Smartphone-driven, context-aware computing the next battle-ground

There is little doubt that context will be the “defining principle” of mobile business for the next decade. That’s according to Gartner’s vice-president of research William Clark.

Clark predicts that “context” will become a battle ground for powerful players in the tech industry such as Nokia, Microsoft, Baidu, Amazon, Google and Apple.

“Context-aware computing is the method by which new experiences are constructed that blend information from mobile, social, digital and physical world sources,” Clark explained.

Complementary to location awareness, context may be applied more flexibly with mobile computing with any moving entities, especially with bearers of smart communicators.

According to renowned research firm Gartner context-aware technologies will affect US$96-billion of annual consumer spending worldwide by 2015. By that time, it says, more than 15% of all payment card transactions will be validated using context information.

A major factor in the in the growth of context computing is the rapid increase in rates of smartphone ownership.

By 2015, 1.8-billion people, or around a quarter of the planets current population will own a smartphone, says Gartner.

Of this number, Gartner estimates 40% will opt-in to context service providers that track their activities. Given the overall smartphone base, this equates to about 720-million people or about 10% of the global population.

This means that the powers behind operating systems like iOS, Android and Windows, will have an even greater amount of information about the people using their products than they already do.

“Organisations can leverage context-aware computing to better target and deliver on the promise of increased customer intimacy for millions of consumers,” Clark said.

Payment card issuers and retailers currently hold important transactional information about the people, who use and their products, and social platforms such as Facebook can provide some influence, but the ubiquity of the devices and the convenience of context-enriched services mean that although those providers are sources of context, they cannot deliver “the last contextual moment of choice.”

Context-aware computing has major potential use in a number of areas.

These include model-driven security in fraud detection and prevention, convergence in television, game, web and mobile advertising, and new styles of application programming.

Other key services which Gartner predicts will be boosted by context aware computing include transportation, utilities, energy and healthcare firms stand to gain considerable efficiency from context-aware computing, with notable use cases and case studies emanating from location and presence-enhanced apps.

It is, however, likely that “the advanced use of personal information in customising user experiences will result in the interest of governments in regulating contextual information access and control”, said Clark.

Clark also cautions that businesses looking to invest in context aware computing will have to be careful about their timing.

Investing too heavily, too early will squander IT, marketing and operational resources,” he said.