Back in December we reported that (per IDC), despite the economic downturn smartphone shipments are still expected to rise in 2009.
Recent reports show that not only are smartphones being used more, they’re doing more – and increasingly starting to replace personal computers for internet use. A May ComScore study showed that mobile users in the US are accessing the mobile web 35.5% of the time, compared to 27% for voice and 22.7% for SMS. Per Juniper Research, there are 634 million mobile web users today, and the predicted growth rate over the next two years is 60%; you do the math.
Case and point: Wikipedia Mobile launched earlier this month. The layout, controls and functionality are similar to the desktop version, but easily viewable on a mobile device. You can check it out at m.wikipedia.org.
What are the corporate implications of this trend? With on-the-move employees leaving their laptops at home more and more, mobilizing important training content and resources is increasingly important. Not only does mobile learning (mLearning) positively impact training completion rates, training and follow-up costs, performance, and productivity, it also addresses the new generation of road warriors.
To learn more about mLearning, on your smartphone – but of course, check out the definition of mLearning on Wikipedia Mobile: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLearning. To see examples of what’s possible, feel free to explore our BlackBerry® simulator.
