The deployment of mobile broadband networks, especially 4G LTE, means that the mobile network capability needs to have some of the same characteristics of the sixth broadband network. This means that a mobile device user can do many of the same things on a mobile computing device as he or she has historically been able to do from the home or office. However, wireless network services can be inconsistent and expensive.

Smartphones and tablets are portable, constantly connected broadband portable computing devices. They have important usability and capability benefits such as portability, location awareness and so on. This is forcing companies to rethink the evolution of their overall computing device strategy. They must develop a strategy for the post PC era.

Even with the wonderful capabilities offered by mobile, the retail price of mobile data is still about $10 per gigabyte. So, companies have to be very careful in negotiating with the carriers and have to develop policies for their mobile workforce in regard to how much data they're going to use. This especially applies to media services, like video.They can also start thinking about developing service level agreements (SLAs) for mobile.

By machine-to-machine communications (M2M), we mean devices not operated by humans, such as a meter or a vending machine or an RIFD tag. There will be upwards of 20 billion such connected devices by 2020. This provides opportunities for companies to significantly improve their business processes and to develop entirely new businesses based on those connected devices. 

Mobile payments is viewed as one of the most promising new categories that leverage the capabilities of mobile devices. There's an opportunity to dramatically transform the way in which people pay for goods and services. Mobile payments can also help retailers be far more efficient, introducing a faster, more nimble, portable and flexible payment system. The success of Square is an excellent example. 

The value chain for mobile payments is still complex. There are many conflicting entities that have not figured out the business model for this. So, there's some question as to exactly when and how this market will develop, particularly in developed economies. There are also some interesting examples of mobile payment success stories in emerging markets. 

There is a greater availability of private as well as public Wi-Fi. We're seeing increased deployment of outdoor Wi-Fi hotspots and the ability to leverage existing Wi-Fi routers with dual-access IDs and so on. So, Wi-Fi is going to play an important role in how users manage their connectivity and become sort of a part of the overall mobile communication fabric. In addition, a more seamless relationship between Wi-Fi and cellular networks is being incorporated into the evolution of the radio network. 

The availability of less expensive smartphones and tablets means a greater percentage of the population will be able to afford these devices. This is especially true in emerging economies. Sub-$100 tablets could become the main Internet access device for a pretty broad swath of the population in certain countries and could dramatically transform education and other industries.

Advertising on mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets is becoming a meaningful component of the total online or digital spending for companies. There are a lot of opportunities to figure out how to best leverage all of the capabilities of mobile devices:

• They're highly personalized.
  
• They're always with you.
• They're location aware.

So the ability to deliver and leverage big data and the prospect of being able to deliver more targeted, contextual ads, is an important part of, not only the evolution of the advertising business, but it provides all sorts of additional modernization opportunities to advertisers.

It's important to understand what the roadmap looks like for the evolution of mobile products and services. Each of the areas – whether it's location, payments, voice search or contextual computing – affects the experience that users are going to have with their mobile devices. It affects the way in which companies are going to manage this for their employees. It also creates extensive market opportunities in, not only mobile, but the area adjacent to mobile with people using mobile devices.

More than 30 percent of all web access is occurring from a mobile device in developed economies with high smartphone penetration. Certain sites, such as Pandora, Facebook and Twitter, are seeing more than 50 percent of their access/use coming from mobile. This means that companies must rethink how customers will access them on the Internet. The minimum ante is that their website work properly and efficiently from a mobile device. More importantly, there are opportunities for companies to leverage the unique capabilities of mobile when considering their Internet and digital presence.