Missing the Money in Mobility

I get more and more time to write these editorials now,

thanks to all the waiting, for flights. I have too much data, not enough

information. My phone's SMS, my PDA and my laptop all tell me the flight took

off 3 minutes ahead of schedule, and ETA is 18:45 sharp. So does the big display

above me, as I nibble into some grim snacks at the Arrivals snack bar. Only my

wristwatch disagrees, says it's already 19:42. As a thousand people stream by to

the exit, there's an hour-long traffic jam in the skies above. As Delhi

airport's creaking infrastructure struggles to keep pace with a nation on the

move.

If there's one defining image that stays with me I cross

over from one fiscal year to the next, it's that of a billion people on the move

with a vengeance.

They're all moving. Workers, families, students buying Air

Deccan and Spicejet tickets online. The Sensex, jumping beyond 11k. Mergers,

IPOs, NFOs. Indians tech companies making foreign acquisitions. An exploding

mobile phone market inundated with offer from vendors. Millions migrating across

cities as the services industries and opportunities grow and evolve frantically.

No wonder Mobility is such a big deal today, as a

technology, and as a product and application area. Workers, executives,

managers, government officials: they all need information on the go. Everyone

from employees to school kids to families coordinate meetings on their 'mobiles'

on the fly, usually over SMS. The mass media, from TV to print, relies heavily

on SMS.

A mobile world packed with opportunity. A mobile nation

with 100x more opportunity and pent-up demand, than there's supply.

There's RFID, covered in this issue, graduating from swipe

cards to serious business apps. And a million potential customers, vendors,

dealers who know nothing about it-or how it could transform their business.

There's location-based services, which CIOs are crying out

for, but which the most natural supplier candidates, mobile phone operators, are

ignoring, heads buried in the sand.

There's SMS integration needs with basic business apps for

a host of small companies, but no off-the-shelf, shrink-wrapped product-service

bundles.

There's GIS, key to many other areas including location and

routing apps, but few players. Even the decade-old GPS is a new entrant in

India, thanks to poor availability of digitized maps.

There's a hundred thousand SMEs who need wireless LAN

products, but complexity and lack of knowledge and service providers keeps them

away.

And there's 20,000 tech vendors, service providers, channel

partners, dealers, all looking desperately for new ideas, new services areas to

enhance their margins.

Many won't find the Money in Mobility. A few will. You have

to figure out fast where you're going to be. Especially in a nation on the move.