Changing Face of Mobility

Worldwide mobile voice and data revenue will exceed one trillion dollars a year by 2014, according to Gartner, Inc. Primary revenue drivers will develop from additional services such as as context, advertising, application and service sales.

"We see three major eras of mobility," said Nick Jones, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "The device era was characterized by iconic devices such as the Motorola RAZR and was dominated by device manufacturers. This was followed by the application era which arrived with the iPhone, popularizing application and media stores. Going forward, the service and social era will build on the application era, but it will be characterized by cloud services and streaming media. Applications will survive, but often as a component of a more complex end-to-end experience involving the cloud."

Gartner suggests that many new device types such as tablets and e-book readers will emerge through 2012 and some will find a role in corporations. However, none will achieve a market share comparable to smartphones or laptops, which will remain the dominant corporate mobile devices. Mobile knowledge workers will require both a PC and a smartphone through 2014.