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Different Sounds for New Year Apps
Prasanto Kumar Roy
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Beep, click, beep, hisssssss... and silence... Back in the 1990s, there was one
sound that was melody to the technophile's ear.
That was the scream of a modem dialing up on a phone line, handshaking, and
connecting. We could tell the speed from the sound: 14.4, 28.8, or the frequent
glitch, a long screech and squawking, and a drop down to lower speeds...
Today's connectivity paradigms have changed. Homes connect at 256 kbps
upward, up to megabits, over silent DSL modems whose users will never know the
joys of the squawk of the handshake.
And all around us are the sounds of the mobile: rings, SMS beeps, and the
ubiquitous buzzing of a GSM signal interfering with a sound system, the clicks
of a GPRS-based push email system over the car's speakers...
This is the era of the mobile, with 7 million mobiles being added monthly in
India. And this will be the era of the mobile application.
In 2008, many users in India will make their first Internet connection on a
mobile phone instead of on a PC. Even for those of us with alternatives...well, my
house has had WiFi since 2003, but I prefer to look up stuff on my phone
browser, for the convenience.
SMS is the preferred medium of interaction for a while generation, and the
preferred interactivity platform for most media, from TV to newspapers.
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| Prasanto K Roy |
The numbers tell the story: 250 million mobiles in India, versus 25 million
PCs. So which do you think will be the preferred platform for all kinds of
transactions, queries, and information exchange?
The Railways are worried that their new “book your tickets on ATMs”
initiative isn't giving them much response. Forget the ATM: there are a few
thousand of those. Focus on the mobile phone: there are a few hundred million of
them.
So for those of you who run the IT departments of enterprises or work in
them, you can no longer get away from it: the mobile phone not the PC, is the
platform of 2008 for all your enterprise apps.
For those of you who have set up push email for management: 2008 will be the
year it gets democratized, and goes down the layers. Every employee who's on the
move needs push email (and you can might even save on laptops).
For those trying to reach out to customers, partners, suppliers, or trying to
let them reach out to you, if you haven't yet used SMS gateways, this is the
year to do so.
For those extending the enterprise apps to employees on the move, this is the
year to take those apps onto mobile platforms.
And if you're a developer, there's no question about the need to look quickly
and hard at one of the several mobile platforms out there, instead of at more
and more PC applications.
The mobile platforms war will rage in earnest in 2008, among Symbian and
Windows Mobile and BlackBerry and iPhone (due thus month), well ahead of
Google's Android late in the year.
All around us, we'll have the sounds of the mobile: clicks, beeps, ringtones,
the GPRS buzzing on sound systems...
Enterprises will begin to see a sea change in the way their customers,
employees and partners access information on the move-or even when sitting
still.
Whichever way you look at it, 2008 will the year of the mobile application
platform. Page(s) 1
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