12/09/08 by Cellit Staff | Blog, Industry Blog | No Comments »
Recently, much has been written about President-Elect Obama’s love affair with his Blackberry and the security concerns it raises for the Secret Service. It’s been funny to watch the back and forth between a very determined and independent President-elect and the institutions (legal, security and administrative) that have built up a tradition of shielding the President from such personal communication.
President-Elect Obama is not alone. One need only fly any heavily traveled business route (my favorite is New York-Chicago) and watch as the plane touches down. Within minutes, almost every business person has popped out their smart phone and begun digesting the mountains of data that has piled up while the plane was in transit. The smart phone isn’t only for business people, as the stay-at-home moms, students, and young professionals purchase these handsets for their personal use.
As this article suggests, the mobile phone is going to compete with the television and PC to be the dominant technology people spend time with. While the TV and computer will undoubtedly get the most non-interrupted use, the fact that our phones are with us all the time will provide opportunity for quick interaction during brief periods of down time. President-elect Obama is the perfect example, using a few moments of solitude between appearances, in the car or on his campaign plane to stay in touch.
So if the mobile phone is going to be THE technology people spend the most time with, how is your business making plans to be where all the consumers are going to be?
12/01/08 by Cellit Staff | Blog, Industry Blog | No Comments »
This past week, India experienced one of the worst terrorist attacks in its history. (WSJ has a full recap of the terrorist attacks) As a member of the mobile industry, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by an aspect of the story: the prominence that mobile played as the story unfolded.
It has been widely reported that the terrorists themselves used Blackberry’s to both communicate with each other, as well as monitor world reaction to their attack while also obtaining clues as to the activities of the Indian Commando response teams. This small, portable and contained window to the world provided all the information and access that 5 years ago would have required a laptop, at the very least.
The flip side to the story are the incredible stories of survivors who kept in touch with family and authorities. From the Australian business woman who used her cell phone to communicate, in silence, with her daughter as the terrorists roamed the hallway outside of her room to the Chicago couple who spoke with a CNN reporter by text, and eventually orchestrated their rescue by the Indian Army by text.
As telephone lines, basic utilities and television signals were cut off or destroyed the one common infrastructure element that both sides relied on was their mobile phones. We’ve long known that mobile penetration was growing, but the interesting point in the story was the use of data services (text messaging and mobile internet).
Unfortunately, this incident is a turning point in our history, and in some ways not a positive one. In closing, it may be important to think, in the event of a crisis, (hopefully not a terrorist crisis), would your customers have the ability to get the information they need from your company on their phones?
