It hardly needs saying that the mobile phone has become the ubiquitous communications device in today's wireless-powered economy. And if you ever thought that everyone who needed a mobile phone already had one, think again.
By Andrew Heavens
In the spring of 1973, Dr Martin Cooper walked across a street in the middle of Manhattan and made the world's first call on a portable cellular phone. Motorola's research director typed in the office number of Joel Engel, his counterpart and closest competitor at AT&T's Bell Labs, then uttered the immortal words: "Hey Joel, guess where I'm calling from."
It was a jibe, a boast, the world's first mobile gloat. Dr Cooper wanted his rival to know that Motorola had got there first, and that, from that moment on, things would never be the same again.
Just over 30 years on, the world is still feeling the impact of that seminal moment. In 1973, the handset that Dr Cooper held to his ear weighed more than 1 kilogram and left his arm aching after a few seconds of conversation (Motorola's first commercial model released a decade later weighed half as much but cost just short of $4,000).
Last week, Vodafone unveiled ten new handsets to run on its high-speed, third-generation (3G) wireless network across Europe and Japan. Among them was the Sharp 902 handset, a sculpted slip of a mobile phone, weighing in at 149g - about the weight of half a can of Coca-Cola - and that's even with the two-megapixel camera strapped on to the back.
Anyone who gets one of those for Christmas will be able to do a lot more than leave cheeky messages with their competitors. Business users will be able to download entire reports and presentations from head office at unprecedented speeds, talk to their colleagues face to face using the 3G network's video calling capability, even catch up on the latest market reports by watching live television on the 240 by 320 pixel colour screen.
The mobile phone has become a truly multi-purpose device, a 21st century Swiss Army knife packed with a collection of tools and toys that, back in the 1970s, would have filled a small office.
"Customers want communication, organisation, entertainment and information on the move and they will increasingly turn to one device to deliver these needs – their mobile phone," said Arun Sarin, Vodafone's chief executive, at last week's glitzy launch. He is hoping to get at least ten million of those customers signed up by March 2006.
It hardly needs saying that the mobile phone has become the ubiquitous communications device in today's wireless-powered economy. And if you ever thought that everyone who needed a mobile phone already had one, think again.
The latest figures from research group IDC showed that there is still a huge amount of room for growth. According to its survey of the global market released earlier this month, worldwide mobile phone shipments rose 23 per cent year over year and increased sequentially 7 per cent in the third quarter of 2004 to a record 164.1 million units.
Of course, phones are far from the only device on the shopping lists of the world's mobile workers.
A new line-up of handsets from companies like Canada's Research in Motion and California's PalmOne blur the edges between a phone and that mainstay of the 1990s tech boom, the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). The most advanced models allow you to connect and interact with printers and other devices around you in a typical office using the Bluetooth wireless standard.
Second only to the handset in the popularity stakes is the ultra-light laptop fitted with a wireless receiver card. Depending on the card, mobile workers can go out and about with their laptops picking up signals from wireless local area network (WLANs), high-speed Wi-Fi powered "hotspots" in hotels and airports, and, in some areas, entire 3G networks stretching out across city centres and major thoroughfares.
If that mix of wireless standards is not confusing enough, BT is hoping to take everything one step further early next year with the launch of its much-touted Bluephone service. The Bluephones will work through the regular cellular network when the user is on the move, but then snap to a higher-speed Wi-Fi or Bluetooth access point when one is within reach.
The spread of these mobile devices has had an inevitable effect on the way businesses operate. Wireless technology has allowed employees to cut through the tangle of cables that tie them to their desks and work anywhere they want – at home or in any other part of their offices reachable by a wireless signal.
According to champions of the technology, that increased mobility leads inevitably to increased productivity. A report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, called Cutting the Cord, pointed to a list of ways that companies were changing the way they operated, from team-building exercises to office lay out.
"The first deployments of wireless solutions are now bearing fruit," the study stated. "In our survey, 84 per cent of the companies using wireless solutions say they are beneficial for flexible and remote working, while similar proportions believe they have a real impact on workforce productivity and team collaboration."
The impact went beyond companies' internal operations, it added. Groups had been able to use wireless technology to develop new services and product lines for their customers.
Delivery companies like FedEx have been able to offer customers minute-by-minute information on the location of their parcels, tracking deliveries using wireless Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Computer games developers like Jamdat and Gameloft have sprung up to provide tailored titles for the new generation of 2.5G and 3G-powered mobile phones.
One other business that has benefited from the mobile explosion was ArrayComm, a California-based supplier of wireless broadband products and its own line of "smart antennas".
ArrayComm is a company that could be said to have something of an unfair advantage when it comes to doing business in today's wireless-powered economy. Its executive chairman and co-founder is none other than Dr Martin Cooper, the man who walked across a New York street 31 years ago to make a mobile call.
