The other day, my friends and I were having a discussion on mobile phones… about the evolution of smart phones and the iPad and what not!
We were discussing about Nexus One, the smart phone launched by Google, which indeed revolutionized the cellular world. That opened the door to discussion on the Android, the open source mobile operating system and so on.
Then one of my friends told us about an article that he read the other day.
The article was about the mobile technologies to watch out for in 2010-11… and needless to say our discussion became spicier.
According to recent research reports by Gartner, investments in mobile applications and technologies will increase through 2011 as organizations emerge from the recession and ramp up both business-to-employee and business-to-consumer mobile spending.
The first feature to watch out for in 2010 and 2011 is Bluetooth– two new Bluetooth versions will emerge by 2011. Bluetooth 3 will introduce 802.11 as a bearer for faster data transmission, and Bluetooth 4 will introduce a new low-energy (LE) mode that will enable communication with external peripherals and sensors.
The next feature to look out for is the mobile-web– by 2011, over 85 percent of the handsets shipped globally will include some form of browser. The mobile web, along with associated web adaptation tools, will be a leading technology for B2C mobile applications through 2012, and should be part of every organization’s B2C technology portfolio. This has already begun even with the base end Nokia multimedia phones.
The next feature to look out for is the Enhanced Location Awareness– by the end of year 2011, over 75 percent of devices shipped in mature markets will include a GPS. Wi-Fi and cell ID systems will remain important in situations where GPS is unavailable or unreliable. The popularity of location-aware handsets will enable a wide range of B2E and B2C location-aware applications and will serve as a foundation for more sophisticated contextual applications in future.
Next came the App Stores– App Stores provide a range of business support functions, such as payment processing, that assist smaller organizations. The App Stores will play many roles in an organization’s B2C strategy and B2E strategies. They will be a distribution channel for mobile applications and a commercial channel to sell applications and content (especially in international markets).
Also, during 2010 and 2011, the availability of multimegabit wireless broadband performance will continue to grow as mobile networks enhance their broadband performance. Embedded cellular networking will become a standard feature of many corporate laptops and will enable new types of network-connected devices and business models such as e-books and media players.
And finally, the mobile widgets– these mobile widgets have lower entry-barriers than complex native applications and thus can be a good first step to assess the demand for an application on a specific platform before undertaking expensive native development.
Also, consumers will spend $6.2 billion in 2010 in mobile application stores while advertising revenue is expected to generate $0.6 billion worldwide.
And finally we ended our discussion- indeed it was a very lively one!
Source: Gartner.com.