Mobile technologies continue to evolve significantly in ways that will impact short-term mobile strategies and policies into 2011 and beyond. Obviously, investments in mobile applications and technologies will increase through 2011 as we emerge from the recession.

Significant numbers of customers and/or employees simply expect you to address their particular mobile demands. What mobile technologies are important for your corporate strategies?

Here's what we think is important in order of priority:

The Web

Approximately 85% of handsets shipped in 2011 will include some form of browser. Sixty percent of handsets shipped will be smartphones with the ability to render conventional HTML sites. The growth in smartphones with high-resolution screens will encourage greater numbers of people to access conventional websites on mobile devices, and will make it possible to deliver some applications using conventional Web tools without much adaptation. But adaptation is required and expected. Your website should respond in a more concise way and function such that it can be used easily on smaller screens with standard mobile navigation. This is not your father's website. As more people adapt to web navigation on mobile devices, they will frequent those sites that accommodate them. Your website should - no - must do just that.

Widgets

Widgets are not mobile applications. Get over it. Widgets use technologies such as JavaScript and HTML in either the mobile devices browser, or if you're really lucky, right on your customers' home screens, where they see it every day. Despite the lack of standards, widgets deliver simple, connected information, especially those involving real-time data updates (such as weather forecasts, message notifications, marketing and short bits of information). Because widgets are built with standard tools and technologies, they are easier to build than applications, and thus can be a good first step to assess the demand for an application.

Location, location, location

Approximately 75 percent of devices shipped in 2011 will include a GPS. The popularity of location-aware handsets is a huge boon to almost every B2C business as it enables a wide range of location-aware applications. It also serves as a foundation for more-sophisticated contextual applications. If your mobile strategy doesn't include location-aware functionality, just what have you accomplished in all those meetings?

Bluetooth

Bluetooth LE enables a whole range of new sensor-based business models in industries such as energy, healthcare, retail and finance, and will be used by handset and PC peripherals to enable new functions, such as automation of data collection and machine to machine interactions. It means a whole lot less keying in information and a whole lot more sharing of information.

Machine-a-Machine

Machine to machine (M2M) is growing at over 30 percent year over year. Low-cost M2M modules have created new networked devices and thus some pretty amazing business models. Key applications include smart grid, meter reading, security/surveillance, automotive systems, vending and point of sale, remote monitoring, and track and trace. It's big brother for robots...

Security

This is about secure applications running around on a myriad of mobile devices. And in many cases, it's about administering that security from the comfort of your corporate IT department. Mobile security includes thin-client architectures, applications as a service, platform-independent forms of network access control (NAC), portable profiles, virtualization, and hosted security services. As of yet, device-independent tools cannot provide the rigor of fully installed security. However, a blend of several of these tools can significantly reduce security risks. You better believe that security on mobile devices is very much in its infancy. Hackers are just starting to ply their trade in this area and those little smart phones are a treasure trove of information...

What you say? You don't have a strategy for mobile technologies? Please, call us before your board of directors find out...