2011 – Mobile payment era begins

A lot of rumours….and research by f.i. Forrester say that the era of mobile payments will have a lift off in 2011. With the launch of Near Field Communication (NFC) and other mobile payment tools customers will gradually switch to the mobile device to make their payments.

The how and why…easy the different technologies which are available will augment your mobile device to a paying device. Off course this will have a huge impact on commerce (on- and off-line).  A payment is becoming easy, fast and ecological! A short round-up on different available technologies:

• Near Field Communication: The Near Field Communication protocol makes your mobile device an active wallet. You just swipe your phone at a payment terminal and you’re done! No hassle with cards or other transactions
• Square, or other App supported payments: For App supported payments you need to download the App to the smartphone and use it to pay. Again easy and fast going, but more action is needed in this scenario. (f.i.) Starbucks has successfully launched his mobile payment service in January.
  Square is a bit different. You download the square-App and order the free Square device to plug into your mobile phone.  With the Square device you swipe your regular credit card to pay. The payment runs through your mobile phone/device, but still needs a traditional card.
• Visa, American Express, PayPal… and most major credit cards are working on different technologies to facilitate mobile payment…

2011 will be the launch path for mobile payment….Android and Blackberry have NFC services already incorporated in 2011-models (40 to 50 millions sales projections for 2011). Look at the presentation at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year.  Apple will probably have NFC on the iPhone 5 (to launch this year)…..which means consumers will be able to pay mobile (at least the early adaptors)! The huge challenge will be at the business side of society to have NFC terminals available to pay at! Salt Lake City equips his public transportation with the NFC technology, and the London Olympic Games (2012) will probably embrace NFC as well, … but we need a major shift in traditional retail to facilitate this new way of paying!
AND we need one standard NFC payment protocol, no 12 and so one different systems….one clear NFC technology. But as always a lot of competitors need to enter, and one will survive (cfr. Betamax/VHS – HD DVD/Blue Ray - …) Time will tell which one survives!

The mobile retail experience….as you recall is the future, and this is a step into this future.

Inspired by Thomas Husson (Forrester Research), Erika Morphy (E-commerce Times) and Christina Warren (Mashable)

iPhone 4: Mobile Device of the Year ….iPhone Nano and Mobele Me future?

…not completely unexpected…but still nice to know.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the jury picked Apple’s iPhone 4 as mobile device of the year. It was rewarded for its design, used materials, ‘high definintion’ (touch)screen and its user friendly AppStore. Although it was a close call, Apple won because of its fresh corporate strategy to re-invent the smartphone again, and made smartphone hip and trendy (again).

And Apple is already looking ahead….with strategic leaks in the Wall Street Journal it ‘announced” the launch of the iPhone Nano (a small budgetfriendly version of the iPhone) and a new, and maybe free, MobileMe service as a ‘locker’ for personal memorabilia such as photos, music and videos, eliminating the need for devices to carry a lot of memory. Again a giant step forward into the always synchronised consumer cloud computing segment…and taking up arms against the Google and Microsoft free ‘log on/log off’ cloud.

Mobile World Congress – Integration on softwarelevel! [updated]

Mobile =near Future, but mobile needs its upgrade off course.

Since devices can handle a lot of flat world traffic, networks are getting better so connection is almost everywhere available….it’s time for the next step:
The software – update….The first signal on this new era was given by Nokia an Mircosoft, last week, when they announced they would make an integrated smartphone of the Nokia hardware knowhow, integrated with the microsoft software, and therefore developing an new mobile ecosystem! People have already called it  the cooperation of the losers….because both companies didn’t do well in the mobile world, where Apple and Google (with the Android platform embraced by Samsung, HTC and Sony Ericsson) are setting to lines!

And if we look at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (14 – 17 February 2011) we see a huge accent on mobile software. The Apps stores a making money big time, 15 billion dollar as predicted for 2011 (according to a Gartner study)…..

Android taking over the world!

1 out of 4 smartphones is running the Android system (when one year ago onolu 1 out of 25 was). Samsung was alraedy running Android, and will introduce an updated version of the Galaxy Tab in 2011 (price unknown). But the next big implementation of the Android platform will be the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, the PlayStation Phone…runnin all major games, and is a SmartPhone! The market is open and will be a playing field for Google (Android), Apple (iOS) and Microsoft (Windows Phone)….but in the end consumer will win, and choose the best system for his personal use, interest and needs.

Mobile Internet Explorer 9 on its way

Microsoft will launch an new veriosn of Mobile Internet Explorer in 2011, and will run on Windows Phone 7. It will be equiped with Twitter, a copy/paste application, ….

If you ‘re at MWC…please inform us on what you think is the future of mobile!