Mobile Commerce (m-commerce) is moving rapidly from the futuristic fringes of the electronic business spectrum to take its rightful place within the commercial mainstream.
So says Laurentius Human, chief technology officer at Prism Wireless, a division of JSE-listed Prism Holdings, who points out that while mobile-to-Internet convergence has long been discussed at a high-end technical level, the release of new tools has brought the technology within reach of the majority of competent programmers and developers.
"By early-2001, any new website development in SA will have to have a mobile component, including a mobile transactive feature. This is already occurring in Europe which is the acknowledged leader in wireless technology and is ahead of SA by about six months," he adds.
Major Internet portals such as Yahoo and AOL, for example, now incorporate a mobile offering.
The UK Yahoo portal has a mobile section which offers a host of different wireless options from WAP browser downloads and a WAP directory for WAP sites, to services such as chat sessions using a WAP-enabled cellphone.
"Until now, most companies utilising e-commerce technology have been slow to go the mobile route because this required building a standalone, and expensive, application as well as a separate Internet website. Now, the same language can be used to build the website`s mobile connection.
"But developers also have to ensure that security is built in to these connections. It`s taken about five years for the Internet to be regarded as sufficiently secure for the widespread adoption of e-commerce. The uptake of m-commerce will occur far more quickly," Human says and offers two reasons for this assertion.
First, having gone through the Internet-based e-commerce learning curve, the security requirements for m-commerce are well understood.
"Companies, like Prism, which have extensive experience in building security into e-commerce applications are translating this expertise into the wireless arena and producing solutions which meet the stringent requirements of global financial institutions," he explains.
The second reason is that the penetration of wireless value-added data services such as receiving sports scores, weather reports, up-to-date information about music gigs, and even horoscopes is growing exponentially, particularly among younger users. Many of these users don`t have round-the-clock access to a PC and modem; the majority, however, have cellphones.
"It`s estimated that 60% of all under-25`s in Europe already make use of value-added data services on their cellphones. While this isn`t true transactive m-commerce yet, it`s the thin edge of the wedge.
"These youngsters are comfortable sending and receiving information on their mobile handsets. It`s a short step from here to utilising a mobile handset for transactions, once more secure m-commerce applications become available.
"Widespread adoption of wireless transactions will be driven by the younger generation. And as today`s under-25`s move into their thirties, the pool of eager m-commerce adopters will grow far more rapidly than the uptake of Internet-based, fixed-line e-commerce," Human concludes.
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