Developments in the M-commerce value chain

As the phenomenal growth of the internet and mobile devices has continued unabated, the inevitable convergence of these two streams of technologies has occurred, promising a plethora of mobile data services to the handset user. The use of mobile telecommunications devices for commercial transactions, coined mobile (m-)commerce, began in the late 1990s. One potential area of development in the m-commerce value chain is in location-based services (LBS). Using a range of network- and handset-based positioning techniques, operators will be able to offer entirely new services and improvements on current ones. Popular examples cited include emergency caller location, people or asset tracking, navigation, location-based information or geographically sensitive billing. The purpose of this article is to examine some of the background to the m-commerce value chain and one area of current development - the technologies, applications and strategic issues associated with the commercialisation of LBS. The article concludes with some predictions on the role of LBS in m-commerce.