Next big wave of mobile apps will be LBS: Gartner analyst

LAS VEGAS – The launch of iPhone 3G started a chain reaction of new mobile applications, but the next big wave of widgets will take user location into context.

So said Gartner Inc. analyst Mike King, who talked about the growth of the mobile as a featured guest speaker at Sybase TechWave 2008 in Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Hotel. Mr. King discussed the fact that industries as varied as education, health care, real estate, insurance and financial services have all been actively working to build their mobile architecture.

“This has already been a really interesting year for mobility,” Mr. King said. “I’ve been in the industry for quite a while and I can honestly say it’s never been this exciting.”

Mr. King gave tips to mobile applications developers and advertisers.

“A mobile device has a limited amount of real estate and you’ve got to present information and content as quickly and as simply as possible,” he said. “SMS alerts will continue to grow in popularity.”

Analysts estimate that more than 2 trillion text messages were sent in 2007 worldwide.

Portio Research predicts that close to 2.5 trillion messages will be sent this year.

Sybase 365 claims that it saw an almost 100 percent increase in mobile messaging traffic over the course of 2007. Sybase 365 currently processes more than 10 billion messages per month, including 135 million MMS picture messages.

Towards the end of 2007, M:Metrics reported that 46.6 percent of U.S. subscribers sent a text message, while 19 percent sent a picture message. Rates for 2008 are expected to increase.

Sybase 365 has a commerce product that includes mobile banking and mobile payments services. Many banks and other financial institutions worldwide have launched some form of mobile services.

“Financial services companies have been early adopters of mobile email, mobile staff reports and outbound applications, as opposed to internal ones, that go out to their customers,” Mr. King said.

“Insurance companies have launched investment products data out to investors via mobile, and sales force/CRM applications will drive their next phase of investment," he said.

“Today utilities providers are big investors in mobility. They are early adopters of asset management applications, and their next phase will be to scale mobile beyond its technology staff.”

Mr. King listed showstoppers that will dictate companies’ mobile architecture, including the number of applications they require, their network characteristics, their employees and clients’ device ownership, client profiles and security management requirements.

“With carriers upgrading their networks on a three-year cycle, companies have to plan a mobility investment timeline of three years or more,” he said. “They also must plan for compatibility with three applications or more and three devices or more.”

Other topics of discussion were mobile applications, including mobile email integration, mobile instant messaging, voice integration with mobile Web services and security management.

Mr. King dissected the various types of mobile applications in detail and offered his predictions for the mobile space.

“The next big wave of mobile applications development will involve the integration of context, taking into consideration a user’s location, presence, schedules, email loads and how synergistic applications are deployed on the handset,” Mr. King said.

Applications that take advantage of GPS location-based capabilities will have a huge impact on mobile marketing.

“Customers will be able to search for stores within a 40 mile radius of their current location, salesmen will be able to search for nearby potential clients and access their past buying habits and retailers will be able to offer Web-based specials to nearby consumers, all via mobile,” Mr. King said.

He said that Smartphones have made up 34 percent of market this year and that Web-enable phones will continue to make inroads in the U.S. market.

A hot topic was Multichannel Access Gateway standards, allowing applications to function on any device, anywhere.

“With platforms including iPhone, Symbian, Microsoft and eventually Android, mobile applications and networks of the future will not be able to zero in on a single device or OS,” Mr King said.

“They will have to support multiple operating systems and various functionality and form factors, since some handsets will have touch screens, some will have keyboards, some will have scanner devices, et cetera," he said.

“There will not be a single dominant device or OS.”