With all the innovation in technology and business as well as new consumer behaviors, it’s sometimes difficult to separate what will shape the future of payments from what is just hype. By closely examining “innovation clusters” — that intersection of new technology and consumer simplicity that signals that a payment innovation is ready for prime time, the picture can become a bit more clear.

We see hundreds of great ideas, but only a few have the right combination to get traction and scale right now. With that in mind, here are a few predictions for the payments industry in 2012.

Mobile payments continue to skyrocket

We got a taste of mobile payments growth in 2011, and this growth will continue. The mobile industry is shifting into “third gear,” with smartphone penetration reaching global scale and well on the way to becoming the dominant connected device for 2 billion+ people over the next few years. Add mobile innovations like the iPad, which has already become the fastest adopted electronic device in history, and mobile is really hitting its stride.  The future of computing is happening now, and quickly reaching a level of scale to enable global innovation.

Although scale is impressive, the true power of the connected mobile device lies in how dramatically it is changing consumer behavior and disrupting existing franchises. Use an app like Uber to get a town car, and you never do it the old way again. The new Nordstrom iPad App replaces a salesperson with a whole new in-store experience. Living Social can fill a restaurant in hours with a mobile offer, allowing local restaurants to skip the process of building a website. Payment helps accelerate these models through convenience and accessibility and, in turn, is forced to innovate itself to keep up.

Don’t think that mobile devices will be your future identity? Try spending an hour walking around without your phone, wallet, or keys. I barely made it to the end of the block before the panic set in. That was not the case just two years ago.

 A fuller integration of the online and offline commerce worlds

When we talk about the blend of online/offline in terms of commerce, we tend to focus on the ability to find local inventory or scanning a product in store. In truth there is much more happening here than that. In 2012 we will see a rise in virtual currencies and the ability to use them to pay for “real” goods. Imagine paying for groceries at Safeway with Facebook Credits or using extra frequent flyer miles for that cup of coffee at Starbucks. If you are 15 years old with no credit card or bank account, this future needs to be here yesterday, and retailers looking to attract the young digerati, who already switch seamlessly between their online and offline lives, will welcome virtual currencies with open arms.

Social commerce has seen some exciting developments recently that show more ways that the online and offline worlds are becoming more closely integrated. We just watched Louis C.K. disrupt the media industry by profitably producing and selling a comedy special directly to his audience through his website, clearing more than million in 12 days. Zynga just went public at a multi-billion dollar valuation, thanks to its ability to sell digital tractors and barns to its ever-expanding user base. It’s not hard to imagine more social commerce innovation, such as person-to-person payments of non-cash currencies (“Help me fly to visit my mom by lending me your miles”) or creating massive fundraising movements (“Take a photo of my charity road race number so you can donate directly to my cause”). The possibilities seem endless — and are incredibly powerful if you think about it.

As our online and offline worlds continue to merge, the war of commerce will land right on the doorstep of small merchants. In early December, Amazon offered to give consumers a store credit of up to if they used the Amazon Price Check app to scan in the price of a product in a physical store. And that’s only the beginning. Small merchants will need to adapt, while at the same time making sure the online world doesn’t drown them in fraud. Louis C.K. isn’t crazy to go direct to his fans — those who don’t know their customers and communicate with them regularly will take a beating from competing on margins in this connected economy.

Birth of alternate commerce devices

I’m a big believer that a key driver of payment innovation is going to be the enabling of alternate commerce devices. We’re seeing requests for payment capabilities on everything from gas pumps to Laundromats. As all devices become “smart and connected,” it provides more consumer choice and enables the digital wallet in the cloud to show its true value.  I know we all can’t wait for the day that we don’t have to clip coupons and remember loyalty card numbers, and our wallet intelligently figures out how you should pay for things. 2012 will see this come to life in many forms, and the “a-ha” moment around digital wallets will make sense to many. As payments move to the cloud, essentially anything with an “on” switch and an IP address can become a payment device. Think about Samsung’s Wi-Fi enabled refrigerator or cars from manufacturers like Cadillac and Audi. It’s a small jump to turn them from Internet enabled to Internet-payment enabled.  And, this experience is already making its way into our living rooms with t-commerce (commerce from your television).

I think 2012 is also going to be the year where t-commerce will happen. Yes, it’s been talked about a lot, but the pieces and players are beginning to fall into place more so than ever before. eBay’s recently updated mobile app for the iPad includes the ability to “Watch with eBay,” so I can watch my favorite sports team on TV and buy the latest jersey, all from my couch. (Note that PayPal, my company, is part of eBay.) By this time next year, you should be able to buy from your TV as easily as changing the channel. Scary to imagine, but you would do it, wouldn’t you? If a signed Jimi Hendrix guitar popped up for auction while I was watching his biography, I’m not sure if I could control myself.

These are exciting times for consumers, and it’s bringing a ferocious level of change to a payment industry that quite frankly could use it. 2012 will provide enough innovation clusters to give this industry a good shake. It’s exciting to have a front row seat!

Scott Dunlap serves as the VP of Emerging Opportunities at PayPal, exploring new technology and user experiences for payment, mobile commerce, virtual goods, virtual currencies, deals and couponing, multi-channel commerce, point of sale integration, analytics and risk management. 

Image courtesy of Flickr user vintagedept.

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The blockbuster deal between Motorola and Google  is going to be a game-changer, and it will force many of the smaller handset makers to rethink their reliance on Google’s Android operating system. Many mobile industry insiders have shared that sentiment with me privately, and now one of them is ready to go on the record.

“We see a number of major vendors very seriously considering Windows Mobile as a core platform and therefore we are following their lead and examining it as well to complement our work in Android to date,” said Frank Meehan, chief executive officer (CEO) of INQ, the Hutchison Whampoa company that came up with a Skype phone and a Facebook phone. Meehan is worried about the latest Android development. Hutchison owns and operates 3G networks across the world under the brand name, “3.” And when he says Windows Mobile, he does mean Windows Phone 7 operating system.

INQ started to work on an Android-based device in 2009 and since then has been selling Android-based smartphones. “From a group perspective at Hutchison Whampoa, we have worked hard at bringing Android to consumers across our operations,” he said. “However this year there has been a dramatic increase in the way companies are looking to maximize the potential revenues of IPR (intellectual property) holdings, and the trend for many companies is now to concentrate on litigation rather than innovation.”

Meehan, a long time veteran of the mobile business, believes that ecosystem players need to take a deep breath and learn from GSM where major companies involved with development of that standard got together and came up with a way to help grow the mobile ecosystem. Meehan has a point and I do believe that eventually the mobile OS players will have to adopt a similar approach or else we are going to be stuck in a patent related mess for a long time.

“The advantages with Windows Mobile is that the legal issues and resulting costs seem to be much less,” Meehan said. He thinks the quick growth of Android — almost 600,000 activations a day — has made it a big target. But if Windows Phone 7 grows as quickly, then who knows if that will be hit by similar legal troubles, Meehan argued.

Meehan took a swing at rival Motorola and added, “It is telling that the Motorola Board decided that they could get more value out of 15-20 year old patents rather than use their huge R&D to create new exciting technologies over the next 10 years which is what Motorola used to do very well.”

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Mobile hardware is progressing at a blistering pace. Displays continue to increase in size, color quality and resolution, while advancements such as glasses-free 3-D offer the promise of novel user experiences. Processors are adding cores and clock speed faster than ever before, and 4G radios have brought broadband data speeds to mobile devices. These unprecedented hardware innovations have set the stage for a brave new world of mobile computing in which nearly anything is possible on hand-held devices. However, they account for only part of the equation.

In order to deliver the type of user experiences enabled by these innovations software must keep pace – otherwise we will fall painfully short of capitalizing on the opportunities presented by these hardware achievements. This goes beyond the need for innovations in OSes and applications, to the underlying software that ties everything together. It’s the next great challenge faced by the mobile industry.

Software as the Connective Tissue of the Phone

When it comes to mobile software, the importance of operating systems and applications is well understood. The battle for smartphone OS market share evokes a feverish MLB pennant race, and the fact that we’re all hopelessly addicted to Angry Birds proves that mobile apps have thoroughly permeated the mainstream.

Less understood, however, is the importance of the underlying software layer; the connective tissue that ties hardware to software, such as optimizations between OS and chipset, performance advancements in web technology, and enhanced app performance. Without these efforts, gigahertz, cores and megabytes of RAM are nothing more than points on a spec sheet. In order to deliver the best possible mobile experiences, hardware and software cannot be viewed separately. They are attached at the hip, and integrating them to work in perfect unison is the key to driving mobile innovation forward.

Immediate benefits of intelligent integration include better graphical frame rates in games, faster web page downloads and smoother rendering and scrolling. These are just a sampling of the user experience improvements that will help mobile devices keep up with ever-increasing consumer expectations.

Innovating for the Future of the Mobile Web

All too often, the primary focus is on what the consumer wants today. It is our job to anticipate what the consumer will want tomorrow and innovate accordingly.

While today’s consumers are still largely enamored with the simple inclusion of mobile browsers, tomorrow’s expectations will include desktop-level browser performance, Web pages and apps running on par with native apps and smooth HD multimedia streaming like the desktop equivalent. This is possible via complex but informed optimizations to the HTTP networking layer, HTML5 browser core, and JavaScript engine. While powerful processors will strongly influence robust Web experiences, the mobile software layer is significantly impacting how we get the most out of mobile hardware and continue to innovate on behalf of the consumer experience.

While HTML5 will play an important role in the evolution of the mobile Web, it won’t come to fruition until mobile devices support the specification fully, from web and enterprise apps to entertainment and browsing. Forward-thinking developers making the transition to HTML5-based web apps stand to reap the benefits. The HTML5 family of standards runs faster, more efficiently and with greater capabilities when the hardware and software have been tightly integrated.

The biggest remaining hurdle is ensuring that the same array of device capabilities, such as camera access, is available to Web apps as their native counterparts. To this end, companies like Qualcomm are enabling a rich set of device APIs within the browser so that Web apps have that same detailed control and usage of the device’s hardware.

Collaboration Is Key

The mobile industry is built on partnerships within the diverse lines of business that make up the ecosystem and we must continue to work closely together to make these advancements a reality — from ensuring common device APIs are defined, implemented, and utilized to working hand in hand across the mobile ecosystem to deliver web experiences that go beyond what we ever experienced on a PC. All stand to benefit greatly by software’s ongoing impact on mobile, and efficient collaboration will expedite that process. Ultimately, intelligent and tight OS integration within the chip provides time to market advantages for OEMs who will see their devices running faster, smoother and more efficiently.

Enhancing mobile software is not a trickle down process. It starts with the seamless hardware integration and ends with developers bringing the experience to life. If we are serious about a future where mobile phones are responsible for tasks currently held by computers we need to embrace the role of software in overall mobile performance and continue strongly supporting the software developers that are driving innovation.

Rob Chandhok is president of Qualcomm Internet Services and helps drive software strategy for Qualcomm’s client and server platforms. He and other mobile industry thought leaders will be discussing these topics and more June 1-2 at Uplinq 2011 in San Diego.

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A long time ago, when World War II ended, two things happened. Two brand-new superpowers emerged, the United States of America and the U.S.S.R., and the world very soon organized itself into two camps. As this power shift happened, Great Britain lost its preeminence as a world superpower.

Hobbled by the heavy expenses of the war, Great Britain couldn’t muster up the economic heft needed to hang on to its superpower status. Not long after, the dominoes started to fall. It had no option but to give India, once its crown jewel, independence. The British Raj came to an end. And soon after, the British Empire came to an end.

That little snippet from history is less a political comment, but more as my way of trying to give some context to the mobile industry. All great empires come to an end, and perhaps today, we are seeing the beginning of the final days of Nokia, world’s largest mobile phone maker and the company that, among other things, championed the very idea of a smartphone.

After Apple and Google changed the rules of engagement of the mobile industry, Nokia has found itself becoming less and less relevant. For nearly four years, it has been in denial when it comes to the software-centric mobile platforms (and ecosystems). Nokia has failed to respond to its rivals. All it did was talk and talk and deny that Apple was a problem.

Low End Low Blow

Every single time, I took Nokia to task, I was flamed in the comments, with many arguing that it was still a very big brand in Asia and Africa and it had the volume. And, yes, Nokia was big in India. It was making so much money in India and other emerging markets that it failed to realize that it was beginning to lose ground in Europe. Moreover, the Americans had shifted mobile’s center of gravity to Silicon Valley.

Almost two years ago we wrote about the emergence of MediaTek and low-cost Android smartphones, which were eventually going to kill everything on the low end of the handset business. Nokia, my rants not withstanding, failed to realize that it was a frog that was being slow-boiled at the low end by the MediaTek-based phones and by Apple’s heat lamp on the top.

Just this week, Strategy Analysis came out with a report that both Nokia and Samsung were getting a lot of competition at the low end of the market from Indian handset makers with exotic names like Lava, MicroMax and Spice. These companies are going after very cost-conscious buyers in rural India, which incidentally is a massive market.

“National pride is a factor, but when people spend almost 4 percent of their annual income on a mobile phone, they are going to make purchase decisions based on what will get them the most for their money,” said Tom Elliott, Director of EMCS in a news report. How much do you want to bet that India won’t be making that much money for Nokia!

Indian and Chinese manufacturers know that they have a massive market, and they can use their domestic strength to springboard to other markets. Indian phone companies are looking to expand to Africa and other parts of Asia, so why shouldn’t Indian phone makers harbor such ambitions? It also goes for the Chinese brands — Huawei and ZTE are already making a killing. Nokia, which has ruled the emerging (phone) markets for so long isn’t going to rule them — its raj is over.

Ctrl+Alt+Del

Now let’s look at today’s deal: Microsoft and Nokia.

Earlier this week, I wrote a post about how companies have a tough time trying to reconcile with change. Make no mistake: Nokia is a great hardware company with awesome logistics capabilities. As a result, it makes perfect sense that it should focus on its core strengths, and it is doing so by teaming up with a partner who has the desire to spend billions to build an ecosystem. The problem is that it is picking the wrong partner.

There has been a lot of emotional outpouring on the Microsoft-Nokia partnership, so I won’t repeat much of it. Instead let me explain why picking Microsoft is the wrong strategy. Windows Phone 7 is a nice and interesting platform. Its difference has gotten it kudos. What it hasn’t been able to do is get a lot of developers. And despite all the public boasting, it doesn’t have that many users: only 2 million sold. Those quibbles aside, Windows Phone 7 has a much bigger problem.

Four years ago when Apple launched the iPhone, it essentially defined the metaphor for a very touch-centric, smartphone world. Later when it added apps, it only reinforced usage behavior. The subsequent launch of Android OS and Android-based phones were a reflection of the user experience that had been popularized by Apple.

Today, from an average phone buyer’s perspective, Apple’s and Android’s UI is essentially the standard that consumers expect from a smartphone. Do Microsoft and Nokia truly expect that people will learn yet another new behavior? I think the two companies are being overly optimistic in their belief that their UI is going to catch fire with consumers just because Nokia is putting Windows Phone 7 on its smartphones. It is akin to buying a sports car today, hoping to win the lottery on the weekend.

In a colorful note today titled “Ctrl+Alt+Del,” RBC Markets analyst Mark Sue asked the question: “This is a major reboot and it will take some time for Nokia to offset the decline of its Symbian devices with Win7 phones. Will this be a true partnership or will bickering stall the process before the first phones are shipped?” The bickering he is talking about is between happy friends today!

Mountbatten of mobile

So am I faulting Nokia for partnering with a third-party OS? No, I am not. In fact, if they were going to make the move away from their own proprietary operating systems, then they should have opted for not just Microsoft OS, but also for Google’s Android and whatever else is out there. Today Microsoft, Android in a few months, and whatever comes next — that would have been the right strategy. In other words, take a page out of Samsung’s playbook. It would have allowed them to have scale, have multiple market entry points and essentially leverage their core DNA: their ability to make good hardware and use their logistics to push it into the market.

Now imagine if the market gives Windows Phone 7 on Nokia a big thumbs down. What happens then? Curtains?

I can’t but feel that Stephen Elop, the Nokia CEO, is the Lord Mountbatten of mobile, essentially overseeing the slow and sure demise of this once proud company that ruled the mobile planet. In a few years, we will look back and see Nokia as yet another mobile brand, jostling for market share with the likes of Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, Motorola, the Chinese, the Indians and Apple. It will have the history, it will have the pomp and circumstance — it just won’t have the power.

The Raj is over!

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by jo-h

Technology Gadgets: Amazing for latest technology freaks

Every year number of new technology gadgets are coming in market. People love the latest gadgets and gizmos; they are ready to spend unlimited hours while standing in front of shops. Even in United Kingdom, people want to be the firs one to get a particular product especially if it is a popular and stylish gadget. Young generation is technological minded, and they are crazy for these gizmos because they not only perform a task without any trouble but also satisfies their entertainment needs. Following are top selling and most popular technology gizmos in UK market like laptop, mobile phones, computers, video games, and many more.

Laptop is good technology gadgets, as they have stopped the sales of computers. People love to buy them because they perform task rapidly and really easy to carry. You can carry a laptop anywhere without facing any trouble. Another popular example of technology widget is Apple iPhone. It was the most popular product at time of launch and consumers lined up in stores to buy it. Now, competition has become very tough and many companies have come forward with various widgets. Mobile industry is one of the most competitive industries in United Kingdom; everyday people find a new launch of handsets.

Mostly cool technology gadgets are produced to satisfy entertainment purpose instead of any task. Few years ago, consumers were concerned with the product whether it performs a task or not. But time has changed a lot now, users expect a widget which not only finish a task nicely but also looks good. These widgets have become the fashion accessories to show the social status. Consumers are ready to spend any amount to avail the latest cool gadgets and companies are not behind to satisfy the requirement of buyers.

Related Gadget Articles

One of the manufacturers which always its position in the mobile industry is Samsung. All the Samsung mobile phones are equipped with some great and unique features to meet the users’ demand. The high technology Samsung mobile phones are easy to handle and user friendly.

The latest Samsung mobile phones to hit the market are Samsung F480 Tocco, Samsung G800, Samsung i550, Samsung U900 Soul and Samsung i900 Omnia. The most latest offering from the house of Samsung is the Samsung INNOV8, a stylish and elegant state of the art 3G phone. This Samsung INNOV8 is a sleek and sophisticated phone that comes in a glossy black coloured casing, it is equipped with simplistic slide opening mechanism.

The Samsung INNOV8 is a 3G HSDPA technology phone and works on a Symbian version 9.3 operating system series 60. The XHTML and HTML service allows the users to access the Internet through the web browser.

The 8 megapixel camera has a built in flash for capturing night shots, the camera comes with easy to use camera and video feature. The highest quality portable imaging features of the phone allows the user to capture a perfectly clear still picture or moving video footage on their Smartphone.

One more latest Samsung mobile phones is the Samsung i8510, this is a solid designed phone with all the latest features and options to meet the demand of the users.

The Samsung i8510 is a sleek and stylish phone with a simplistic slide opening mechanism. The casing of the phone is glossy black in colour with slide opening system for opening the handset to access the numeric keypad. The phone sports a 2.8 inch TFT display capable of showing 16 million colours with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels.

The Samsung i8510 is the first Samsung S60-powered smartphone to feature quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and dual-band UMTS/HSDPA (900/2100MHz) support for high speed Internet connection. The built in Web browser of the phone allows the user to access Internet through xHTML and HTML service.

The messaging services is very easy to operate and include SMS (text messaging), Instant Messaging, MMS (multimedia messaging), email and predictive text. The phone is equipped with easy to access messaging services allowing the user to stay in contact with friends, family and business contacts. The phone has the option of 3G video call with any of the contacts with compatible video calling capabilities.

Music is one of the highlight of this phone, the users can enjoy their favourite music on the integrated music player. The music system supports all the popular music formats. It has a built-in FM radio with RDS radio support for listening to user favourite music, news and other popular radio station. The Samsung i8510 offers 16GB of built-in memory and 128 MB RAM, the memory capacity can be increased using a microSD card slot. Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support for stereo headsets makes wireless music possible in this phone.

The Samsung i8510 is an imaging powerhouse with highest quality portable imaging features. The camera allows the user to capture a perfectly clear still picture or moving video footage. The 8 megapixel autofocus camera of the phone offers image stabilisation and blink, smile and face detection for perfect photos. The phone has a full editing suite to trim video, dub audio, and even add subtitles. The ability to take panoramic photographs is the unique feature of the camera. The camera uses the handset’s built-in GPS receiver to geotag photos with location information.