Mobile applications and a glass of wine

February 20, 2008

I read the Wall Street Journal every day. Well, almost every day. The delivery service has been outsourced to the Cincinnati Enquirer paper delivery service and so that guy in my neighborhood throws both papers at about 6:30 in the morning. Being a former paperboy (I had 4 different papers I delivered in my youth: Albany Sun Times, NY Daily, New York Times ….the liberals will be proud of me, and the Evansville Courier), I appreciate an on-time delivery. The guy misses my WSJ about 1-2 times per week. I call the Enquirer Delivery customer service and they can’t get another WSJ to me; in fact, they always give me another Murder Paper (Enquirer)! Why???

Ok, so, there was a really interesting article in the WSJ last week about a mobile application that allows a farmer out in the field to analyze his grapes on the vine and figure out what nutrients or fertilizers are needed without leaving the field! Here’s an excerpt of the story courtesy of the WSJ (Cris Prystay) and my mouse.

One day in mid December, Subhash Arve stood in his grape field, just outside the village of Boregaon in the Western Indian state of Maharashtra, fretting over whether it was time to spray the first crop of the season with a growth hormone. So he whipped out his mobile phone.

The phone’s software prompted him to click various icons and answer some simply worded questions to indicate what variety of grapes he was growing, when he had pruned his vines and what type grafts he had used. It also instructed him to take four or five photos with the phone’s camera. He then keyed in a code, and, minutes later, the details of his crop and photos of the grapes popped up on a computer screen at the Maharashtra Grape Growers Association in Pune, 220 kilometers away.

A reading from a soil-analysis sensor planted in the village and a local weather forecast also appeared on the screen. A scientist at the association then sent Mr. Arve the answer he sought, via brief text message: Spray now, and use gibberellic acid, a plant hormone that regulates growth and is tricky to apply. Too little or too much can damage the crop. The scientist recommended an exact amount.

But this project is about far more: The mobile phone is now one of the hottest development tools world-wide. Nongovernmental organizations see cellphones as a way to bolster incomes of the world’s poor, while corporations eyeing untapped rural markets hope new mobile-phone services can boost rural incomes and corporate revenue at the same time. South Asia, where mobile-phone use is rapidly growing, has become a test bed.

“Mobile phones are a pretty important tool for development. I’d put it up there, just behind education and public heath, in the importance to economic growth,” says Leonard Waverman, a professor of economics at London Business School who has studied the impact of telecommunications on economic growth and productivity.

Here is a link to the full article for subscribers to the online WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120276870150260233.html

So, I really believe that our software development and consulting industry will morph one more time in Corporate America with new applications that bring customers more intrinsic value to their business processes and services just like the example cited. In fact, LUCRUM is working on a project (confidential) that involves leveraging mobile devices in ways that their industry has never been able to do. These kind of projects are in LUCRUM’s sweet spot with enabling users to increase their productivity and allow for business processes to be faster and more adept at leveraging business opportunities. I’ll write some more about the mobile application marketplace in the future.

About that glass of wine…here’s one tip: Sonoma Cutrer Chardonnay is a great year-over-year bottle that is priced about 23 bucks a bottle. I love Russian River Chards and this one is always a winner!

That it for now, JB

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.