Missing the Money in Mobility

I get more and more time to write these editorials now,
thanks to all the waiting, for flights. I have too much data, not enough
information. My phone's SMS, my PDA and my laptop all tell me the flight took
off 3 minutes ahead of schedule, and ETA is 18:45 sharp. So does the big display
above me, as I nibble into some grim snacks at the Arrivals snack bar. Only my
wristwatch disagrees, says it's already 19:42. As a thousand people stream by
to the exit, there's an hour-long traffic jam in the skies above. As Delhi
airport's creaking infrastructure struggles to keep pace with a nation on the
move.

If there's one defining image that stays with me I cross
over from one fiscal year to the next, it's that of a billion people on the
move with a vengeance.

They're all moving. Workers, families, students buying
Air Deccan and Spicejet tickets online. The Sensex, jumping beyond 11k. Mergers,
IPOs, NFOs. Indians tech companies making foreign acquisitions. An exploding
mobile phone market inundated with offer from vendors. Millions migrating across
cities as the services industries and opportunities grow and evolve frantically.

No wonder Mobility is such a big deal today, as a
technology, and as a product and application area. Workers, executives,
managers, government officials: they all need information on the go. Everyone
from employees to school kids to families coordinate meetings on their
'mobiles' on the fly, usually over SMS. The mass media, from TV to print,
relies heavily on SMS.

A mobile world packed with opportunity. A mobile nation
with 100x more opportunity and pent-up demand, than there's supply.

There's RFID, covered in this issue, graduating from
swipe cards to serious business apps. And a million potential customers,
vendors, dealers who know nothing about it-or how it could transform their
business.

There's location-based services, which CIOs are crying
out for, but which the most natural supplier candidates, mobile phone operators,
are ignoring, heads buried in the sand.

There's SMS integration needs with basic business apps
for a host of small companies, but no off-the-shelf, shrink-wrapped
product-service bundles.

There's GIS, key to many other areas including location
and routing apps, but few players. Even the decade-old GPS is a new entrant in
India, thanks to poor availability of digitized maps.

There's a hundred thousand SMEs who need wireless LAN
products, but complexity and lack of knowledge and service providers keeps them
away.

And there's 20,000 tech vendors, service providers,
channel partners, dealers, all looking desperately for new ideas, new services
areas to enhance their margins.

Many won't find the Money in Mobility. A few will. You
have to figure out fast where you're going to be. Especially in a nation on
the move.