"The rapid growth in mobile telephony in recent years provides a strong model for the adoption of undeterred mobile computing. The Strategis group recently estimated that there will be around 500 million mobile phone users worldwide in 2001, and 700 million by 2003. Consistent with this projection, Nokia estimated that there will be a billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide by 2005. The rapid transition from fixed to mobile telephony will almost certainly be followed by a similar transition from fixed to mobile computing in the near future. Some of the key factors that are driving

the evolution and adoption of mobile computing are:

•      greater reliance on computing and communication technologies. 
•      societal shifts toward a more mobile workforce 
•      increasing need for remote communication, computing and collaboration 
•      greater geographical mobility among corporate individuals 
•      greater need for communication and collaboration at all levels 
•      greater criticality of time and effective decision making within narrow  windows of opportunities 
•      increasing availability of wireless connections at affordable rates 
•      new and important requirements for mobile computing support such as
•      intelligent mobile agents

     and mobile knowledge networking."

Personification Inc. is a Toronto based company involved in ...

 

"The convergence of wireless devices and the Internet is creating  an important new channel to market — and the next wave of  change across industries. Mobile business, or m-business as it has come to be known, will enable organisations in every  industry to

• expand their markets, 
• improve their service and 
• reduce their costs. 

"If the "wireless" future" is behind schedule, analysts say three converging trends

• increasing use of the internet
• handheld devices
• cellphone services

Profitguide says in their April 2001 issue
"the real question is not will wireless impact your firm - or when - but how?"
 

• "TextSummary uses state-of-the-art algorithms to analyze a document's structure, grammar and keywords generating a coherent summary of the original - without compromising its meaning. 
• PhoneSummary takes the data generated by TextSummary and converts it to voice. Any web content can be summarized and delivered in  audio format through a telephone."

www.plesman.com/eb/news. html?CONTENT=news/eb021124a

"The mobile Internet market is growing quickly, but bandwidth and handset design limitations mean the wireless experience won't match the desktop experience any time soon." Matt Friedman writing in the Plesman publication, Computing Canada, Nov 2000

however, despite this trend, Friedman cautions "...You can't build much of a display into a mobile phone without seriously compromising its portability, and unlike computers, most mobile devices are designed to be operated with one hand.... The killer app for the wireless Internet may not be traditional Web browsing at all — at least not in the short term — but direct, person-to-business electronic  commerce. In effect, the wireless device becomes a combination of interface, credit card, smart card and ATM."
 

WAP

By Matt Friedman writing in   www.plesman.com/eb/news.html? CONTENT=news/eb021124a

"... WAP has to overcome at least two substantial obstacles before it's  really ready for prime time. The first problem is that for now, digital wireless connections are limited to a glacial 9600 bits per second — about a sixth the  speed of a pokey 56k modem. It's unlikely that anyone would have much of an "Internet experience" at that pace. However, the bandwidth issues are sure to be solved in due course. 

 A more serious question is whether handheld, mobile wireless devices like cell  phones and personal digital assistants are even particularly well suited to online browsing. You can't build much of a display into a mobile phone without seriously compromising its portability, and unlike computers, most mobile  devices are designed to be operated with one hand."
Friedman
 

A - Phone companies

Older
technologies
and
"Killer Aps"

The pioneers of the record player were Thomas Edison, (1847–1878)  with his phonograph, and Emile Berliner (1851–1929), who invented the predecessor of the vinyl record 1896. Edison's records were made of tinfoil, upon which a groove of unvarying lateral direction but varying depth was cut. 

Edison claims to have had as one of his original purposes, being the relationship between a businessman dictating letters to a secretary. Edison tried to produce a machine that would record the gentleman's speech, which could then be later played back by the secretary in a manner which would allow her to type out the words.

What we fail to see sometimes is how quickly older inventions also spread fast and had their diverted and entertaining applications. How many readers of this page would be surprised to learn that edible records made of chocolate were a culinary delight in 1903.

Of course, in 2001, we know that the phonograph's Killer Ap was not business oriented, but rather applied to music and it was entertainment purposes that drove subsequent developments.

The reason we deliberate on this historical tale in IEC 802/812 is to keep in mind that all the businesses presently trying to find a great Ap for wireless technology, may be missing (what has been historically a great driver of inventions) the most powerful Ap - entertainment.

written with notes from Prof. Richardson's class on History of Technology
 www.witiger.com/centennialcollege/GNED117.htm

WIRELESS
BANKING
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

WIRELESS
BANKING

In the March  2001 edition of Plesman publication's "eBusiness Journal", several article discuss wireless banking. Howard Soloman writes a particularly interesting article titled "Banks and brokerages are cautiously rolling out wireless services" Interestingly, Soloman points out some of the experiences particular Canadian banks have had trying to marry a technology to a particular function. Soloman notes "tiny cellphone screens and slow networks mean frustration"

Solomon cautions that "Wireless won't be a big money-maker for the financial services industry, but banks and brokerages are slowly adding it to their product offerings" because no one wants to be left behind. 

If there room for optimism. Solomon notes " industry analysts say there's no one wireless killer app, getting access to financial services is thought to be one of the biggest reasons why people will want Internet-enabled cellphones and personal digital devices, which are slowly entering the market."
 

The situation in March 2001
"Demand is not high at this point," says Jim Connor, manager of electronic services technologies at the Royal Bank. Most use it to check balances, he  said. "Overall, it's not overwhelming traffic," agrees David Sypher, senior  vice-president of direct channels at discount brokerage TD Waterhouse.  Schwab Canada finds only about three per cent of its trades are done through  wireless devices. "

In conclusion, Solomon offers that "the future of wireless financial services is in the hands of carriers and device manufacturers. With bigger  screens, users can get graphs and more than three lines of information. But the  networks that can handle such data are at least a year away."
 

WIRELESS
BANKING
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

WIRELESS
BANKING

March 09, 2001 article by  Victoria Berry  "Wireless banking brings partnerships"  Two partners bring Bank of Montreal to market quickly

The full story, at
 http://www.ITworldcanada.com/cw/displayArticle....................
explains that Bank of Montreal, which already has a relationship with  Sun Microsystems and 724 Solutions, expanded this relationship for developing wireless banking services.

BOM implemented the Sun infrastructure and hardware and 724’s  E10,000 solution in anticipation of customer demands. Dickelman noted "the wireless market may not have boomed yet, but when it does the bank  will have a well-run solution. Veev.com allows the bank’s wireless clients to access all account transactions, re-order cheques, take part in the bank’s brokerage services and do some trading," according to Dickelman.

. 

What does 
wireless mean 
to the human 
experience?

"... wireless is really about instant information, a priceless commodity that will let you make decisions and transactions anytime, anywhere"

• instant ability to see/read real-time stock quotes as the prices are moved by the market
• marketing and promotion information cast to you instantly based on your geographic location in an urban area (so you can buy something in close proximity)
• instant ability to reply to a human (voice, text, or image based content)

location determinant
locationindeterminant
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

the human business
relationship experience:

location determinant
locationindeterminant
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

the human business
relationship experience:

location determinant
locationindeterminant
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

the human business
relationship experience:

location determinant
locationindeterminant

20th century Scarborough - the Macdonald's franchise owner buys real estate across from the local high school, which is adjacent to a medium size mall which is only served presently by a Becker's and a Tim Horton's.

Both of these situations are location determinant - meaning the factors of 

• customer location
• supplies and materials
• labour available
• publicity and marketing

• customer location is not a factor, they can be anywhere FedEx ships
• supplies and materials are minimal since most is digital and the actual product can be assembled and packaged almost anywhere
• labour is split between the call center - located in a bilingual Atlantic Canada province, and offsite webmasters
• publicity and marketing is mostly online, with some billboards placed in the CBD

• customer location is a factor, the software only calls their phone if they are within a 80 metre range of a small Tim Horton's kiosk
• supplies and materials are non-existent - it is a service, not a physical product being sold
• labour is split between the call center - located in a multi-lingual north Toronto (English, Mandarin and Cantonese)  and offsite webmasters
• publicity and marketing is mostly offline, with some sandwich boards placed on the sidewalk noting the existance of the service and offering online coupons through the cellphone

• influencing political parties platforms  
• the Net as a tool to have greater imput from special interest groups  
• the Net as a tool used by politicians. 
• See  jesseventura.com
• the Net as a way of letting everybody know about popular issues, and scandals
• many online magazines have excellent articles about the Internet's role in politics

• article on CNN web site titled

Will the Internet change media's role in politics?
• go here to read the full article

 http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9601/cyber_politics/
• a key point of this article is
• "the Internet offers a chance for candidates "to move beyond soundbites," ... the new medium is a route for candidates to "get their messages directly to the voter."

 
• "The impact of the Internet on Society", in this context, is that political candidates do not have to be so carefully to please the newspapers and TV, they can get their message to you directly through the web site

WTGR

 http://www.drudgereport.com/
 
 

• read  Cyberspace opens the political arena by Andrew Glass- this was discussed inclass  
• check out  www.daltonmcguinty.com "Dalton Cam"  
• a hijacked domain name www.mikeharris.com/ by the liberals  
• or the opposite www.notuptothejob.com(no longer active)  
• the conservatives www.OntarioPC.on.ca/  
• the conservatives satire site  www.liberalsforharris.com/(no longer active)  
• the NDPs  www.ontariondp.on.ca/ 

"Estimates suggest that only 10 percent of the population has ever been on the Internet -- and had the chance to see politics newsgroups and freewheeling debate. Yet nine Republican candidates -- and the
main contender from the Democratic side -- have all mounted a presence on the World Wide Web with campaign home pages."
Brian Nelson for CNN
 http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9601/cyber_politics/
 

www.georgewbush.com

 

Read this article by Marjo Johne

"Bill St. Arnaud, senior director at Canarie Inc., a non-profit Internet development  organization based in Ottawa, points to file-sharing models such as Napster and Gnutella as examples of where the Internet is headed. These decentralized "peer-to-peer" frameworks, which allow Internet users to share content with each other without a main controlling gateway, will become more common in the future. "It's getting away from  control and authority," he says. "New ways of delivering content will be established, and  we will be doing things like downloading movies for free, allowing non-traditional moviemakers to get a worldwide audience, but the bottom line for users is that there will  be a greater richness and availability of information and content, from music to videos and so forth."

High-speed broadband connections, which can transmit higher concentrations of data at a faster clip, will further encourage this proliferation of media-rich content. Consequently, says Markus Hoffman at Lucent Technologies, the Internet will become less text-heavy and more audiovisual.

Anthony Anirud, a senior telecommunications analyst with IDC Canada, envisions the Internet of tomorrow as a truly visual and interactive medium that goes beyond just leaving video messages on someone's e-mail. At present, video conferencing over the Internet is a slow and awkward business, with slow-moving images and delays in  transmission of both audio and visual data.

The convergence of voice and data networks will radically change how we use the Internet, says Mr. Anirud. "Once this takes off, we could be visually corresponding back  and forth in real time. In fact, any kind of visual content on the Internet will become interactive."

While it all sounds exciting, there is a downside: As peer-to-networking and high-speed broadband connections make information even more easily accessible than it is today, content on the Internet will inevitably become downgraded, in both actual and perceived quality, says Mr. St. Arnaud."
 

Weak?

.	Read this article by Robert Wright Feb. 22, 2001

"But a couple of recent studies point to the possibility that Internet growth is slowing down, perhaps even levelling off."

"The first hint was when December [2000] figures showed that, for the first time, the number of hours people spent online had fallen -- from 19.2 to 17.6 hours per month. But researchers concluded that it had more to do with families spending more time together during the holidays than with any real slow-down. But the trend has continued. According to PC Data Online figures, 36 of the 50 most popular Web properties actually experienced a decline in traffic in January. Among the Top 10 sites, for instance, Yahoo.com's traffic fell 2.3 per cent and AOL.com's fell a mere 0.5 per cent, but others experienced greater declines, including Passport.com (4 per cent), Geocities.com (3.8 per cent), eBay.com (2.8 per cent), Lycos.com (6.2 per cent) and Amazon.com (19.6 per cent). Traffic at some sites in the Top 100 fell by as much as 62.2 per   cent. PC Data Online didn't provide aggregate figures for Net traffic."

"last week,[Feb 15, 2001]  research firm Ipsos-Reid released a study that concluded Internet growth is slowing down and even stalling in parts of the world. The study, The Face Of The Web, shows that Internet usage is highly concentrated in a few countries -- particularly in North America, Europe and a few pockets elsewhere -- but is slowing in most others. In fact, it found that up to a third of the world not only has no intention of going online, it has never even heard of the Internet. The study says there are about 350 million regular Internet users, about 6 per cent of the world's population. That's up 16 per cent over 1999, but well below previous annual growth rates. If the trend continues, the Net's population won't come close to the 1 billion total predicted by a number of industry analysts."
 

Weak?

.	the article by Robert Wright is based on a study done by market research firm Ipsos Reid, sooo, we'll go direct to the Ipsos Reid website to see the information directly

"Internet growth is slowing and even stalling in parts of  the world, according to Ipsos-Reid, a leading international research firm. The company's study, The  Face of the Web, shows that usage is highly concentrated in a few countries, exhibits signs of slowing  growth in several others, and that up to a third of the world has neither heard of the Internet nor has any intention of going online anytime soon.  The Face of the Web's projections peg the worldwide Internet population at about 350 million regular users, up about 16% year-over-over, which is a decent showing but far below growth levels in  previous years"

Slower Growth Doesn't Mean Demise 

"Some of the company’s [Ipsos Reid] ongoing global Internet research shows that:
 

• Online talk is cheap: Nine-in-ten young Internet users have used e-mail, and seven-in-ten  participate in chat rooms regularly. 
• Music downloading: 36% of all adult Internet users and 41% of teens and young adult Internet  users have downloaded music from the Web in MP3 or similar formats. 
• Research tool: More than nine-in-ten teenagers in U.S. and Canada use the web to help with homework. 
• E-commerce: Nearly 120 million Internet users worldwide have already made a purchase or transaction online, with as many as one in four purchases made on impulse. 
• Banking and investing: Internet users in Europe are among the world's most enthusiastic online banking customers, ahead of those in the United States. "

Weak?

Outside
of
urban
areas