The Marriage of Killer Apps

If you are like me, you doubt there will be a killer application in our near future. The term killer app has been overused and misused to illustrate an application that truly is significant and abundantly fulfilling for the wireless carrier. However, I define a killer application as one that has true disruptive force and influence over the way we currently do business. With this definition, the early cellular phones and the resultant evolution of wireless certainly qualified as one. Cellular was the application that took true telephone communication and broke the bond with the wall jack.

Likewise, I suggest that e-mail qualifies as a killer app as well. In a business environment in which most serious negotiations were conducted by postal or overnight mail or fax, e-mail completely cut the post office and similar agencies out of the picture. According to Unleashing the Killer App, having lost the small-package and expedited-mail delivery segments, the post office now relies entirely on first class and bulk mail to support its expensive physical infrastructure, including 200,000 vehicles; 800,000 sorters and deliverers; and 36,000 local post offices.

If you doubt the potential of another killer application on the horizon, I submit that the wireless industry should look in its own backyard for a potential way to bond these two potent killer applications and bring forth their love child, the "maiming application."

Consider, if you will, how e-mail has so penetrated the business environment. Most business is, can and will be conducted over Internet access. But wireless devices have the potential to carry that information in an advanced phone factor. What this does for the carrier is produce airtime. If you doubt that, clock the amount of time you spend with your next e-mail session.

Granted, vendors and carriers are experimenting with the ability to carry e-mail information over the wireless handset using short message service. However, the capabilities still are in their infant stages. Also, many of them simply provide a laundry list of who sent e-mails, the character volume and perhaps even the header. I don't know about you, but if I receive an e-mail message from my boss or a critical client, I want all of the information instantaneously. I also want to be able to respond immediately.

Because of that, you now will find me dragging my laptop wherever I go. I want the ability to read and respond to my e-mail messages on the day of receipt. The catch is I need a data jack, generally in my hotel room, to port myself to my Intertec e-mail post office.

So take the power of e-mail and marry it to mobility. If the wireless industry is able to fully embrace this huge killer application, carriers will benefit from users accessing their e-mail through their phones. Users will not have to lug their laptops, and their phones will be even more of an essential. Airtime revenues will skyrocket from the business community at first and then accelerate as this becomes more mainstream.

In terms of a killer application, it may not be a marriage made in heaven. However, it could be a marriage of true convenience.