Gartner has identified 10 mobile technologies that will evolve significantly through 2011 in ways that will impact short-term mobile strategies and policies.
According to the research company, 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 10 mobile technologies to watch in 2010 and 2011 include:
Bluetooth (3 and 4)
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. Both versions will include other technical improvements to improve battery life and security.
The Mobile Web
By 2011, over 85 percent of handsets shipped globally will include some form of browser. In mature markets, such as Western Europe and Japan, approximately 60 percent of handsets shipped will be smartphones with sophisticated browsing capability and the ability to render conventional HTML sites in some manner. 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.
Mobile Widgets
Because widgets exploit well-understood tools and technologies, they 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.
Platform-Independent Mobile AD Tools
Mobile platforms will become more diverse through 2012 although consolidation will not have started, and, in some markets, five or more platforms may have a significant presence. Therefore, tools that can reduce the burden of delivering installable applications to several platforms will be very attractive. Platform-independent application development (AD) tools cannot deliver a "write once, run anywhere" equivalent to native code; however, they can significantly reduce the cost of delivering and supporting multiplatform applications that provide a more sophisticated experience than the mobile Web and operate outside signal coverage.
App Stores
App stores provide a range of business support functions, such as payment processing, that assist smaller organizations. Gartner believes that app stores will play many roles in an organization’s B2C 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), and they will provide new options for application sourcing. Many applications will exploit ecosystem cloud services.
Enhanced Location Awareness
By the end of 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 the future.
Cellular Broadband
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.
Touchscreens
Touchscreens are emerging as the dominant user interface for large-screen handsets, and will be included in over 60 percent of mobile devices shipped in Western Europe and North America in 2011. Touch-enabled devices will also make increasing use of techniques such as haptics to enhance user experience. Organizations developing native handset applications may need to exploit single and multitouch interfaces and haptics to give their applications a compelling and competitive user experience.
M2M
Although the machine to machine market is very fragmented, it’s growing at over 30 percent per year. Low-cost M2M modules will enable a wide range of new networked devices and business models. Key applications include smart grid, meter reading, security/surveillance, automotive systems, vending and point of sale, remote monitoring, and track and trace.
Device-Independent Security
This isn’t strictly a single technology, but refers to a collection of security technologies, application technologies and sourcing options that enable the provisioning of applications that are secure, but less tightly tied to specific devices and platforms, and that, in many cases, do not require security tools to be installed on the client.
It includes thin-client architectures, applications as a service, platform-independent forms of network access control (NAC), portable personality, virtualization, and hosted security services, such as "in the cloud" virus scanning. Device-independent tools cannot provide the rigor of fully installed security, but a blend of several of these tools can enable CIOs to deliver applications that can run on a wider range of devices while reducing security risks.
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