Barriers to success

Commercial mobile applications are not without their own set of problems, however, and these will need to be overcome before they are fully embraced by South African business and the public.

"The largest barrier in mobile is the lack of user-friendly mobile solutions. Users care about cost, convenience and service. If you get the above right, you will find traction in your market," explains Du Toit.

The problem, according to Du Toit, is that most commercial mobile solutions are developed using the most convenient and cheapest technology for the company , when they should actually be developed from the user perspective up.

Security is also a big factor ? not from the high rate of cellphone theft (this can be mitigated with passwords and one-time-generated pins), but from unsecured data being transmitted.

"Most mobile technologies allow encryption, but often the data is in the clear at the network providers before it is sent on to the company. As the mobile market grows these weaknesses will be exploited; it is therefore crucial that solutions provide end-to-end security."

And then there is something called device fragmentation. This, Du Toit argues, is the biggest barrier to successful mobile solutions.

"When you develop for Windows on a desktop computer, you only have to write your application once. If it is a web-based solution, you have to make minor changes to accommodate the different browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome etc). When you develop for mobile you have to take hundreds of different devices into consideration. Your solution will not work unless it is customised for multiple devices; this is an ongoing problem since new devices are released almost every day."

Because having a development team for every manufacturer is extremely expensive, Virtual Mobile Technologies has developed a mobile development platform called RAMP that enables you to create, deploy and manage mobile solutions.

"You only have to develop one solution," says DuToit, "which is then translated by the platform to the underlying device base.

What will it mean for SA?

So, how radically would the full-scale adoption of mobile solutions change the way we do business in South Africa?

"From a commercial perspective, adoption of the mobile solutions would at the very least create a significant cost savings for companies. One example would be of a company sending out paper-based statements on a monthly basis ? moving that cost over to a mobile electronic statement would reduce their cost by about 200 percent."

It would also reduce the cost of acquiring new business, allow companies to target customers on their own personal devices, and allow consumers to interact more effectively with service-providers.

"Access to information can hardly be understated," says Du Toit. "Mobile opens up information to people who never before had access to the digital era, effectively crossing the digital divide. Mobile is a great opportunity for education, access to information, access to financial services and access to government."

Now that, if anything, should be motive enough.