The Three Functional Domains

Introduction
We previously provided you with a platform that illustrates the various actors within the Wireless Value Web and how they interact with each other. Understanding the key players is a critical requirement for designing functionality that corresponds to a company’s business and technology requirements. Having established this platform, we are now ready to choose what mobile functionality will provide the most value to an organization and its business processes. However, mobile technology is complex in that it can be applied to almost any business process, in any industry. Thus, we need to create a structure for our discussion. To make it easier to present specific examples for mobile applications, we have divided mobile functionality into three major domains: communication, information, and commerce.

?? Communication. This domain encompasses all communication between individuals and/or organizations. The most common applications are voice, voice messaging, e-mail, SMS, alerts, and instant messaging (IM). ?? Information. This domain addresses access to different information sources. The Internet is the best example of where you find information for private use and for business process support. ?? Commerce. This domain is a combination of communication and information with the purpose of buying, selling, or improving services. Commerce does not necessarily mean that you pay for the service with a mobile device.

Within each domain, there is a need to separate how the usage will support consumers on the one hand and enterprise processes on the other. For this reason, we have divided the domains into consumer applications and enterprise processes. Entertainent can constitute a fourth domain, but because we are focusing on gaining business value, we have chosen to address entertainment separately in Chapter 9.

Taken From : Enterprise Guide to Gaining Business Value from Mobile Technologies