Principal analyst Dan Shey says, "Mobile operators have served all customers very well with mobile entertainment including ringtones, games and video downloads. But what are the opportunities for all value chain players to serve business customers with applications that help them perform their jobs every day?"

In a new market data product, ABI Research answers this question by providing forecasts for North American business customer applications and services in six service categories covering all voice and data mobile productivity applications. They show that data services will gradually become a larger share of wallet for the business customer, equaling 34% in North America by 2012. Moreover, the ecosystem that will serve up data services to the business customer is complex, so many different companies that enable mobile data services can participate.

But the opportunity varies depending on the type of business customer. Shey comments, "Whether you are a developer or a wireless operator, you need to understand the differences in adoption and usage of different service categories for different customer segments. This data will drive product development efforts, acquisition considerations, and marketing and distribution strategies in a highly competitive mobile environment. Without this information, resources could be misaligned, and opportunities missed."

"North American Business Mobility Vertical Market Analysis" provides a detailed view of customers, ARPUs and service penetration for communications, information access, computing, integrated information access/computing, and business process solutions, broken down by 20 industry verticals, by 22 occupations, and by four business size categories, SOHO, Small, Medium and Large businesses.

Keywords: mobile productivity, productivity applications, business customer, american business, service categories, shey, mobile entertainment, business customers, mobile services, abi, mobile data services, research answers, principal analyst, data mobile, RFID