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Gartner Predicts Mobile App Future

  • Gartner, Wednesday, November 18, 2009 4:22 PM
Gartner has identified the top 10 consumer mobile applications, but not for this year or next. No, it's recommending mobile apps for 2012 based on their likely impact on consumers and industry players, considering revenue, loyalty, business model, consumer value and estimated market penetration. They include services related to money transfers; determining geographical location; mobile search; mobile browsing; mobile health monitoring; mobile payment; mobile instant messaging; mobile advertising; mobile music; and something called "near field communication," which allows "contactless" data transfer -- like, say, personal contact information -- between compatible devices by placing them close to each other.

"The ultimate competition between industry players is for control of the 'ecosystem' and user experience, and the owner of the ecosystem will benefit the most in terms of revenue and user loyalty," said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. "We predict that most users will use no more than five mobile applications at a time and most future opportunities will come from niche market 'killer applications'."

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