Cloud 9

mHITs (Mobile Handset Initiated TransactionS) is an Australia micropayment service which allows users to send and receive money via SMS. The company offers a person-to-person payment system that uses a mobile phone as the transaction device rather than an automatic teller or EFTPOS terminal. Users send and receive money via SMS text message and can make payments instantly between any Australian mobile phone. Users can also make purchases from on-line merchants, pay parking fees and taxi fares. mHITs also offers a Point Of Sale (POS) terminal which allows the service to be used at retail points of sale, such as ordering a coffee or purchasing a magazine. As the SMS authorising payment can also include a message, users have discovered that the service can be utilised to pre-order products, such that they are ready for pickup upon arrival at the store. mHITs utilises a prepaid model (identical in principle to pre-paid phone credit) to ensure that the customer has funds ready to

With increasing number of smartphones that are fitted with NFC techology, m ore and more businesses are making use of NFC for their marketing, making their customers familiar to the technology. Another thing that is driving that awareness is the efforts of such big companies such as Google, Sprint, AT&T, Visa, MasterCard, Samsung, LG and other similarly large companies in the fields of NFC technology and mobile payments in general. What’s more, all of these companies are working doubly hard to make their own payment system easy to use and very convenient. These efforts would encourage people to use or at least try out their payment systems. In fact, a recent Juniper Research report reveals that by 2017, 1 in every 4 American consumers are going to use NFC to pay for their purchases. That is 25%, a far cry from the current 2%! Another study has shown that NFC mobile payments are on the rise. According to IDC Financial Insight’s Consumer Payments Survey, 1 in every 3 of thei

NFC retail payments market will exceed $180 billion globally by 2017. The leading regions of North America, Western Europe and Far East & China will contribute 90% of this market value as smartphones with NFC payment technology become standard. Technology & Ecosystem Developments The report found that 2011 was a watershed year for NFC payments. Major technology infrastructure   standards were finalised, many mobile network operators committed to the market and NFC payment pilots from both mobile operators and financial institutions transitioned to commercial service. Above all, NFC-enabled smartphone models were announced by almost all handset manufacturers and Google ignited the market by launching its wallet in the US. New Focus on Retailers The report warned, however, that the market acceleration of 2011 revealed some parts of the ecosystem unprepared for the future. In particular, retailers are less convinced of the benefits of NFC payments over existing card t

The typical insurance agent tends to rely on 20th century tools such as direct mail, cold calls and email marketing. While some agents have made a lukewarm attempt at using social media outlets such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, the truth is that these tools will generate very little business. Let’s take a look at some marketing statistics: Direct mail generates less than a 3 percent response rate. Even when the agent follows up with a call, the direct mail piece is remembered by less than 5 percent of respondents. Email marketing results in an open rate of less than 10 percent. Even where the email marketing consists of a regularly scheduled e-newsletter into which people have opted, the open rate is consistently less than 27 percent. Television and radio advertisements are expensive and do little to strengthen your brand identity in the minds of your customers. Cold calling will certainly result in sales success, but for every 10 people that actually hear your message,

Gartner identifies top 10 consumer mobile applications in 2012 No. 1: Money Transfer This service allows people to send money to others using Short Message Service (SMS). Its lower costs, faster speed and convenience compared with traditional transfer services have strong appeal to users in developing markets, and most services signed up several million users within their first year. However, challenges do exist in both regulatory and operational risks. Because of the fast growth of mobile money transfer, regulators in many markets are piling in to investigate the impact on consumer costs, security, fraud and money laundering. On the operational side, market conditions vary, as do the local resources of service providers, so providers need different market strategies when entering a new territory. No. 2: Location-Based Services Location-based services (LBS) form part of context-aware services, a service that Gartner expects will be one of the most disruptive in the next few years.

Now that the largest health plans have mobile sites and common capabilities for members to look up a physician's address, display a member card or a billing address, they are moving on to building apps that are more directly involved with patients' health. They want to provide the mobile applications that members turn to for help with staying healthy, diagnosing illnesses and communicating with their doctors. All of the large health plans say they aren't interested in replacing physicians with an app but rather helping members figure out when a doctor's care is necessary, then connecting the patient and doctor using mobile technology. Joseph Smith, MD, PhD, is chief medical officer for West Wireless Health, a San Diego-based medical research organization funded solely by the Gary and Mary West Foundation. "The revolution in mobile health is not about replacing physicians, but rather in extending their reach and better targeting their time and t

Mobile marketing is the act of connecting with your target audience over a mobile platform, namely, through their mobile phones. It is about staying relevant to your audience whenever and wherever they go. With smartphones controlling 49% of the mobile market, marketers are rushing to incorporate mobile into their overall marketing strategy. To give you a snapshot of the mobile market, we made a list of the top 13 mobile marketing stats every business should know when hunting down their share of the mobile audience. The global smartphone market experienced a 54% year-over-year growth rate in 2011 64% of 25-35 year olds own a smartphone 1 in 4 mobile subscribers over the age of 55 now own a smartphone 44% of mobile phone owners use their devices more than 10 times each day 53% of smartphone owners use search engines at least once a day 90% look up local information; 87% of these users subsequently call the business, visit the website o

Google launches Gmail SMS service in three African countries While much of the developed world has grown used to high-speed internet access, the majority of the African continent remains without reliable and affordable internet, placing modern communication staples like email firmly out of reach to most. However, Google has recently announced Gmail SMS, a new service available in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, which brings Gmail to all cellphones capable of sending SMS text messages - no data connection required. Google states that the only technical capability which cellphones must meet in order to use the service is the ability to send and receive SMS messages, allowing owners of even the most basic or venerable handsets to use email without the need for 3G, EDGE or any other form of data connection. This places the potential of email communication into millions more hands than before. The Gmail SMS service works as follows: following an initial setup process which presumably does

C. Third Architecture Option Third option represents the architecture with an even bigger role of Mobile Device manufacturers and designers of Operating Systems (OS). Apple will most probably present its NFC mobile payment architecture with the new iPhone in July 2011. The reason so much attention is given to Apple in the Option 3 architecture is that this exact architecture is what everyone expects Apple to introduce. Other possible players in this architecture are Nokia, Google with Android OS and Samsung and HTC as biggest supporting device manufacturers and RIM (Research in Motion) with Blackberry devices. Google and Apple have been most persistent to entire the mobile payment market lately, and the question is whether they are ready to go into the game with companies like PayPal, which have been in the payment field for more then ten years. Apple is known to be strong on customer service, which is very important in payments, while Google is stronger in technology-driven ri

B. Second Architecture Option In the Second option Credit Card companies  have a less important role. There is another player, Trusted Third Party service, which makes the architecture more secure and global, but also more complex. This  might lead to the increase of transaction fees. Focus in this particular architecture is exactly on the Independent Trusted Third Party that has the role of the neutral trusted service. There are two possible solutions regarding the party that performs this role: - Mobile Network Operator - Independent Trusted Service Manager (TSM) In this architecture Mobile Device manufacturer also embeds the NFC chip and the antenna into the device, while the Secure Element (SE) is stored into SIM/UICC card provided by MNO. NFC Payment Application (MIDlet) is to be provided by third party trusted service, including download and life cycle. There are companies trying to get into the market as the independent Trusted Third party,

A. First Architecture Option This architecture represents the next step from the current credit card payment architecture. From users point of view, the only difference will be that their Mobile Devices will play the role of the credit card. In the ideal case, Mobile Device manufacturers would include only NFC chip and the antenna to their Mobile Device; SE  will be stored preferably to SIM/UICC. Credit Card Companies role stays similar like in current credit card payment system, with added responsibility of authenticating Customers Mobile Device using the  applet on Secure Element. Basic design with all interacting parties is shown on Figure 1. MIDlet on customers Mobile Device simulates contactless smartcard mode, so that POS (Point of Sale) Terminal manufacturers might not need to make new terminals that will be equipped with NFC chip reader. POS Terminals would use the same types of connection to the Credit Card company network as they curre

The global mobile advertising market was valued at over $5.3 billion for 2011. The IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, IAB Europe, and HIS Screen Digest came together to size the mobile advertising market at a global and regional level. The data shows the Asia-Pacific region holds the largest amount of money spent on mobile advertising with just over $1.9 billion in 2011, or almost 36 percent of the overall market. The Asia-Pacific region seems to have a strong hold on the top of the mobile ad spending market, accounting for 4.5 percent more spending than North America's 31.4 percent. Alan Heureux, president and CEO of IAB Europe commented in a statement, "Mobile has a tremendous potential as an advertising medium. This is not just a local, or even European affair. As many mobile campaigns are played out in a global ecosystem, the market we have to size spans across borders." North America and Europe hold a combined 57.3 percent of the money spent within t

The number of smartphones shipments is expected to be almost one billion in 2015 This billion will be dominated by Apple, Google and Microsoft, who will enjoy 90% of  market share with their respective platforms In December 2011 the Android Market surpassed 400,000 app mark, doubling the number of available applications only in 8 months Smartphone sales (globally) are expected to increase by 25% from 472 million in 2011 to 630 million in 2012 57% of all new Android and IOS apps are downloaded in the US, followed by 12% China, 4% Taiwan, 3% UK, 3% Canada, 2% Australia and 2% Hong Kong Mobile apps will grow from a $6billion industry today to $55.7billion industry by 2015 53% of American cellphone (mobile) users now have a smartphone 38% of people who use social media on mobile devices cite general browsing as their main activity

Android still leads the pack in terms of pure penetration — as of this past June, it accounts for 51.8% of smartphones in use (up from 50.4% in Q1 2012) with Apple’s iOS right behind it at 34%. Don’t feel too bad for Apple though, as they still have the highest manufacturer share by far (34% in Q2), with Samsung at a distant second. That those two platforms still hold first and second place shouldn’t come as surprise, and their slight gains come at a cost. Nielsen has RIM still clinging to third place despite another quarterly drop, as it now accounts for 8.1% of smartphones in use. Meanwhile, the rest of the competition languishes below 5% as of Q2 2012. It’s that part of the market that seems the most interesting right now, as there’s still plenty of room in the market for a third strong mobile ecosystem to emerge while Apple and Google continue to slug it out. The question though is what that third platform will be, and there are no clear indicators to be found in Nielsen’s data.

In its latest annual survey of IT trends in the airline industry, the communications and technology firm SITA found that in carriers’ plans for future IT investment, “Passenger service is the top priority, and mobile services for passengers tops the list with 58 percent of airlines planning major programs in the next three years…In the area of sales and distribution, mobile has taken hold, with more than half of airlines already selling tickets via mobile devices and by 2015, 89 percent of the airlines plan to do so.” In the near future 90 percent of major airlines worldwide will offer mobile apps for flight search, check-in, boarding passes, ticket purchase, flight status notification, ancillary services, customer complaint handling and missing baggage management. By 2015, the survey found, airlines expect direct sales through smart phones to be their second most important source of ticketing transactions, exceeded only by sales through their websites. In that same timeframe,

In-app advertising spending is on pace to reach $7.1 billion by 2015, up from $2.4 billion in 2012, according to a new Juniper Research forecast. Juniper credits growing in-app ad spending to increasing use of rich media-based advertising formats in tandem with greater app usage. "The more engaged the user is with the advertising material, the more likely they are to click on it, and with brands experimenting with using apps like Shazam to increase the interactivity of their ads, engagement with mobile advertising will rise," the firm states. Juniper adds that brands are also leveraging rich media capabilities to roll out more full-featured mobile ads--e.g., integrating a map of nearby stores or a click-to-call button. The North American and Western European markets are expected to represent 60 percent of total advertising spending by 2017, Juniper states. In addition, spending on mobile messaging is on track to increase eightfold over the next five years.

Gartner, Inc. has identified what it believes will be the most important mobile applications in 2012. Focusing on high-end devices with an average selling price of more than $300, analysts have identified the top 10 cutting-edge technologies and trends for 2012. Winning mobile apps will have unique features that cater to the mobile environment rather than act as a mobile extension of their online peers. “Mobile applications will be a highly competitive marketplace that attracts the interest of many stakeholders,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. “Increasingly, mobile applications will define the user experience on high-end devices and device vendors that proactively integrate innovative apps and technologies at the platform layer will have the competitive edge.” Mobile apps themselves will not only generate good revenue ($15.9 billion in expected end-user spending in 2012) but will also drive hardware sales, advertising spending and technology innovat