Mobile Commerce

Mobile Commerce is about the explosion of applications and services that are becoming accessible from Internet-enabled mobile devices. It involves new technologies, services and business models. Over the past 10 years mobile phones have changed the way that we live and work. The mobile phone seems to give us more power as individuals to do what we want and be who we want to be. Many people consider mobile phones as extensions of themselves. There are over 3 billion mobile phones worldwide. This means that over 40% of the world’s population carries a mobile phone, far more than use a computer or have access to the Internet. In many developed countries, mobile phone penetration is above 90% and developing countries are catching up fast. The mobile phone is a smaller device but with the same capabilities as the desktop in the office and business can be now conducted on the road.

Mobile Commerce is going to continue to grow as people become more comfortable with the technology and the convenience it offers. When I first got my mobile phone, the only thing I cared about was what games came with and did it have a funky design. How times have changed, in order to exploit the m-commerce market potential, handset manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and Qualcomm are working with carriers such as AT&T Wireless and Sprint to develop WAP-enabled smart phones, the industry's answer to the Swiss Army Knife.
The advantage of M-Commerce are providing wider reach, reducing transaction cost, streamline business process, competitive pricing and reducing time to order.

I predict in the future that it will be essential in my employment to be familiar with e-commerce in my daily life as flexibility is going be important. At the moment my knowledge of M- Commerce is not great as I only use my mobile to text and phone and do not use all the other applications such WAP, Bluetooth etc, so I'll need to get connected or be left behind.