E-commerce has become a household word, usually referring to the process of buying things with the help of a PC and a Web browser.
Lesser known is m-commerce, which refers to buying online, using a phone, hand-held computer or some other portable device. Yep, the “m” stands for “mobile.”
Lots of people thought m-commerce would work like e-commerce on the PC; call up the Web browser on the phone, pick what you want and wait a few days for it to come in the mail. From early indications at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show though, things might not turn out that way.
Palm and Nokia, the big kahunas in hand-held computers and cell phones respectively, demonstrated m-commerce methods in Las Vegas this month that were intriguing, and were also nothing like surfing the Web on a PC.
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In Palm’s case, an effort with Visa International will allow users to load their Visa information into their hand-held, turning the Palm into a credit card for use in physical stores.
How do you swipe a hand-held computer through a credit card terminal? You don’t. Instead, you beam the credit card data to the terminal using the infrared port atop every device. It sounds complicated but it’s not; infrared ports are cheap and easy to install in credit card terminals that don’t have them already. Once the Palm beams the data, the credit card terminal treats it the same way it would a card swipe.
This Palm-Visa thing would be little more than a clever balancing act if not for this important detail: The credit card terminal beams data back to the Palm. That means the customer gets a digital receipt, plus coupons or other goodies.
This scenario should get you thinking about its potential benefits. On a business trip, you make all purchases through a Palm, using the company credit card. The Palm time-stamps each transaction, and the next time the Palm’s data is linked with a PC, the transactions are added automatically to your expense report.
All that is a while off, and Palm might not do the expense report idea at all; the company is saying its first priority is to tie the credit card feature to coupons and loyalty programs like frequent-flier miles.
Nokia’s m-commerce effort might be even more tantalizing, and closer to becoming reality. Here’s how Nokia’s scheme would work: You walk into a fast-food joint and touch your Nokia phone to a pad near the door. The pad tells the credit card company you have entered the place. After ordering, you again touch the phone to a pad, this time near the cash register–and the meal is automatically charged to your credit card.
This retail magic is courtesy of smart card technology, much like the cards many people touch to a pad to enter office buildings every day. In Nokia’s case the card, made by a company called 2Scoot, will be molded into the shape of a face plate and snap onto the front of a phone.