Yesterday in our senior staff meeting we were discussing some trends that are influencing the direction of the mobile industry. In that discussion we talked about some predictive statements from previous computer industry giants. The first quote was attributed to Thomas Watson Jr. in the 1950’s. Watson was then-Chairman of IBM, and the quote attributed to him was “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers”. While this appears to be a misquote according to IBM, he did make a reference at the 1953 shareholder meeting about receiving 18 computer orders nationwide, when IBM had expected to sell only 5. The second statement is a well known quote from Bill Gates where he stated “640kb ought to be enough for anybody”. The point behind both of these statements is that it is difficult even for industry visionaries to predict the real potential of emerging technology. It is not unusual to underestimate its impact.

When I got back to my office I saw the Weekly Edition of the “Mobilizer Newsletter” in my Inbox. This newsletter is produced by “Mobile Enterprise Weekly, and this week it has an article from 8 mobile industry experts discussing “The Next Big Thing in Enterprise Mobility”. While I do not personally know any of the people who are quoted in the article, and I am sure each of them is an expert in his/her perspective field, I do have a couple of my own observations after reading the article.

My first observation is that the 8 experts who provided input for the article all talked about different technologies they each thought would be “the next big thing”. Not one of them agreed with any of the others. That’s not really surprising when you consider the statements from Watson and Gates. When we are in the middle of the revolution, it is very hard to see where we are going. And we are definitely in the middle of a mobile revolution.

The second observation is that where mobility is really going is likely far more amazing than what we can imagine right now. Have you seen the iPhone application called “Ocarina” by Smule? It turns the iPhone into an electronic ocarina (a musical instrument dating back 12,000 years according to Wikipedia). By holding your iPhone horizontal, placing your fingers over 4 “holes” on the multi-touch screen, and blowing into the microphone with varying intensity, you can play a variety of songs. The application can even vary the tonal quality by tilting the iPhone at various angles. If you like music, you should check it out. I think you’ll be amazed. Who would have thought a year ago that the iPhone could become a musical instrument, and not just an mp3 player?

Ocarina sounds interesting for sharing with your friends and passing the time in an airport, but it isn’t going to help us in the business world. So what is the next big thing with mobile business applications? I’m going to disappoint you here. I don’t know. I could take a guess like other experts, but likely the best I could do is be partially right. But there is hope. I may not know what the next great business application is, but I do know how to find it, and that’s almost as good as knowing what it is.

Here’s the challenge: we need to do a better job of getting mobile applications into the hands of business people. And not just in big corporations, but in small and medium sized businesses too. After all, the smaller companies account for the majority of jobs in our nation, and therefore represent by far the largest pool of mobile business users. While mobile technology has proliferated for personal use, it’s really just getting going for business use outside of email, so the opportunity is enormous. When we get more mobile technology into the hands of businesses, they will figure out ways to use the technology that the experts never dreamed of. That’s the real key to the next big thing in business mobility.