Malablog - musings in the world of telecoms billing

Whatever you want to do, there’s probably an app for that.

Did you know that mobile phones now outnumber PCs worldwide by 4:1?

Couple that with reports that 25% of all phones sold by Vodafone in the run up to Christmas were Smartphones and it’s clear that the unrelenting explosion in the mobile market shows no signs of abating anytime soon.

At the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona this month there were, as usual, a multitude of launches and announcements neatly summarised in TechRadar.com’s review where it declared Legend and Desire handsets from HTC, Google’s Flash for Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7 to be the headline winners at the show. 

As more and more devices become available in the Smartphone category, and with mobile web access now increasingly commonplace, the opportunities for mobile content delivery are finally being realised. 

iPhoners can already access news content for free via Sky and the Daily Telegraph’s apps or from the Guardian for £2.39 and from April, the BBC will also be offering news and sports content for free through an iPhone app (followed by versions for Blackberry and Android) adding increased pressure to the news industry’s struggle to find a digital business model.

There are now more than 120,000 apps available from Android and Apple able to offer solutions to previously unthought-of of problems.  So if you want to access the in-flight status updates for a friend or loved one, you need FlightTrack.  Regularly forget the floor or area where you’ve parked your car?  Don’t worry; cAr Locator will help you find it.  Want to know the name of a piece of music you’re listening to?  Hold your Smartphone up to the music and Shazam will identify the song. 

In the business environment, there are applications like Cardreader that will import business card details directly into your contacts and iDialUDrive which will automatically call, one by one, all contacts in a customised list when you are on the road.

Basically, in the world of mobile, if you want do something, there’s an app for that.

For personal-use mobiles, keeping track of downloads that incur a charge is important to stay on top of monthly expenditure and prevent being too shocked when the bill arrives.

In the business environment this is imperative.  Micro-purchases can now be made regularly using mobiles with the cost appearing on the company mobile bill; in a world where the Smartphone is heading towards centre stage, the number of items that could be non-business or telecoms related need to be identified and allocated to the appropriate cost centre.

Within any organisation, there was always an element of the mobile spend that was variable whether it was roaming charges, data downloads or simply reaching the allocated minutes in a monthly package but the rapid growth of mobile web has escalated the scale of these variable costs.

Although the forecasts for Telecoms budgets by Gartner are looking slightly more optimistic (a predicted increase of 4.7% in 2010), managing telecoms costs should remain a priority for both private and public sector organisations.  With the potential to deliver average savings of 15% on current spending, watching those small mobile items could contribute positively to the growth plans for your company.  Now I wonder, is there an app for that?

The Smart Phone submits its Mensa application

For all the things your Smartphone can do, it can’t read your mind (well not yet anyway!) but it could soon read a lot more than you think.

I’m a bit of a gadget freak, and I try to stay in touch the latest technological developments by reading a number of blogs and tech reviews. My own expertise of course lies in Telecoms Cost Management so I know how important it is that I have a view of not just the actual costs incurred by customers but also future advancements that could impact upon the telecoms budget of an organisation.

This week I came across an eye-opening article posted by TelCon Associates on the Telecom Expense Management blog. 

What struck me most when I read this is that for all the planning we do to predict the spend patterns of telecoms expenditure; there are always new devices, network developments and applications that can impact on costs in ways that haven’t even been considered. 

As if the Smartphone wasn’t clever enough it seems that it’s all set to enter a new class of intellectual capability.  The article; RFID and NFC: Coming Soon to a Cell Phone Near You examines the claims that Apple are looking to build RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) into the next generation of iPhones.  Essentially, when the phone is passed over an item, the tag triggers content associated with that product.  This offers up endless opportunities for useful applications and could include for example:

• Trouble shooting guides embedded in printers/external hard drives/peripheral pc items for easy and instant access
• Tags placed in parking meters/vending machines/travel machines that enable one click purchase of tickets or small cost items with payments linked back to the mobile bill

With plenty of scope for business linked applications, your telecoms budget (in particular mobile spend) could increase beyond current forecasts making it even more imperative that you ensure you have an accurate and up to date view of your inventory and the expenditure associated with it. 

It’s a given that we may not be able to predict the future but perhaps we can do more to ensure that we are prepared for the changes it will undoubtedly bring.   Maybe they should develop a tag for that?