Who Is Serious About Mobile?

Of late, it has become fairly fashionable for everyone to talk about the
power of mobile phonehow it can change the world. Many, to prove their point,
want to tell you how comfortable they are with doing everything through mobile.
It is just that (other) people have to change their mindset!

I am sure you have heard that more than once.

Now, here is my submission. I do most of my editorial research on mobile
phone. I do most of my social networking on mobile phones. I try to do most of
my other day-to-day activities through mobile phones. I am far from satisfied in
being able to do what I want to. While acknowledging that we have come a long
way in a fairly short time, I however have a vigorous disagreement if anyone
says that you can do almost everything on mobile.

To start with, here is a list of things that you cannot do on mobile or if
you can, you have to be a real genius. No offense to the companies mentioned.
They are, in fact, companies that I admire; and hence my logic is that if they
are still not ready, it is difficult to believe the world at large is.

• You cannot really log into many sites like Citibank and Airtel website for
  viewing and paying your bills from a mobile phone on GPRS (in my case, it is
  an Airtel connection).
• You cannot rely on the direction given by Google Maps to find your optimal
  route in any city (and I am not even talking about the time estimation that it
  gives to reach a destination; that is a joke). In my case, it is the capital
  city of India, a country that is one of Googles top bases.
• If you cannot install an application (and more and more B2C companies like
  banks are making their services available as an application that resides on
  your phone), there is no one who can help you unless probably you find that it
  is a phone problem, and you take it to the nearest service center, which in a
  city like Delhi are just two or three for most phone makers.
• You cannot really find accurate and up-to-date information about something
  as simple as the location of an ATM of SBI and ICICI Bank, the two largest
  banks in India.

I can go on and on with a list like this. But that is not the point. The
broader point that I want to make is that we are nowhere near the m-world that
we all love to talk about. If this is the state of things in areas where one
would expect things to be much better, talks of the potential of m-governance
and taking mobile to all walks of life sounds much less credible.

I would just like to clarify that it is not an access technology issue. Many
say 3G is the answer to all the existing gaps in mobile. I beg to disagree. None
of the examples I have given, for instance, would get sorted out, if 3G comes.
Similarly, access to GPRS handsets is an issue, but not as big an issue as it is
made out to be. The number of active GPRS connections may be a challenge, but
the idea there is to create products and services to motivate people to go for
GPRS and not vice versa.

The problem is more fundamental. One, we still do not believe in the power of
the mobile. Few businesses integrate their mobile strategy with their business
strategy, the way they have started doing with the traditional web. Mobile is,
if anything, an afterthought.

Two, even if some of them do think about it, they do not have an example to
follow, unlike the traditional web, where the experience of countries which have
gone through the experience cycle provides valuable insights. In mobile, few
countries have experienced what India is witnessing. So, we have to think of our
solution, which maybe others can follow.

I hope some new initiatives like Android and the corresponding marketing
efforts would induce some change. But for the time being, I am optimistic, still
excited, but uncomfortable with what is available. Impatience is a better word.

Shyamanuja Das

The author is Editor of Dataquest.
shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in