There is some interesting news these days out of the recently concluded World Mobile Congress in Barcelona. Samsung and the other major manufacturers of smart phones have announced plans to release cheaper smart-phones that will be accessible to the masses of users around the world. This is hardly surprising since the general logic of the digital information revolution is that semiconductors, screens and other modular devices continue to become more powerful and cheaper over the long run.
Eric Schmidt of Google gave the keynote speech in Barcelona. As he noted in
a recent article for the Harvard Business Review, we are on the cusp of a big mobile revolution that requires three developments.
- Development and deployment of fast mobile networks for the future services.
- Development of mobile money, and
- Increasing the availability of inexpensive smart phones in the poorest parts of the world.