ALKHOBAR, 16 May 2006 — Last week I tried a technology that could dramatically change the way I function day to day. Shariq S. Hassan, GM, Clicktivities Gulf, North Africa and the Indian Subcontinent, and his Saudi partner Saleh Aseeri, GM of The First Shield, sat in the lobby of Le Gulf Meridien Hotel and showed me how I could manage my life online from my tiny mobile handset. My phone isn’t “smart.” It’s not a PDA or a mobile PC. But by using a Clicktivities solution based on “advanced filtering integration technology (FIT)” my tiny mobile could do amazing things.
First I must to explain that FIT is used to empower mobile e-commerce or m-commerce. The Clicktivities technology is optimized to support over 8,000 different mobile devices and all languages, including the difficult ones such as Arabic, Chinese and Japanese. To use Clicktivities FIT solution, no software or hardware is loaded into the mobile device. The mobile device does however need to access 3G, GPRS or WiFi.
What happens next? Well, hopefully my bank, my telecom provider, airlines, local newspapers and basically anybody else that I want to get information from or do business with, has chosen to cut a deal with Clicktivities to use its FIT solution as a mobile enabler for their mobile portals. Clicktivities’ FIT doesn’t require any back end integration. This means that Clicktivities will not touch the web servers or other web-related applications of the companies who choose to use FIT to enable mobile services.
If my bank used Clicktivities FIT, then I would be able to pay my bills through my mobile phone. I could also do stock trading on the go. If my telecom provider had FIT then they could offer me mobile information services. If airlines had FIT perhaps I could book a flight or see when a flight was arriving. The bottom line is that I would be able to get the information and services I needed anytime, anyplace without carrying around a big chunk of hardware. All I’d need is my little mobile phone.
“This is not the stuff of fantasy,” said Hassan. “Clicktivities has already gone live with these services with companies such as Postbank, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Lufthansa and many more. The amount of information which is transferred in each transaction or information request is much smaller than that which is transferred by using a PC application. So it is very fast. It is also extremely safe. For example in stock trading, the entire communication from the mobile phone to the trading system is encrypted and secure. Additional password protection, beyond what the banks require, is also possible.”
Hassan and Aseeri spent last week traveling around the Kingdom demonstrating FIT to some of the local banks and telecoms. They stated that there was good interest in the technology and that it should be just a matter of weeks until the first usage of the service is provided as an option to local consumers. The technology has a short total implementation time of seven to 12 weeks depending on the services required.
“We believe that FIT could cause a revolution in m-commerce services in Saudi Arabia,” said Aseeri. “In Saudi Arabia the PC penetration rate is still too low, but everybody has a mobile phone. The population here is very young. They are hungry for advanced technological services. We are sure that every business which implements Clicktivities FIT will see a huge jump in the number of people interested in using their electronic services.”
Hassan stated that Clicktivities FIT was developed over a period of two years. Its implementation in a number of European banks has been a huge success. Those banks have been using the technology for more than a year and this has allowed Clicktivities to further improve and mature the technology. He added that the technology complies with a number of security and privacy regulations throughout Europe and North America.
“We believe that the recent crash of the Saudi stock market will drive demand for real time trading from anywhere and at anytime,” commented Hassan. “We think that a few years from now, traders will be trading even after business hours and from their mobile phones no matter where they are. When the markets are busy, it is very difficult to contact a broker and place orders. By directly connecting to the stock trading system, traders will be able to place buy and sell orders directly from their mobile phones.”
Some companies making use of the Clicktivities FIT application would charge customers nothing for the use of the service. They would see it as a means of getting customers interested in doing m-commerce. Banks and other companies having a captive market with a strong demand for mobile services would probably charge SR50-SR100 monthly to access such services. The cost to companies of installing the Clicktivities middleware software ranges from 75,000 to 750,000 Euros, depending on various factors such as the service level and access level required. Hassan remarked that companies find that these costs are normally recovered rapidly as customers make use of available services and new customers are attracted to businesses offering these advanced mobile services.
For a long time I have wanted and needed the m-commerce services that Clicktivities FIT can provide. My friends are all hungry for a bit of technological freedom, too. So, if you’re a Saudi company reading this article today, go to clicktivities.com and get that implementation underway. Trust me. Victory in the race for customers will go to the fittest.
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