M-commerce moves into danger zone

Mobile ecommerce is in danger of "moving from hype to bust", according to Carl Zetie, director at analyst company, Giga Information Group.

Zetie warned at Giga's Application Architecture conference yesterday: "[Mobile ecommerce] is the most hyped but least effective use for wireless technology. The hype around mobile ecommerce is out of all proportion to its value."

Last year Gartner predicted that mobile technology would fuel ebusiness, with such devices being used to deal with anything between $10bn and more than $1tn of trade each year by 2005.

But Zetie now says there are problems relating to the usability of these appliances. "The number one issue for customers is usability. It is the single biggest barrier. There is now a compromise between what the technology allows and what the business demands. It will be better when the 3G networks roll out, but it won't be better in this decade," he claimed

An audience poll of about 200 IT directors also showed that 50 per cent were unsure about how their wireless strategy would be of value to the business, while 12 per cent were concerned about wireless connectivity/coverage issues and security respectively.

"There are some applications that give value, but relatively few," Zetie said. "Mobile ecommerce internet access offers the promise of being able to reach customers wherever they happen to be, but not all applications or information are suitable for mobile deployment, especially with the current state of technologies. The key to identifying killer applications is whether the user gains real value by having the access here and now."

But Zetie still believes that mobile technology can offer potential benefits. "Its adds the greatest value at the edge of the enterprise, at the supply chain, or where the employee is in the field interacting with the customer," he explained.

"Before wireless, you had a choice. Either you were in the field in contact with the customer, but disconnected from information, or the other way round. Now you can be in contact with the customer and the information," he added.