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Q4-6 Why Are Mobile Systems Increasingly Important?

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Elements of a Mobile Information
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As shown in Figure 4-20, the major elements in a mobile system are users in motion, mobile
devices, wireless connectivity, and a cloud-based resource. A mobile device is a small, lightweight,
power-conserving, computing device that is capable of wireless connectivity. Almost all mobile
devices have a display and some means for data entry. Mobile devices include smartphones,
tablets, smartwatches, and small, light laptops. Desktop computers, Xboxes, and large, heavy,
power- hungry laptops are not mobile devices.
You will learn about wireless connectivity and the cloud in Chapter 6. For now, just assume
that the cloud is a group of servers on the other end of a connection with a mobile device. When
downloading a book for a Kindle, for example, the cloud is one or more servers on the other end
that store that book and download a copy of it to your device.
The major reason for the importance of mobile systems is the size of their market. According
to Cisco, at the end of 2014 there were 7.4 billion mobile devices generating 2.5 exabytes of traffic
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per month. By 2019, this will jump to 11.5 billion mobile devices generating more than 24.3
exabytes per month. That’s 1.5 devices for every person on the planet. Smartphones will account
for nearly 75 percent of global mobile traffic. 29
It took seven years after the launch of the first iPhone (2007–2014) for smartphones to
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achieve mainstream use by 70 percent of the U.S. market. That’s faster than any other technol-
ogy except television in the early 1950s, which tied the smartphone adoption rate. The February
2015 comScore Report shows 182 million people in the United States owned smartphones, which
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accounted for 74.9 percent of the mobile phone market. The size of the mobile e-commerce, or
m-commerce, market is expected to exceed $113B by 2017. 32
Additionally, mobile use is favored by the young. According to Nielsen’s measures of mobile
device use, the younger the age group, the greater the percentage of people with mobile devices.
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Further, younger people have more devices per capita than older groups. These young cohorts
will further increase mobile systems use in the years to come.
Because of this vast and growing market, mobile systems are having a major impact on busi-
ness and society today—impact that is forcing industry change while creating new career oppor-
tunities for mobile-IS-savvy professionals, as well as large numbers of new, interesting mobile-
IS-related jobs.