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By editorial@silicon.com, 22 March 2001 10:35

NEWS Many will question why m-commerce should be of such concern when ecommerce is just finding its feet. First and foremost it is the telecommunications companies interested in making m-commerce palatable for users. In the foreseeable future, speech telephony will yield hardly any profit, making mobile revenue the new pillar of network operators. Many companies have now dropped their scepticism towards m-commerce. They are keen to reach out to the market. Suppliers such as Smapco are using CeBIT to showcase their technology. Smapco provides software that can cope with SMS marketing and WAP options at the same time. Other vendors are specialising in the integration of the web and WAP portals allowing updated content to appear automatically on both platforms. Clearly reports about security flaws in the transfer or processing of critical data unsettle potential users just as much as suppliers. Security is one of the hottest topics in m-commerce and the number of developed processes and standards is still unclear. Digital signatures, encryption, secure gateways - as yet, there is no common denominator. M-commerce does have the humble SIM card in its favour. A smart SIM is the ideal storage place for digital signatures and the mobile phone itself is therefore a potential alternative to the smartcard reader on a PC keyboard. Banking and payments are key mobile applications and - as soon as authentication and secure data transfer are guaranteed - many others are conceivable. Software provider Jetform, for example, has applications for official government business, meter readings and transport documentation in the logistics industry. However, the prospects for m-commerce remain unclear and for this very reason, the subject will be close to the heart of many CeBIT attendees. Where to find:
Smapco: Hall 26, stand C40
Jetform: Hall 1, stand 6a 1
Brokat: Hall P32, stand A01
Materna: Hall 1, stand 7i 2 From silicon.de at CeBIT