transaction vouchers, insurance claims, medical records, airline tickets the previously paper domain is rapidly transforming itself to be agile in mobile world.

The next shift that is slow to come but is definitely on the move, is the drift from plastic to digital. The plastic money will become mobile money and all other plastic cards will become mobile identity. This I already mentioned in my previous blog, includes loyalty cards, identity cards, business cards, and credit/debit cards. This will also lead to changes in private access in terms of lockers, clubs, houses, apartments through mobile identity or digital keys stored on a mobile.

The music made the shift to digital with the advent of mp3 and it has been mobile for sometime even on feature phones in form of fancy ringtones. The fat content of video is only recently beginning to enjoy the luxury of wider bandwidths. This transformation on a timeline basis is mostly dependent on the availability of higher bandwidths of the next generation wireless networks such as LTE and WiMAX, since the streaming transformation began first with the explosion of YouTube and then Hulu.
Another big shift that will happen is to the main feature of telephony itself. Video has always been more addictive than voice. This transformation from voice to video for the gen Z will change the social norms. Although social networking comes close to breach of my privacy I don't consider myself an "oldie" and I am a "techie" by design, still my fingers don't punch out emoticons or those LOLs with the speed of my 8 year old nephew.

The reason I identified mobile banking with mobile shopping is because it is part of the same shift. A consumer walk out from bricks and mortar, to online and soon many will walk with most services they need in their pockets. The distance that a user covers on foot is now reduced to few clicks for many of the services that these within the four wall fronts provide. Even within the four walls the traditional sales associate role is disappearing as consumers go for discount shopping and comparative price checks while they are looking at the item in the isle.

As I keep thinking about trends, I had to add this bit, which I find is very important. The ability of mobile devices to act as fully functional computing devices by leveraging cloud computing or remote controlling the desktop using Bluetooth, WiFi or other available broadband. The mobile device are a cross between a completely thin client and a thick client with enough computing power to render the remote terminal and handle the data throughput. This is will be a more prominent feature on the tablets than on smaller form factors.

To continue exploration - the next blog will be on the more difficult topic of actual impact to businesses.........