The mobile development is at an amazing pace to expand its territory to which no other media have ever made. Just like the development pattern in the developed countries, few people are first equipped with this gadget and then more and more subscribers pay their airtime as the price falls down. From 2G to 3G mobile networks and from plain services, such as voice and text, to various mobile activities, the developing countries follow the steps we seem usual in our world. However the materials inside is beyond our imagination and it brings a whole new landscape to the mobile world. These innovative business and management strategies allow network operators to offer the poor an affordable way to own its mobile handsets. This powerful tool does not only make them to conveniently contact others but also releases the poor from the jail of information scarce. By acquiring information, the poor can efficiently trade their harvest in market, get better health care, and improve their life quality. Moreover, the innovative process in cutting down the cost of spreading mobile handsets leads to green energy, microfinance, banking and such great services going into their life. The transformative tool now has gradually kept the bottom away from poverty, diseases, and famine.
The mobile phone developments inspire me to think how this transformative tool and development experiences can furthermore reshape our developed world, particularly in the area of mobile information services. Since Google developed the android OS for mobile systems, I am not surprised that Google would enter into this potential market -the developing countries. Google always can smell the business earlier than other companies and take advantage of its powerful information technology to create valuable service such as combining the mobile SMS with Google’s information technology to provide the poor with useful knowledge and information. That is an excellent win-win-win pattern in developing countries. People can easily acquire helpful information with quite cheap price, operators can earn profit, and Google can expand its influence in the Internet world. I think this great idea adds more value to the low-end mobile phone and refreshes our thinking in how to access the Internet. Without computers, laptops, or high-end communication devices, the poor can use the cheap mobile phone as a liaison to reach the Internet and search information to enrich their life.
