Mobile Services Business and Technology Trends

Thanks to the advent of smart devices and the emergence of 3G/4G wireless technologies, services over mobile phones are becoming in many respects similar to those available over the PC based internet. Indeed mobile Web-based services, such as search, maps, presence, messaging, emails, productivity, social networking, and entertainment are becoming available in high-end phones from several device manufacturers. Mobile computing, however, promises richer applications and services based on location and context. Web technologies are being adapted and extended to support emerging mobile Internet services. However, location based mobile services present new significant challenges in terms of implementation and management complexity. In this presentation we will discuss the business trends of mobile services. Through a discussion of current projects at IBM Research, we will also present examples of the technology trends supporting scalable location based services.