Workshop Report
M-Business Applications
& Services
Organized
by:
Workshop Summary
MB-net
A Network of Excellence on mBusiness Applications
and Services
IST-2001-39164
Table of Contents
Workshop Key Figures.......................................................................... 4
Program and Schedule.......................................................................... 5
Detailed Programme............................................................................... 5
Summary of the workshop.................................................................... 7
Workshop Output................................................................................... 8
General
The Cyprus MB-Net Workshop took place on
The Workshop was part of the activities of the Europe-wide Network of Excellence "MB-net" on Mobile Business and Mobile Commerce. University of Cyprus & Emporion Plaza Ltd organized the workshop, which was considered by the participants as very constructive and successful. This, as well as the great interest in the topic, demonstrated the necessity and demand for further activities in this area.
MB-net’s goal is to develop a white paper
addressing a five-year research roadmap on mobile business and mobile commerce.
The workshop was part of a series of several national workshops that took and
are taking place around
Workshop Key Figures
Date
Time
Location Training School
Telecommunications Street
1396,
Organisers
&
Emporion Plaza Ltd
Contact Andry Marangos
Special Scientist
Tel: +357-22 89 26 69
Fax: +357-22 89 27 01
Program and Schedule
Core topic of the workshop was the
"M-Business Applications & Services". The workshop opened with
welcoming remarks by Agis Piperides, executive officer of Emporion Plaza Ltd,
where among others he highlighted the objectives of this workshop. Then
Assistance Professor George Giaglis (
An open discussion session followed the presentations where participants had the opportunity to express their views and discuss further the issues raised during the presentations.
Detailed Programme
|
10.00 |
Registration – Coffee |
|
10.30 |
Welcoming Remarks Agis Piperides Executive Officer Emporion Plaza Ltd |
|
|
MB-net programme objectives & current
status Dr George Giaglis Assistant Professor |
|
|
The mobile business and the road ahead -
the Operators perspective Dr Aristos Riris Head of |
|
|
Personalisation, Customisation and User
Location Based Services Christophoros Panagiotou Software Manager Winmob Technologies Ltd |
|
|
Strategic policy and research roadmaps in Mobile-Business: Draft White
paper
Dr Andreas Pitsillides Associate Professor |
|
|
Round Table
discussion on Road Map / Research challenges
|
Participants
More than 40 experts from the public, telecommunications, banking, media and research sector had registered for the workshop in order to shape the future of mBusiness.
The participants were:
|
First
Name |
Last
Name |
Organisation |
|
George |
Giaglis |
|
|
Aristos |
Riris |
|
|
Philippos |
Psiloinis |
|
|
Agis |
Piperides |
|
|
Charis |
Markou |
|
|
Stathis |
Panis |
|
|
Neophytos |
Morphis |
|
|
Constantinos |
Pattichis |
|
|
Skevos |
Evripidou |
|
|
Andreas |
Pitsillides |
|
|
George |
Samaras |
|
|
Andry |
Marangos |
|
|
Marinos |
Stylianou |
|
|
Christophoros |
Panagiotou |
Winmob Technologies |
|
Demetris |
Loukaides |
Bank of |
|
Andreas |
Stylianou |
Bank of |
|
Evangelos |
Hadjichristodoulou |
Bank of |
|
Stalo |
Neophytou |
Bank of |
|
Christakis |
Hadjilouca |
Bank of |
|
Christos |
Theodoulou |
Bank of |
|
Marilena |
Kounnapi |
Bank of |
|
Lida |
Hadjipanteli |
Cyprus Development Bank |
|
Evangelos |
Koutrouzas |
Popular Bank |
|
Maria |
Rousou |
Popular Bank |
|
Vassilis |
Koudounas |
Hellenic Bank |
|
Katerina |
Papanicolaou |
|
|
Sotos |
Voskarides |
Higher Technical Institute |
|
Maria |
Theodorou |
Higher Technical Institute |
|
Andreas |
Kyprianou |
Ministry of Finance |
|
George |
Hadjigeorgiou |
Ministry of Finance |
|
Andreas |
Hadjioannou |
Virtual IT Ltd |
|
Mattheos |
Mattheou |
JCC |
|
Takis |
Fekkos |
JCC |
|
Julia |
Palochi |
JCC |
|
Giorgos |
Magos |
Globalsoft |
|
Michalis |
Nearchou |
IBM |
|
Constantinos |
Phanouriou |
IBM |
|
Eftychia |
Frangeskou |
IBM |
|
Juha |
Munnukka |
|
|
Tasos |
Cleanthous |
|
|
Stavriana |
Kofteros |
Promitheas Ltd |
Summary of the workshop
Dr George Giaglis, began his presentation by explaining the overall policy and research objectives of MB-net. He stressed out that the aim is to identify research challenges in the area of mobile business emphasising the fact that mobile applications is not only a technological issue but also a business one.
Dr. Aristos Riris, began his presentation by giving us a roadmap of the enabling technologies that are about to see in the near future and continued with a view of how the GSM association approaches the issue of mobile business. Among others, he had pointed out that this year’s target for the GSM association is the Micro Payments, which is seen as the main enabler for m-commerce. He also presented three business models, as seen by the GSM association:
- Operator carries the transaction, where operator involves in setting up the communication pipeline.
- Operator enables the transaction, where operator secures the transactions and handles the payment provided it refers to micro-payment.
- Operator owns the transaction, where the operator takes over
the liability of the transaction.
He closed his presentation by outlining
what are the next steps of CYTA in this domain.
Christophoros Panagiotou, presented a prototype application that aims to customise the user profile thus allowing him to obtain information and perform transactions from its mobile device while providing better user experience, as for example minimal number of clicks. Furthermore he pointed out the importance of offering the user an interface that will allow him to perform his job in an efficient and quick way.
Dr Andreas Pitsillides, presented the draft white paper where, he demonstrated the vast area of m-commerce and categorised the challenges in 10 different categories. For each category a number of research challenges were identified and presented. He closed his presentation with a request for a dialogue and asked the participants to fill in the questionnaire prepared by Fraunhofer. The questionnaire aims to categorise the areas and research challenges in the Draft White paper, as well as identify new challenges to be included in the White paper.
Workshop Output
Following the presentation of Dr. Pitsillides on the draft white paper and the research challenges the participants were asked to participate in the discussion about these emerging application and services for the rest of the remaining time of the workshop.
Key topics and findings of the discussion were the following.
Ø
Useless content. Can it be controlled?
Content is in the centre of customer interest. It should be controlled in mobile business, if it is to be taken seriously and the customer pay for it. It was further pointed out that the content in the Internet is based on information delivery, whereas in the mobile environment content is based on services offered, and that these services are on demand basis. Something, that constitutes a completely different business model and approach to the customer.
Ø
Content description
Major issues regarding the description and the way customers are able to find the correct service in the minimum amount of time possible raised the issue that a simple open protocol of describing these services was necessary. If content description was made available through a simple and open standard then it could solve issues of using an application while roaming.
Ø Device profiling
In order to be able to serve services to a mobile device you must be able to know what that device could handle. This raised issues that content providers must have a way to get from the mobile device its profile characteristics.
Ø
Security of Micro payments.
Several issues were raised on the upcoming service of micro payments that the GSM association is scheduling to achieve in the short time to come. Dr. Aristos Riris pointed out that these payments are divided into two categories. The first category involves micro payments for relatively of small amount of money that could be made by the use of a mobile device and the second was for higher amounts, where stricter authentication was necessary, possibly beyond the SIM card. Further to that it was pointed out that if mobile operators were to be seen as financial operators as well, due to the fact of prepaid phone accounts, this would force them to comply with additional regulatory mandates.
Ø
M-business is it technology driven or customer driven?
The idea is to develop services that have value for the customer. The approach should be to the customer, not to technology. MB-net research road maps are focused in 10 different categories that aim to cover the whole spectrum of activities in order to achieve the success off mobile business. Therefore, the objective is to visualise the whole picture.
Ø Starting from what the consumer wants!
The question is,
is it right or is it wrong? Does the
consumer know what service he/she wants? It depends on the system and the
service. Although we should ask the
consumer what he wants, real life practices showed the opposite, that is, there
are application where there is a need to push them in the market, and then the
customer would use them. Furthermore,
quite important is the business model that will be developed between the
operator and the application provider (for content richness). An important lesson that has been learned
from i-mode in
Ø
Roles and Players.
An effort is made by the GSM association to define the various roles and players. MB-net also through the development of the roadmap touches upon this subject but at the end of the day the market will assign roles to the various players.
Ø
No killer application.
In the m-business environment from the work done so far it seems that there is no killer application. However, there are applications for specific needs. It was also pointed out that history showed that the best market segment of this type of applications are the teenagers, since they find it easier to adopt these kind of emerging applications and they aren’t also price sensitive.
Ø
Number of clicks for a service.
There was a debate whether the number of clicks may determine the success of an application. The conclusion was that, although it seems to be important, it is the simplicity of the services that counts rather the number of clicks. However, minimising the number of clicks it helps in using an application.
Ø
Asynchronous VS Synchronous applications
There was a small debate on what consumers are more comfortable with. It seems that the success of SMS shows as that the consumer is more comfortable with the asynchronous applications rather that the synchronicity of WAP. On the other end however there was a debate on the fact the SMS was adopted mainly by teenagers, who were more comfortable with the use of the mobile device keypad and the ability to hide emotions. WAP was not a success for many reasons, among which it was the lack of ease of use and content. Also it was time consuming and very expensive.
Ø
Standardization, creation of protocols
The fact the world of mobile business is still at its infancy creates a lot of questions on major corporation on what will succeed in order to invest time and money to create mobile applications and services, especially after these corporations saw their investments on WAP not making any revenues. These facts dictate the need for standardization, in order for corporations to invest again. Another issue raised here was the fact that no mBusiness models were available. These issues were debated with the fact that standards on the industry were created and adopted when customers adopts them and corporations are able to push them efficiently to the market with the correct business plan, like i-mode. As a conclusion was that standards are definitely needed, it is the extent to which these standards are developed and the way you develop your services around them that matters.