The Apple iPhone marks the beginning of an underestimated new phase in computing and business, says analyst Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley. A presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit 2009 on Tuesday 20 October in San Francisco showcases research from Meeker and fellow analysts Scott Devitt and Liang Wu.
Big mainframes characterized the 1950s, smaller mainframes marked the 1960s, PCs showed up in the 1980s and Internet-connected desktop PCs transformed business in the 1990s. But the next phase, mobile Internet computing, is already being adopted faster than any previous hardware, Meeker says, and the combination of technologies like iPhone and Facebook is creating unprecedented change in commerce and communications. If you want to see the future, she says, look at Japan, where mobile commerce is growing extremely rapidly on the Rakuten online shopping service.
Photograph of Mary Meeker at the Web 2.0 Summit 2009, by James Duncan Davidson, available on Flickr.
Thanks to Sheji Ho.
