The Freedom Economy: Gaining the Mcommerce Edge in the Era of the Wireless Internet
Authors: Peter G. Keen, Ron Mackintosh
Venue:  (2001)

From the Book:Foreword We at Nokia are part of the transformation of communication for the human race. Mobile phones and wireless technology are having that profound an impact on society around the world. Soon there will be a billion mobile phones in use and within just a few years the Internet will be fully mobile as well. We are seeing a democratization of technology uses and its impact through mobile communications. Until very recently, technology was meritocratic in that many countries lacked the infrastructures and capital required to put personal computers in schools and homes or to make it practical for businesses to exploit electronic commerce in the same way as in advanced economies. Any country now can enter the Internet age. The poorest villages in Africa and Asia as well as the most affluent cities in Europe and North America are crowded with mobile phone users. Society is being changed all over the globe. Business will change profoundly as well. Mobile commerce, or M-commerce, is already creating many innovations. The important insight that Peter Keen and Ron Mackintosh provides in this book is that the interests of society and business come together in M-commerce because it will succeed in creating freedoms for customers that change the limits of the possible in the structures of their everyday life. As the world's largest manufacturer of mobile handsets, we have seen wireless technology create such freedoms, and the authors offer many examples, ranging from shared phones in Bangladesh villages to field technicians having all the information they need moving with them as they do their work, even when they are many meters up a telephone pole! Peter and Ron's book looks at M-commerce from the demand side. Nokia is a leader in the supply side. In our own country of Finland, supply and demand have come together quickly and with dramatic results. We are in many ways the M-commerce nation. In 1999, just around 15 percent of Finns used a mobile phone. Now that's about the number that doesn't. Worldwide, we see the same explosive growth in the use of the wireless tools that, in Peter and Ron's phrase, create new freedoms in everyday life. Go to China, South Africa, Australia, Italy, Chile, or almost anywhere on planet Earth and you will see the same pattern of wireless phones moving into everyday life and changing how we live. And of course you'll see the other pattern that is reshaping society. That is the Internet. It's everywhere now as well. It has already changed how we live in so many ways that it is impossible to keep up with what is going on. The supply side of M-commerce is moving as fast as we and our partners and competitors in wireless technology can accelerate. The technology that is on the market today is almost already out of date. In Nokia, our products of just a few years ago are like museum pieces compared with what we are bringing out now, and what's in our development labs will make those museum pieces as well. As this book makes very clear, all this innovation can be bewildering for companies that want to make best use of it for M-commerce. It will probably get even more bewildering because the innovation is really only just starting! We have a selfish interest in M-commerce. All this new supply and innovation will be of no value unless they create services that provide value. This is why we welcome this book. It is very pragmatic in how it looks at the technology of today and how it can be used in the three areas of business that the authors call the "value imperatives" of M-commerce. These are new customer relationships, supply-chain management, and the mobilization of an organization's knowledge resources. It gives business managers a set of maps so they can move ahead and continue to take advantage of the technology innovations and make business innovations. It is also an international book. Nokia is a large company headquartered in a small country, but really the world is our "country." The wireless revolution knows no boundaries. Innovation is everywhere and so is the demand for value. Peter and Ron provide a guidebook to creating that value. They alert managers everywhere to the state of the best practice in technology and its uses around the globe. And they give examples! They tell managers what is really happening in M-commerce. The M-commerce innovation that changes everyday life will come from the creative and pragmatic interaction of the supply side and the demand side. The wireless technology and wireless services providers are building the new foundations for M-commerce, but it is businesses that will build on that foundation the applications that generate value. At Nokia, we are becoming a demand-side company as well as a supply-side one. For instance, we are working with credit card firms and banks to help create the new mobile payments systems that we believe will be valuable new freedoms for people everywhere in their everyday lives. Peter Keen and Ron Mackintosh have written a book that, in our view, every business manager should read. It is about the future, but not the distant future. M-commerce is here now, and with all the supply side and demand side innovation that is coming fast, the future is now. -Mikko Heikkonen Executive Vice President, Nokia Networks