Imagine a variant of E-Commerce with no strings attached - Literally! That is exactly what M-Commerce (or Mobile-Commerce) is all about. E-Commerce is now a few alphabets lower. M-Commerce is the thing of the future (at least that is what the hype is all about).
The Internet, with its unique ability to connect everyone, everywhere, as long as there is a telephone line, it has done wonders for people wanting to communicate and transact electronically. A natural extension of that would be from the "wired" to the "wireless". Wireless is nothing new to us, we expect technology to go wireless. Lets look at some examples of the past: Remote Control, Telephone, Garage Opener, Beeper, CD-ROM Drives, Calculators (Infrared ports), etc. With the advent of the mobile phone, PDAs and hand-held computers with the ability of wireless data ports, communicating in the ether space is almost second nature to us now. Likewise - the ability to transact electronically with the aid of the Internet or some other network, is bound to happen (and is happening).
What does it mean when we refer to a terminology as M-Commerce? What is it really? Simply put, M-Commerce is ability to have a handheld mobile device (such as a PDA, Cellular phone, handheld computer, etc.) and be able to "interact" with either the Internet (or other networks) and be able to conduct a "financial" transaction. A very simple example would be using your mobile phone (Wireless Access Protocol enabled or WAP enabled) and dialing into the website of say www.LastMinute.com (which is a travel related website) and being able to look up flight schedules, reserving a ticket and paying for it - all online, using your phone. That is M-Commerce (in a nutshell).
So what's the hype about? Very simply put, the enormous market potential and the very basic fact, people are moving, walking, running at all times, and being near to a telephone line or a data-port and being plugged in all the time is simply not possible. Thus, with the advent of small communicating devices (whose sales numbers are climbing and climbing), and all of them (devices) are being Internet ready is some form or another, the 'e-commerce' membership just increased - drastically. Think about it, if your cellular phone allows you to interact with the web (seamlessly) and do almost all the type of e-commerce related activities, without having to invest in a computer - a significant advantage in cost-savings and access.
As long as the technology is wireless, it is a candidate for M-Commerce. Europe is leading the way in M-Commerce related activities, Asia being somewhere in the middle (Fast-East) and USA following suit. The essential ingredient for M-Commerce is the Wireless Access Protocol (or WAP). WAP Gateways (to serve the websites) and WAP enabled phones to view such websites, are both slowly emerging. Market estimates show that WAP phones will have a significant market penetration by 2001 which is the likely year for WAP to really take off.
Wireless Local Loop (or WLL) Operators who are able to offer wireless Internet access are also riding high on M-Commerce bandwagon. PDA devices which are able to interact with such WLL systems can access websites that are "M-enabled" and be able to perform financial transactions.
In Pakistan, M-Commerce is yet to take off, and the two reasons that attribute to the delay are (a) unavailability of WAP enabled phones and WAP gateways, and (b) The PDA market and Wireless Local Loop market is yet to develop.
It is hard for mobile phone companies to justify (financially) nationwide WAP gateways when the market penetration of WAP enabled phones is near zero. In an absence of e-commerce transactions in Pakistan (Pakistani Merchants on the Internet dealing in Pak. Rupee) the situation is aggravated further. For WLL, the scenario is very different as WLL have not been deployed in metropolitan areas at all.
However, this does not stop local ISPs from deploying websites that are WAP enabled and/or installing personalized gateways for WAP related services. After all, WAP is a pre-requisite for M-Commerce to be capitalized upon - analogous to the website being present before e-commerce applications can be rolled out. It would be worthwhile mentioning - "wireless" users will easily exceed the number of fixed line users in the coming two years time and ignoring this market would seriously undermine expansion and keeping up-to-date with technological advancements happening worldwide.
M-Commerce though as rosy at it may be, has a few problems (or hurdles) associated with it. Predominantly all transactions performed are essentially non-catalog based shopping, i.e. one cannot 'browse' a catalog online - be able to see actual high-resolution images and colors, etc. With the catalog shopping topping the list of retail consumers, M-Commerce faces a daunting task by relying on shoppers to "Buy" using textual descriptions alone. Second hurdle is payment and security. Currently a consensus does not exist on the security methodologies that must be incorporated in all M-enabled websites, thus consumer confidence in utilizing your phone or PDA to make payments is not well established. Mobile phones (WAP enabled) are finding new usages, the billing system of the parent mobile companies are now allowing WAP enabled transactions and billing to be applied towards a subscriber's bill. One can use a WAP phone to log into a travel website or dial into a soda machine and charge the "bill" to their "phone-bill". Such billing is not wishful thinking but already being used in Europe - where M-Commerce is very much practiced normally in day-to-day activities. Across-the border integration of billing systems may pose a serious problem of interfacing coherently different billing structure and tariffs, but the challenge is being faced and attended to. USA and Asia have 'just' emerged from the e-commerce cocoon and are starting regional and metropolitan deployments of M-Commerce applications and systems. Global key players have already started cashing in on this. At the forefront are large B2C websites like Yahoo! and Amazon.com who have already translated websites to be viewed by PDA and WAP phones. In Europe WAP applications are much more advanced, linking multitude of services together like metro, travel, online banking, directory services, stock trading, email and others enabling consumers to truly benefit from the convenience of M-Commerce.
M-Commerce is not a passing fad -industry pundits agree on this much. As previously mentioned the potential in this "wireless" market segment is huge and companies that service this market are scrambling to fulfill the void. It is the evolutionary process of our time that the personal communication which has been wireless enters into a marriage (of sorts) with E-Commerce, whereby convenience is looked at by truly the words: buy/sell - anytime and anywhere!