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The magic lamp?
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Retail, banking or even tutoring, companies are creating applications that enable mobile users to carry out varied tasks with their handset. SUDHIR SYALreports
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When Alexander Graham Bell uttered the famous words, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” even he would not have imagined the number of roles his creation would take over the next century. Today, the mobile phone can act as a telev
ision, a bank, a retail store, a travel agent and perhaps even as a tutor. Founder of Samachar.com, renowned Indian technocrat and CEO of Netcore Solutions Rajesh Jain probably describes it best when he says, “The mobile phone is like a ‘Magic Lamp’ with new ‘genies’ coming together every day.”
The genies here are in most cases founders of mobile centric start-up companies. These companies create applications which work primarily using sms and GPRS (General Pack Radio Service) and enable a user to use his mobile for a variety of day-to-day tasks. With India now set to overtake the U.S. to become the world’s second largest user of mobile phones (250 million users), mobile start-ups are finding out that this is perhaps the best time to launch their services in the Indian market.
So what are the applications on the phones, and how many of them can actually be used to make life easier. We find out...
Innovations
The most striking new innovation has been the launch of mobile banking; pioneers in this field are a Delhi based start-up company, M-Chek. Sanjay Swamy, founder of M-Chek, says: “We provide a platform for a user to link his mobile phone to his bank account or credit card, once a link has been established, a mobile user uses sms or a simple application to enter a security code and authorise transactions.” Thus the application converts the mobile phone into a debit or credit card.
Realising the potential of the mobile phone in effecting banking transactions, large banks such as ICICI and ABN AMRO have also launched mobile applications which allow users to carry out banking related tasks.
Mobile banking also extends itself into mobile retail or mobile commerce. Paymate is a leader in this space; here a SMS is sent to the mobile user at the point of purchase, once the user responds with a confirmatory SMS and his authorisation code, the transaction is complete. The service essentially enables high security cashless transactions while still hiding the user’s debit or credit card details from the retailer. Paymate has tied up with over 2,500 online and offline retail partners.
Booking travel tickets on the mobile phone is another obvious extension of M-commerce which travel sites such as Make My Trip, Yatra and IRCTC (Indian Railways) have capitalised upon. The mobile offerings from these sites work in much the same way as they would online; the user uses his mobile phone to select his travel preferences, provides his credit card details and a PNR number is instantaneously smsed to him confirming his booking.
Great schoolmate
Perhaps the most unique functionality of the mobile phone is mobile tutoring. Wizdom.in, a start-up based in Chennai, offers a service where a user can study for the GRE using an application which can be downloaded into a mobile handset. As Anand Kanan, co-founder of Wizdom.in tells us, “The product is priced at approximately Rs. 1,000 for a complete course and has an adaptive learning feature which reviews the users performance and provides him with instructive customised feedback every time he uses the application.”
Another application in the education space is a solution titled ‘School Mate’ created by Brite Solutions based in Hyderabad. The application provides a platform for teachers to send parents SMS updates of their child’s academic performance, home-work and attendance. The service also comes in handy as a mass communication tool used to inform parents about PTA meetings and holidays at school.
With the mobile phone becoming an all encompassing instrument, it’s only natural it gains a large portion of the user’s attention. This has sparked off an industry titled mobile advertising wherein mobile ad companies serve ads on WAP sites and on SMS. My Today from Netcore Solutions is one such daily service which provides three free SMS alerts from categories such as news and cricket to subscribers with relevant SMS ads. This service has been a success so far with approximately three million mobile subscribers.
Though the average Indian mobile user still uses the mobile phone primarily to speak, send SMS or at best as an alarm clock, one thing is for sure. With the technology world creating more and more user friendly applications which promise to make a mobile user’s life easier, a shift towards a mobile phone becoming an ‘ubiquitous all purpose companion’ is already beginning. And why not, it’s always by your side, chic, ultra-functional, and extremely convenient. More important, as Johnny Lever rightfully said in his inimitable style in a recent movie, if you think it’s getting too intrusive, you always have the option of putting it on ‘silent’ mode.
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