Enterprise Mobility - A Myth?

There is lot of buzz around Mobility these days - iPhone, Skype, WiMax and Smart Phones.

But, Are we really ready for power applications on the mobile?. Not yet.

There are two key reasons that are inhibiting the surge of mobile apps:

1. The platform is inherently limited in features. Beyond, J2ME, if one has to develop powerful applications, they have to adapt the native platforms that are specific to the devices. This limits the developer community and the portability of apps.

2. The technology is maturing. Rich Internet Apps/Flash support are still awaited on popular platforms such as BlackBerry.

3. Expensive. If one has to write a 'connected' app on mobile, it has to go thru carriers and utilize the bandwidth. This is not so easy and the bandwidth is not so cheap to consume. So, the spread of connected applications is still limited.

4. Most of the mobility apps consumers are field workers or senior management teams. The senior management people are not 'power' users, in the sense, they dont use anything beyond email. The field workers, except, white collar, are still waiting to get access to those devices in work.

Having many such limitations, we dont know what we are missing today in the mobility world.

However, things are changing and maturing slowly....

With Google working on Android platform with Open Handset alliance, there may be a new 'killer' application waiting to explode. If Google can crack it, that could be the tipping point for Enterprise Mobility....

So, Enterprises....keep watching Android...