“SMS Requests and Alerts are the Enabling Features”
How do you see the mobile web applications evolve in an enterprise context?
Today organisations are becoming increasingly mobile – employees across the functions are always on the move. Even when they are inside the campus, they process internal information such as leave applications – online. When they travel, internal transactions like, reimbursement of business expenses – take place using Internet and intranet. The important aspect is a number of such information exchanges are enabled directly by mobile phones.
Specifically, SMS requests and alerts have become the enabling features More and more critical or core business processes now bank on mobile alerts.
We enable organisations manage not only HR but their IT resources as well, using mobile content management solutions. The alerts on AMC contract renewal,insurance, etc are made more effective with mobile applications. However, we are yet to see the widening of mobile applications in corporates.
Is cost the prohibiting factor that stops many organisations from going mobile?
Intranet to mobile linkage, thankfully, is done almost without any additional cost,other than creating additional database support to enable computers to provide user specific,rule-based access to employees via mobile.
In mobile enablement, the projects can have two objectives: one is based on "push" and the other is on "pull". For "push" - using the mobile web to send alert or information, the companies need to invest in certain hardware and software such as mobile/SMS servers. However, for the "pull" - where the users access the corporate database using mobile - to happen, the investment requirement is very minimal. All the users need are WAP subscribed mobile service and they have to pay to the telco based on the bytes transacted.
What are the hot technologies that are used in mobile solutions?
There are several competing and complementing solutions such as Microsoft .NET, Java and LAMP. At Vishwak, we primarily have build our Mobile solutions using Microsoft .NET as it was easier to find talent on this technology. Our Mobile Content Delivery System (MCDS) is also developed on Microsoft .NET and SQL Server and we believe it is one of the first in Asia to use .NET in all spectrum of mobile delivery, currently it supports WAP, MMS, SMS and Web delivery.
In my opinion, Microsoft Sharepoint makes workflow management very effective. In a corporate environment, the decisions are taken by several people across the functions and hierarchical layers. Assume that I head one of the development teams at Vishwak and a couple of my developers want to apply for long leave, when the team is already in need of more resources to complete certain project. Now, I would have to consult with my colleagues in other development teams, HR or senior management to know the availability of resources for short term replacement. Only after that, I can decide on how many days leave can I grant for the team members. A simple leave application, thus, might trigger interactions at several levels. This collaborative process is neatly supported by Microsoft Sharepoint and .NET 3.0's Windows Workflow foundation.
We have implemented several Sharepoint based solutions at banks, media, resorts, etc. and feel the solution is appropriate and addresses all the communication areas at a low cost.
What are the exciting changes that these technologies are promising to the user?
Rich Media Internet seems to be the next big thing among the technologies that aim at enhancing the user experience. Say, an Internet user is filling an online application form. Once the user selects a country's name from the drop box, the names of all the States or Provinces that belong to that particular country is listed in the next text box for the user to select. Now, for the listing of all the States to happen, typically the browser contacts the server. On the other hand, the Rich Media Internet technologies such as Ajax keeps the database at the browser levelso that the information is displayed on the 'mouse over'. Since the server accessing frequency becomes less, the user experiences instant access.
The applications of Rich Media Internet are quite varied. You can have feeds of stock rates from multiple sites and displayed at a single source.
Who are the important players that represent the great Indian mobile bazaar?
Broadly, we can classify the mobile market players into three: mobile content producers, mobile technology providers and telcos. Mobile content producers create ring tones, music, cartoons, screen savers, games, puzzles, etc in all the necessary formats and sizes. There are number of animation, graphics companies that are presently into producing mobile content. The mobile technology providers are the hardware and software companies who enable the content management. The telcos
are the network providers
Today, News flash is one of the key areas where we focus. Media houses use our technology to flash the breaking national and international news, cricket scores, election results, etc. The second boom is in the downloads of media content such as ring tone, screen saver, cartoons, etc.
In terms of technology, the business models can be again classified into two: push based and pull based. The Push based models are based on alerts and the Pull based are based on 'on-demand' content.
Which are the areas in business or governance that would merit for the deployment of innovative mobile applications?
I am passionate about the applications of mobile devices in the government departments. PC as we see it today, will die. We are witnessing the evolution of mobile devices such as PDAs using which we do most of the computing. So, mobile has got its own use. Experimentally, the utilities and other government infrastructure agencies must make use of the boom in mobile usage.
For instance, the electricity reading is typically done once in two months. After the reading is done,the customer comes to know of the usage rate and then goes to the electricity office to pay the bill. There is a two months delay in cash generation.Instead of this, meter readings can be connected to a central database of the electricity board, and the customers can be informed of the readings through PDAs. This way, the manual reading, surveying work can be eliminated and the revenue generation - thus, the cash flow - can be increased.
What is your view on the supply of skills in mobile technology?
There is a great market for mobile technology skills. Unfortunately, the supply is very short for several reasons. Every day, I interview at least two students who come for job opportunities. I find no one having hands on experience in developing a .Net based mobile or WAP applications. Most students develop web applications but when it comes to developing and testing the mobile application, say, in a .Net platform, the students need some special infrastructure. They need the web server that can broadcast the content to mobile.