"M-Commerce" by Norman M.Sadeh

Reviewed by Hiroko Kawai

Review:

This book is an excellent introduction to current mobile technologies, Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce) development and potential impacts of M-Commerce on businesses and consumers the world over.
This book is organized in three parts (including eight chapters).

Part I: The M-Commerce Revolution
Here the author attempts to explain what Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce) is all about.
Sadeh defines "M-Commerce", according to Durlacher Research, as "any transaction with a monetary value that is conducted via a mobile telecommunications network", (Durlacher 2000). He explains that M-Commerce is quite different from traditional E-Commerce, and imposes very different constraints from desktop computers.
He shows how M-Commerce is different from E-Commerce not just in terms of technologies, but also in terms of services, usage scenarios, players and business models across the M-Commerce value chain.
Reviewing the background and driving forces behind M-Commerce emergence, such as the transition to 3G, Sadeh thoroughly explores the M-Commerce value chain and changing roles of different categories of players from equipment/software venders to content providers/aggregators, Mobile network operators, Mobile portals, and Wireless Application Service Providers Location information brokers.

Part II: The Technologies of M-Commerce
Starting with a brief introduction of basic mobile communication principles and with overviews of the main 2G, 2.5G, and 3G communication standards, Sadeh's discussion focuses on major features introduced by different generations of technologies, such as packet-switched communication, always-on functionality, and faster data rates. Key factors influencing the selection of one standard over another and timeframes associated with the transition to 3G are examined. Sadeh draws on his experience to provide in-depth analysis on topics such as: WAP, 3GPP's OSA, positioning technologies, Mobile security and payment.

Part III: M-Commerce Services Today and Tomorrow
In this section Sadeh discusses both business applications and consumer services available today, and introduces new solutions aimed at facilitating personalization and time-critical activities for consumers and enterprises alike. Some of the early lessons learned from leaders such as NTT, DoCoMo, Webraska, Nordea, and Oracle Mobile are reviewed and more realistic predictions for the future are presented. Sadeh also dives into a discussion of the development of next generation mobile commerce solutions, trying to leverage agent technologies and semantic Web technologies in support of context-aware scenarios.
Throughout the book, Sadeh argues that M-Commerce is part of an explosion of new usage scenarios that overcome the limitations of mobile devices in support of highly personalized ones.He explains that with tens of millions of M-Commerce consumers around the world today and a billion mobile phone users, whether M-Commerce will materialize or not depends on whether you and your company are ready for it.

The following is the list of contents:
Part One: The M-Commerce Revolution
Chapter 1: M-Commerce: What's the Buzz All About?
Chapter 2: A First Look at the Broader M-Commerce Value Chain

Part Two: The Technologies of M-Commerce
Chapter 3:Mobile Communications: The Transition to 3G
Chapter 4: The Mobile Internet
Chapter 5: Mobile Security and Payment

Part Three: M-Commerce Services Today and Tomorrow
Chapter 6: Mobile Commerce Services Today
Chapter 7: Next Generation M-Commerce: Context-Awareness and Interoperability
Chapter 8: Early Lessons and Future Prospects

Glossary
References
Index
About the Author

In conclusion, this book will be attractive to a wide range of specialists. I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to have a basic but full understanding of "M-Commerce" technologies and who is likely to draw their own usage scenarios, whether as a manager, developer or consumer.

Norman Sadeh is an Associate Professor, School of Computer and the Institute for e-Commerce at Carnegie Mellon University as well as Director, Mobile Commerce Lab. and Director, e-Supply Chain Management Lab. Sadeh once served as a Chief Scientist of the European research initiative "New Methods of Work and Electronic Commerce." He has contributed to eEurope, Agent Research and many activities of the European Commission. He also has published numerous papers on a wide range of topics, and is on the editorial board of several journals.

The following is the author's website: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~sadeh/

The publisher's website is at: http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/