Banks around the globe are striving to find the exact balance between the two sides of a scale. On one side, they have to keep the interests of the customers alive by providing utmost convenience. On the other, they have to keep operational efficiency high, in order to ensure cost-effectiveness in operations.
Mobile Application Stores(MAS) are the latest trend in the mobile communications industry. Mobile service providers and handset providers across the globe are busy jumping into the MAS bandwagon. Gartner predicts $6.2 Billion sales through MAS in 2010, and that is an appealing number for the service providers. Consumers are vigorously exploring application download options available through MAS -- let it be mobile shopping, social networking, mobile utilities, or productivity tools.
With the advent of new technologies like 3G, 4G, WiMax and LTE, the mobile phone is slowly evolving from a portable telephone to a small, handheld device that is the converging point of all your communication needs -- work, personal and entertainment included! The technology advancements, especially the evolution of 3G over the past eight years, has been luring operators with the greater scope of high-margin, value-added services that they offer.
Cloud Computing is an emerging hot business support technology for the future; and as analyst firm Gartner puts it, it is one among the top-10 strategic technologies for the year 2010. Advantages like low-cost business systems, easy installation, low productivity lead-time and quick roll-out of services talk in favor of this futuristic business model. It addresses the evolving needs of communication service providers like on-demand and web-enabled systems that are service-provider oriented, technology solutions to adopt new business models that are economical, and single-point responsibility for supporting business systems and effective risk management. These advantages attract the attention of communication service providers (CSPs) to cloud computing and keep it in their focus, while they think about strategic technology solutions. These high expectations ultimately increase the responsibility of cloud service providers to meet the needs of the CSPs, even to a minute level.
This world of business is driven by the ever-demanding customer, and customers in turn, are driven by their convenience. While they can get things done anytime, anywhere, they wish to do so with their payments too. As mobile phone technology evolves and improves, consumers from all walks of life are making the most of the trends. Mobile users are on an exceptional rise the world over, and Gartner expects 103.9 million mobile payment users by 2011.