In the late nineties analysts predicted the latent potential of mobile and
wireless applications market.
Forrester Research estimated the wireless software market size to reach $ 90
billion by 2003. When handhelds were expected to overtake PCs as computing and
access devices many companies like Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and CA rushed into
building applications for mobile devices. Web portals, wireless LANs and spread
of CDMA and GSM-based mobile telephone networks lured the mobile and wireless
software market segment.
However a reality check revealed that this market did not take-off as
predicted. Non-affordability of handheld computing devices was one of the
reasons. Disparity of standards in mobile networks, the 2.5G v/s 3G debate and
non-availability of applications were other reasons. Clearly, the opportunity
and the trends in this segment were over-hyped. The mobile and wireless software
market had not been defined distinctly. Mobile software and wireless software
are entirely separate domains. According to Gartner, "it is a collection of
fragmented markets, each with its own players, target buyers and rules, still
full of fast-moving opportunities for large and small".
The applications varied from a stand-alone software to navigate the menus of
a mobile handset, a PDA calendar to e-mail connectivity software or sales force
automation software on a PDA to connect to an ERP backbone. To lessen the
complexity, wireless applications are broadly categorized into three. Mobile
applications that run on PDAs, cellphones and specialized devices like
intelligent barcode scanners and can stay online or offline as desired. Wireless
applications run over wireless networks like infrared, wireless LAN, Bluetooth
or a GSM/ CDMA-based cellular network. And wireless Internet applications are
characterized by a microbrowser on a PDA or a smart-phone that is always
connected to the Internet. Business applications that run on PDAs and similar
specialized devices are one of the oldest and still demand high investments. In
India the trend is fast emerging in industries like pharma, FMCG and insurance.
Mobile |
||
Type of usage |
Application |
Market Prospects |
Personal | Personal Information Manager, Scheduler,One-player games |
Hot |
Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) |
SMS chat, IM, two-player games |
Hot |
Business-to-consumer (B2C) |
Airline check-in, Retail Banking, Stock-trading |
Cold |
Business-to-employee (B2E) |
Sales automation, field service, healthcare, law enforcement, logistics and inventory |
Hot |
Business-to-business ( B2B) |
Same as in B2E but with enhanced securitycontrol for business between organizations. |
Cold |
Mumbai-based Lauren Software, part of the Rs 20 crore Lauren Infotech,
develops applications for PDAs. Says Sushant Pandya, director, Lauren Software,
" I see three opportunity areas--standard software for mobile devices like
cellphones, PDAs and specialized devices with features like calendar, mail and
information manager. There are no applications written in this case. In the
second case, applications are written in C++, Java and Code Warrior and run
independently on the PDA. The third is an enterprise solution on the PDA. The
latter application acts as a conduit to the back-end, say Java interfaces to the
back-end database. Lauren develops enterprise and independent PDA applications.
Lauren pioneered a few PDA applications that are currently in use by DHL,
Airfreight and Colgate Palmolive. The technical challenge is in building
applications that could connect to back-end enterprise applications. As the
software footprint for PDAs are typically very small they are therefore tightly
coded. A PalmOS occupies 100 KB of space while the Palm DB2 engine and the DB2 E
7.2 EveryPlace about 180 KB. The Indian market for mobile and wireless software
is virtually non-existent. In terms of business potential, the PDA applications
market size is smaller as compared to the business applications market. As PDA
applications bring in low revenues, to the tune Rs 4 lakh or so, they fall below
the purview of many large software companies. In addition, developers
specializing in wireless technologies are scarcely available. Scaling operations
will make the segment attractive in terms of business potential. Says Pandya,
" The key is to help companies see the competitive advantage. Once a
company enters the segment, others are bound to follow".
Easwaradas Satyan in Mumbai