Gartner, Inc. is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. They are  the indispensable partner to 60,000 clients in 10,000 distinct organizations.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Internet Access: Mobile Phones To Overtake PC’s By 2013

A new research report from Gartner predicts that by 2013, the mobile phones will have overtaken PC’s as the most common way to access the internet. At that point, Gartner predicts a global installed base of 1.82 billion phones able to connect to the internet, compared with 1.78 billion PC’s.

The key implication is that companies need to insure that their websites, portals, and web applications adequately support mobile devices.

The mobile devices are actually composed of two different types: smartphones and “enhanced phones” (have media or application capabilities but no local OS). The smartphones represent 1.32 billion units, and internet capable enhance phones make up about 500 million units.

Gartner further predicts that in 2013 the majority of pageviews will continue to be on large format devices such as PC’s, but the majority of website accesses will be via mobile devices. A little further out, in 2015, the mobile will take over as the most common primary means of accessing the web.

A couple of the key implications cited by Gartner include:

• Companies need to be sure that their websites, portals, and web applications fully support mobile devices.
• In general, mobile users are prepared to make few ‘clicks’ than PC users before arriving to their desired content. Companies need to keep this consumer behavior in mind as they further develop internet presence.
• Organizations with consumer facing web sites are more at risk of reduced customer interaction if mobile is not supported than business-to-business applications. This means that governments and educational institutions need to keep this in mind, as do online retailers, banks, and financial service providers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The world may end in 2012, but Gartner has an idea what the top ten consumer mobile applications will be for that year. Gartner’s prediction for 2012 is based on a number of factors including revenue, loyalty, business, consumer value and estimated market penetration. It turns out that the Mayan calendar had no influence on their selection for the year.

The top ten apps include:

1. Money Transfer
2. Location-Based Services
3. Mobile Search
4. Mobile Browsing
5. Mobile Health Monitoring
6. Mobile Payment
7. Near Field Communication Services
8. Mobile Advertising
9. Mobile Instant Messaging
10. Mobile Music

Gartner went on to say in their statement that they predict most users will use no more than five mobile apps at one time.

Opinion

If you were like me you may have been a little surprised money transfer apps made the top of the list. Not far behind is mobile payment in the number six slot.  It seems Gartner believes that the market will finally begin to open up to the idea of using your mobile phone like a charge card. Considering you carry your mobile phone with you everywhere it makes perfect sense to make the phone a tool in commerce, but developers and solution providers will need to overcome any security fears consumers may have to make this a reality.

Three other applications listed that have close ties are mobile search, browsing and advertising. These are targets that both Google and Microsoft have their eye on. Both companies have entered into exclusive agreements with carriers and handset manufacturers to increase their market share in these three areas. You can expect the battle to get bloodier as we get closer to 2012.

Two applications I found surprising to be at the bottom of the list were instant messaging and music. At one time I believed that instant messaging might takeover SMS. It looks like SMS will remain firmly in place. In regards to mobile music, I would have thought that mobile music apps would have taking off on mobile phones. Continuing to put more music on mobile device is simply furthering convergence between media players and mobile phones.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------