McGuire’s Law

I’m a big fan of industry research.  I’m an especially big fan of the “top-line” stories that are told publicly to generate sales of the expensive full reports.  You couldn’t build a credible business plan off of these headlines, but I think they’re still pretty supportive of how Mobility is getting built into every product and every business:

• 28% of employees are using mobile phones as primary work phone
• Study Finds Users Happier With Their Cell Phones
• Global Mobile Worker Population Will Increase By More Than 200 Million Users Between 2004-2009
• Altogether these segments represent a potential market of over 600 million wireless M2M connections
• Cell Phones Take 30 Percent Slice of 88 Million Navigation Market by 2010
• 8 Million TV Phone Sales In 2006 Escalate To a $30 Billion Megavendor-Dominated Market
• 2006 Enterprise Wireless Data Revenues Set to Top $22 Billion
• Wireless Connectivity Found in 65 Percent of Networked Home Devices

The Law of Mobility talks about value increasing with mobility. The impact of this law is being felt because the cost of adding mobility into products is falling, making it a no-brainer for mobility to be built into everything. Here are examples of technology advances enabling this to happen:

• Mobile WiMAX solutions
• Software upgradeable WiMAX chipsets
• Field-configurable WiMAX chips
• “ZigBee Your Way” transceiver
• “World’s thinnest two-color electronic paper”
• Shrinking flash drives
• 1.48mm think LCDs

Mobility is a wonderful thing. As mobility gets built into all products and services, businesses need to learn how to both capture the power of mobility and manage the dangers introduced through mobility. Here are some examples of how the power of mobility is being applied to create competitive advantage:

• Hospital staff stay connected
• Saving lives in-flight
• Capturing critical data at disaster scenes
• Efficiently selling seeds where the farms are

In order to be winners in the new mobile era, businesses will not only need to capture the power of mobility, but also manage the danger. Highlighted below are recent examples of the danger of mobility and how some firms are beginning to manage it:

• “Ringxeity”
• Toxic waste
• Speechlessness

The most convenient way that mobility is getting built into products is through the convergence of capabilities that previously existed as standalone products into the cellphone. That way, those products are now with you and available for your use whenever you need them wherever you go.

• Cellphone as iPhone?
• Cellphone as remote TV
• Cellphone as World Cup TV
• Cellphone as local TV
• Cellphone as newspaper
• Cellphone as comic book
• Cellphone as cook book and grocery list
• Cellphone as bird flu alert system
• Cellphone as Amber alert system
• Cellphone as wallet
• Cellphone as personal point of sale terminal
• Cellphone as movie premiere
• Cellphone as social network