IBM invests R800 million into mobile services

IBM announced its plans to invest R800 million over the next five years into a major research effort which aims to advance mobile services and capabilities.

IBM is investing to create technology that bring simple, easy-to-use services to the millions of people who have bypassed using the personal computer as their primary method of accessing the Internet, and instead use their mobile devices.

The three focus areas for IBM’s research investment are: mobile enterprise enablement, emerging market mobility and enterprise end-user mobile experiences.

Mobile Enterprise Enablement

A glimpse of the possibilities of mobility can be found in a recent pilot performed as part of IBM’s first-of-a-kind (FOAK) program, which used a technology named “BlueStar” to develop automated mobile devices and application management services for insurance claims processing.

The pilot enabled an insurance enterprise to reduce the amount of time required to process claims by leveraging mobile technology to locate and dispatch the most appropriate claims adjusters for each case.

Emerging Market Mobility

IBM Research has established a pilot program in southern India that allows ordinary citizens, including consumers, to post, retrieve or exchange timely information via voice on cellphones.

Content such as weather and ocean conditions, grain prices, advertisements, bus schedules, news, health information and available services appointments is created and updated by entrepreneurs and municipalities.

Enterprise to End-User Mobile Experience

This FOAK solution can be used by telecommunications companies and retailers alike to allow them to customise mobile portals and recommend the right products to the right customers at the most suitable time that will optimise the probability customers will complete the transaction.

The technology also enables product managers to analyse the habits and segments of existing and potential customer populations, and to then tailor effective online mobile marketing campaigns to those audiences.