IBM thinks it can improve the state of mobile communications, and it's investing millions of dollars toward that effort.
Big Blue announced on Tuesday that it will spend $100 million over the next five years on a major research project to advance mobile technology for both consumers and businesses. With an increasing dependence on cell phones and portable devices worldwide, IBM's goal is to make mobile communications more efficient and easier to use.
"Mobile devices are gradually becoming ubiquitous and helping us transcend many boundaries--geographical, economic, and social, among others," says Dr. Guruduth Banavar, global leader of the mobile communications focus for IBM Research and director of IBM Research-India. "With high penetration, simple user interface, and significant cost advantage for end users, mobile telephony holds the future of communication and exchange of information for the enterprise."
The company plans to focus its research on three key areas: mobile enterprise enablement; emerging market mobility; and enterprise to end-user mobile experience.
Mobile enterprise enablement
With more business users relying on their cell phones, companies need a way to manage and easily deploy information to those devices. IBM's new technology dubbed "BlueStar" is striving to automate the use of mobile phones and applications within a large enterprise. A recent pilot test of BlueStart helped an insurance company more easily send claims to the right agents on their cell phones by using GPS tracking and calendaring tools. The system then processed information about those claims, which was transmitted securely back to the agents.
Emerging market mobility
According to information that IBM obtained from Internet World Stats, 83 percent of the world still does not have regular Internet access through a computer. IBM Research has set up a pilot in southern Indian to help consumers and small business owners find and share Internet information via their cell phones. People in the program speak into their phones to grab content, so Web-enabled smartphones are not even needed.
Enterprise to end-user mobile experience
Here IBM wants to build a better relationship between the mobile user and the back end. By analyzing consumer and business habits, the mobile Web would get better at providing personalized content.
"Mobility and the associated analytics will change virtually every enterprise business process," said Paul Bloom, chief technologist, IBM Telecom Research. "It will change the relationship between enterprises and their customers, their employees and their partners, enabling them to do business in more intelligent, efficient ways."
IBM says this technology will allow people to monitor energy use at home and at work, pay more conveniently for online purchases, and keep in closer touch with personal and professional networks. Access to personal information via a mobile device could also help doctors, emergency workers, and health care providers more effectively treat their patients.
IBM Research employs 3,000 scientists across eight major labs throughout the world.
Mobile Web usage is on the rise as more fully featured browsers come to market on smartphones.
Smartphones, which are designed to handle more sophisticated applications, are growing in popularity. In fact, Apple's iPhone was named the most popular phone during the third quarter of 2008, surpassing sales of Motorola's Razr, according to the NPD Group.
A report from ABI Research on Thursday predicts that the number of smartphones with highly capable mobile browsers will grow from 130 million today to more than 530 million by 2013.
There are many reasons consumers are using the mobile Web now more than ever. For one, carriers are offering flat-rate mobile data plans, which makes subscribing to these services more affordable. New 3G networks are also making accessing the mobile Web much faster.
"The increase in awareness of the Web on mobile devices--due to the iPhone and new RIM models--has helped contribute to this growth, as has the continued move towards flat-rate data plans by many mobile operators," Michael Wolf, ABI research director, said in a statement.
As wireless subscribers get more sophisticated about their Web surfing, they are looking for more freedom. They don't want the carrier-controlled, on-deck mobile Web experience available on earlier mobile phones. Instead, these users are looking to replicate the Web experience they have on their PC on their phones.
The iPhone was the first to offer a browser that came even close to matching the PC experience on a phone. Google's Android is also providing a full browsing experience to users. And now RIM is also releasing new browsers in its latest BlackBerry devices to enhance Web browsing. The new touch screen Storm, set to launch next week on Verizon Wireless' network, and the Bold are already using the enhanced browser.
Other companies such as Firefox, Skyfire and Opera have also been improving mobile browsers to give wireless users a more robust surfing experience. This week Opera released the beta version of its Opera Mini 4.2 browser, which improves support for YouTube and other mobile video services.
More sophisticated browsers means that more Web sites are actually getting traffic from mobile users. In fact, between 3 percent and 10 percent of traffic to a PC-based Web site comes from mobile devices, according to Bango, a company that offers a tool for tracking traffic from mobile users. Bango found in a recent survey that half of the 20 most trafficked PC-based Web sites did not work well on leading mobile phones.
This could be why sites, such as Google, are being optimized for mobile users. Earlier this week, Google said iPhone users accessing Google.com would soon see search results formatted specifically for them to make it easier to access local results and click on links.
Apple's iPhone has revolutionized Web browsing on a mobile device, but some users of the breakthrough phone are still frustrated with their experience when surfing certain sites, like Yahoo.
Keynote Systems, which provides testing tools to help companies improve their mobile experience, found in a study released Thursday that satisfaction rates of iPhone users using certain sites were low and only a small percentage of users clicked through on advertising. The results suggest that the usability of many mobile Web sites still needs improvement. It also suggests that advertisers might have to adjust their practices on the mobile Web.
Keynote used the iPhone for its study primarily because the phone is designed for Web surfing. And on average iPhone users spend more time surfing the mobile Internet than users of other smartphones.
"The iPhone is a breakthrough mobile smartphone," Dan Richards, senior product manager at Keynote, said in a statement."But our Keynote WebEffective study shows that the user experience of surfing Web sites is not."
As part of the study, more than 75 participants were asked to find an entertainment news story, read it, and search for a story on another specific top and then send that story to a friend. Keynote found that even big Internet brands, which have invested a lot in mobile development did not score exceedingly well in terms of satisfaction. In fact rates were low for both Yahoo, which only scored 51 percent satisfaction, and Fox News, which scored 64 percent satisfaction for their mobile Web sites.
That said, Fox News users were more likely to find the mobile experience to be better than a computer experience. Meanwhile, Yahoo users were more likely to find the mobile experience to be much worse than a computer experience, according to Keynote.
About 60 percent of Yahoo users reported frustration, while only 33 percent of Fox News users were frustrated. Users said they were most frustrated by site errors, cluttered pages, slow Web site speed and excessive scrolling.
The study also found that only four percent of users clicked on advertisements while surfing. And only a quarter of respondents noticed the advertising, but did not click on it. Another major hurdle for mobile Web surfers had to with search. Many users found search on these Web sites to be difficult.
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