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The Future of Handheld Devices: With handheld devices scaling new heights of
popularity everyday and becoming almost indispensable in our busy lives, it is
certainly worth asking, where are these handheld gizmos headed for? While some take
the line that we may have an all integrated device in the future that serves all our
purposes equally well, others beg to disagree. Prominent among these is Nokia VP
Tim Eckersley, who says that no single device would dominate the humungous
handheld market. Rather the honours would be evenly shared between three device
types, data-centric, voice-centric and the hybrid PDA type handheld devices. So hold
on tight and don't fall, the journey promises to be a rocking one.

Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce)

Very simply put M-commerce entails the e-commerce transactions done with a mobile
phone. So M-commerce is the use of mobile phones to conduct any type of business
transaction. It takes the help of the e-commerce background and WAP technology.
The use of wireless technology (WAP) to conduct sales of goods, provide services, make
payments and other financial transactions, the exchange of information etc. is the basis
of mobile commerce.
M-commerce is actually a rapidly growing sector of e-commerce. Nearly 70% of the
online transactions that occur in India happen from mobile phones. Globally it is a 700
billion dollar industry.
M-commerce is about exploiting new opportunities made available to us thanks to e-
commerce. So it involves the advent of new technologies, services, business models and
marketing strategies. It differentiates itself in many ways from e-commerce. This is
because mobile phones have very different characteristics than desktop computers. And
it opens so many windows of opportunities for businesses to exploit.

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