Electronic commerce continues to see phenomenal growth, but so far most e-c
ommerce development involves wired infrastructures. The authors believe eme
rging wireless and mobile networks will provide new avenues for growth, cre
ating new opportunities in mobile commerce.
According to the Gartner Group, a market research firm, by 2004 at least 40
percent of consumer-to-business e-commerce will come from smart phones usi
ng the wireless application protocol (WAP). Based on a study by the Wireles
s Data and Computing Service, a division of Strategy Analytics, the annual
mobile commerce market may rise to $200 billion by 2004.
The authors provide a mobile commerce framework to illustrate potential app
lications such as mobile inventory management, product location and search,
proactive service management, and mobile entertainment. They also describe
the wireless user and networking infrastructure, emerging W3C standards, a
nd the open and global WAP Specification.