'Context-Aware Computing': a $US12 billion market in two years?

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 18 November 2009 06:16

Business IT - Technology

'Context-Aware Computing' is a term you probably haven't heard of, but if Gartner is correct, that is about to change. Context-Aware Computing is a Gartner-invented name for a market it expects will be worth $US12 billion in just two years.

Beyond simple dollar values, Gartner also forecasts that, by 2012, there will be at least two global context providers with more than 100 million subscribers each, that "the typical global 2000 company will be managing between two and 10 business relationships with context providers," and "By 2015, context will be as influential in mobile consumer services and relationships as search engines are to the Web."

Meanwhile IBM has just announced a massive, internal cloud computing project that, from its description, appears to be an implementation of context-aware computing to improve the efficiency of IBM personnel by adding 'context' to internal information. (See footnote at end of this article)

Gartner defines context-aware computing as the concept of leveraging information about the end user to improve the quality of the interaction - specifically the interaction between an enterprise and its customers. According to Gartner "Emerging context-enriched services will use location, presence, social attributes, and other environmental information to anticipate an end user's immediate needs, offering more-sophisticated, situation-aware and usable functions."
 
Context-aware computing has the potential to solve a wide variety of business problems. Gartner believes that, as more users employ a greater variety of applications, operating systems, browsers and devices, user experience problems will increase; new business opportunities will emerge, by virtue of knowing the customer more intimately; and productivity will improve as systems eliminate complexity for the user.

Gartner also believes advances in networks, mobile hardware capabilities, social computing, service-oriented architecture (SOA), and unified communication will make it easier to build and use context-enriched services. "This will present a significant business opportunity for service providers, mobile device manufacturers and suppliers of communication infrastructure."

Anne Lapkin, research vice president at Gartner, spoke on the topic at the annual Gartner Symposium/ITxpo event in Sydney this week. "Although the rudiments of context-aware computing have been around for some time now, it is a disruptive technology that has the potential to be a real 'game changer' in terms of competitive advantage," she claimed.

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