Did you see Virginia Tech freshman quarterback Michael Vick play last week in the Nokia Sugar Bowl? Wow! I don’t follow college ball so I had never heard of this freshman standout. One ABC announcer dubbed him the Holy Grail of new football players.
He’s fast, scrambles as good as Elway and pulls off plays out of mis-queues like they were meant to happen that way. He also has a 42-inch vertical leap. And he’s 19! I felt like I was watching a star on the rise. Vick passed for 225 yards and ran for nearly 100-something you expect from a running back.
Despite oozing all that talent, he still didn’t walk away with a national title. Vick made some mistakes and was vulnerable to things beyond his control (like Florida State’s defensive line).
And therein lies a lesson for the wireless industry to learn. As the industry approaches the new Holy Grail of wireless data, carriers, vendors and other wireless data promoters will need to address security and privacy issues so end users feel as comfortable using wireless devices for data transactions as they do using wireless phones for their voice conversations.
Much is at stake. There is money, money, money to be made in wireless e-commerce. Research firm Strategy Analytics predicts the mobile e-commerce industry will count 14 billion transactions using wireless devices in 2005, with a total market of $200 billion.
At last, the industry can almost taste the data possibilities out there. People are ripe to adopt new technology. A billboard to promote online banking says it best: “You didn’t want a cell phone either.”
Yes, the world is going online. We want it and we want it at our fingertips now. One Internet company is advertising how it can customize information (ad coupons, etc.) to fit your needs. While it makes sense for a person whose children are entering college not to get diapers coupons, the idea of having a personal profile on record with an ISP is still too close to Big Brother for many people.
People could easily perceive wireless data transactions as less secure and more invasive than their wired counterparts, even though buying via a wireless device may be safer and less of a threat to invading one’s privacy than conducting business in a wired environment.
The industry is going to have to counter those perceptions with a lot of education about the security of wireless data transactions, as well as take measures to ensure that concerns about safety and privacy are mere footnotes when considering whether to use a wireless device to conduct business online.
Today’s 70 million wireless users attest to the fact that people feel comfortable using their wireless phones. They will need to feel equally confident in using wireless devices for data apps.
